FORMER European 200 metres champion Doug Walker has paid tribute to his late coach Dave Gibson on the eve of today's New Year Professional Sprint at Musselburgh Racecourse, and called for the race to be restored as the pinnacle of the sport.
Guided by Gibson, who died earlier this month having trained 24 New Year winners, Walker won the famous handicap at Meadowbank in 1994 before going on to achieve his European gold medal triumph four years later in Budapest, but he fears that he may b
e the last "amateur" to double in this way because the back-markers are handicapped out of it. "The chances are much more remote now and it doesn't seem fair that the back-markers can't get up," he said. "I was off 2.25m when I won it."
Walker also fears for the future of the event.
"We had a lot better athletes coming north for the meeting when it was at Meadowbank - Musselburgh is such a heavy track.
"We've had more than our fair share of sprint champions for a small Northern European country – it's quite a tradition and it would be a shame if it died out," he said, citing Olympic champion Allan Wells and European junior champions Elliott Bunney and Jamie Henderson, all of whom have had strong ties to professional running.
"More amateurs should do it – it taught me how to relax and chase, and Dave was great at getting you at your peak at the right time."
The prospects of this year's back-marker Craig Fleming (Glasgow) lifting the £4000 first prize tomorrow are no better.
Off 2.5m, Fleming is in a tough heat 10 where he faces former winner Dave Lauder (Hawick 9.5m), Dave Gilmour (East Kilbride 9.5m), who was a close second to Lauder five years ago, capital flyer Ewan McCombie (7.75m) and Hawick's David Rae (8.5m), who also trains possible favourite Iskan Barskanmay (Hawick 9.75m).
By contrast Tony Bowman (Leeds), the 72-year-old with the penchant for partying, has scored a British Masters title triumph since his victory last year from a mark of 28.5 metres and no-one is ruling out his chances of becoming the first to repeat since Glasgow's Willie McFarlane in 1933-34. Bowman will start off 26 metres in heat eight today, when his closest rival could be Dunfermline's Wallace McGowan (12.25m), who has been fifth in the last two finals and has actually been increased 0.25m.
McGowan trains with the 1956 winner Jimmy Bryce, who confirmed that Gemma Nicol, the runner-up two years ago and sixth finisher last year, will not renew her bid to become the first female winner, though her mother Wendy, who was runner-up last year and has 29m in heat 14, will.
Gemma Nicol, now working with former European and Commonwealth relay medallist Brian Whittle, is concentrating on the indoor season.
Bryce revealed that his squad had deliberately changed their training recently in anticipation of heavy conditions. "The last two years we've found the athletes didn't have the staying power at the end of the race so we've changed from the track to a local football field."
Innerleithen coach Charlie Russell has also lost a female challenger Stacey Downie, who is recovering from minor surgery, but he does guide the former Edinburgh University long jumper Linda Nicholson (Peebles), who won the Earlston Sprint this year, and Shettleston triple jumper Tony Daffurn, whose prep was curtailed for two weeks by a pulled stomach muscle.
Nicholson, off 27m, is in heat two where she will meet Iskan the Turk. Capital punters could do worse than back Michal Barvik, the Edinburgh-based Czech who trains with Tommy Ashby's group at Meadowbank.
Barvik is off 6.5m in heat 13 of the 14 heats and is currently running well.
The full article contains 650 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
