Former GHK flyer and Hawks tour organiser Brian Whittle has put his spikes where his mouth is
THE HERALD REPORTS

Big day off to flier for nicolDOUG GILLON January 26 2008
GEMMA NICOL, who makes her Great Britain senior debut in Glasgow's Kelvin Hall today, has forced her sport to reconsider dumping her from the 2010 Commonwealth Games funding programme.

"We have successfully appealed against the decision to cut off support," said her coach, Brian Whittle. "This is a big encouragement on the eve of an important race for her. It will prevent her career prospects being compromised.

"The information given to the selection panel was incorrect. They were under the misapprehension that Gemma was not committed to the squad. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

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"She had a viral problem last year, which destroyed her season and seriously undermined her immune system. But she could not have been more professional. She has been travelling 500 miles a week to and from training at three or four different venues a week for several months. And she leaves absolutely nothing on the track."

A trainee hairdresser, from Dunfermline, she says she gets a lot of support from her mum, Wendy, a single parent but also still a serious veteran athlete - witness multiple finals at the New Year Sprint.

"I could not run my car without her," says Gemma. "Apart from college in Kirkcaldy, I'm in East Kilbride three nights a week, weights at Grangemouth twice, and then through in the west again at weekends, either Coatbridge or Strathclyde Park. It's a lot of driving on top of studying, and the round trip to college is another 40 miles. It will be good to have support again."

Nicol, 21, faces a testing baptism today in the five-team Norwich Union International. She is the slowest in the field, though that's a loaded statistic as we discovered when we wondered how likely her coach was to lose his historic shoe.

Monique Hennagan was fourth in the Athens Olympics (best indoor time: 51.89) and won gold with the US 4x400m squad at the last two Olympics - though she may lose the Sydney one because Marion Jones was in that quartet. Shereefa Lloyd (52.55) was a member of Jamaica's silver-medal relay squad at last year's Osaka world champion-ships; Claudia Hoffman (52.02) was German outdoor champion in 2006, and is a World and European Indoor Championship semi-finalist. Pernilla Tornemark, Sweden's national champion, has an indoor best of 55.13.

Nicol's fastest indoors is 56.45, but that was five years ago, and that was last time she raced the distance indoors.

It won her bronze at the 2003 AAA junior championships.

That puts Whittle's mischievous wager: "I am absolutely confident" into perspective, though she still has the added pressure of protecting his wee treasured relic.

Now Scottish national 400m coach, he has wagered Nicol will break her indoor best. At stake is the spike famously plucked from his foot at the start of his third leg of the relay at the 1986 European Championships in Stuttgart. Team-mate Kris Akabusi ripped it off accidentally as Whittle took the baton, but completed his lap, and Roger Black came home with the gold.

Anything close to 54.00 would be a decent run from Nicol, who says, sensibly: "I think I will run well enough not to embarrass myself."

The match is the curtain raiser to the Olympic season. In the comparable Kelvin Hall meeting four years ago, two of the winners went on to collect gold in Athens: Kelly Holmes (800 and 1500m) and Jason Gardener (4 x 100m).

If history can repeat itself, Britain will be more than fortunate.

Gardener has now retired, but is tipping former training partner Craig Pickering, who denied him a seventh success-ive win in Glasgow last year, to make quick progress. However, Simeon Williamson, World Student and European under-23 100m champion could derail him.

The only other Scots in the match are hurdling rivals Allan Scott and Chris Baillie. Each smashed his personal best last time they raced at the Glasgow arena, this month. Scott claimed the national record and title with 7.52, qualifying him for the World Indoor Championships in Valencia. Commonwealth silver medallist Baillie, who is a guest today, is confident he can find the tenth of a second he needs to give him a chance of a place. But the UK trials next month will decide.

Jessica Ennis, fourth in the heptathlon at the worlds last summer, is in the long jump and hurdles today. She has staked everything on Beijing. She has trained at home this winter, declining a lucrative world indoor invitation. "Every athlete has to earn money to live, but it's not the be-all and end-all," she said.

This article was originally posted on 26-Jan-2008, 08:58 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 26-Jan-2008, 09:02.