19 February 2020. High jumper Will Grimsey (Woodford Green & Essex Ladies) who cleared a PB of 2.24 metres in January and currently sits 2nd in the UK rankings, has sought to compete for Scotland and has been confirmed eligible through parentage.

Will is the latest in a number of athletes who have been confirmed eligible to represent Scotland in the last few months. Others are:

Krishawn Aiken (Shaftesbury Barnet & Kilbarchan) PB 47.57 400 metres; Virginie Barrand (Metro Aberdeen) 80:47 Half Marathon; Cameron Bell (Hallamshire) 3:46.27 1500 metres; Ewan Bradley (West Cheshire, U20) 4.41 Pole Vault; Stewart Greenhalgh (Bromsgrove & Redditch, U20) 6.94 60 metres; Peter Hodkinson (Notts AC & Hunters Bog Trotters) 31:06.95 10000 metres; Christian Volodiev Hristov (Glasgow City AC) 10.92w 100 metres; William Ronald (Corby & Kilbarchan, U15) 2:17.70 800 metres; Cara Terry (Cookham, U17) 4:38.94 1500 metres; Hamish Wolfe (Heriot Watt University) 33:12 10k.

Athletes are eligible to represent Scotland if they a) have been born in Scotland; or (b) have either parent born in Scotland; or (c) have continuously resided in Scotland for a period of 3 years immediately prior to the date of acceptance of eligibility by Scottish Athletics Ltd; or, (d) have been declared eligible, selected for and competed for Scotland in an international whilst previously qualified under (a), (b) and (c) and have not since been rendered ineligible by competing for another country, either in the UK or elsewhere.

15 February 2020. With Storm Dennis raging outside, Glasgow's Emirates Arena erupted inside as Mondo Duplantis made this a historic occasion for athletics in Scotland. 

We witnessed the first ever 6 metres pole vault clearance in Scotland, the first world record set at the Emirates, the first world record set in Scotland since the Russians set a women's world 4x400 record in 2006.

One week after breaking the pole vault world record in Torun, Armand Duplantis improved the mark to 6.18 at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix Glasgow. Opening at 5.50, he got over 5.75 on his second try. He sailed over 5.84 on his first attempt and then 6.00, a UK indoor all-comers’ record. 

The bar moved up to 6.18m. A technical glitch on the track allowed an attempt at the world record height, and almost casually, Duplantis went up and over. “This was such a great competition,” said Duplantis. “There was such great energy the crowd was giving me and I really thrive off that."

Jemma Reekie lived up to her promise to win the 1500, finding space on the inside to challenge and overcome Ethiopia’s 2016 world indoor silver medallist Dawit Seyaum to win in a new Scottish native record of 4:04.07 to remove another of Laura Muir's records.

Laura Muir though did not achieve her world record target in the women’s 1000, but won convincingly in 2:33.47, the 11th-fastest indoor clocking of all time. Anna Dobek was an unconvincing pacemaker but took Laura through 400 in 60.04 and 600 in 1:31.13. Muir passed 800 in 2:01.65 but was tiring in her quest to reach Maria Mutola's world record of 2:30.94.

There was a Scottish all-comers' record for Ronnie Baker of the USA who slaughtered the sprint field in the men's 60 to win in 6.50, giving him joint custody of the record.

The two rising stars of the Scottish athletics indoor season put their mark on the weekend's performances with further record performances.

In the week that Emma Nuttall announced her retirement, Nikki Manson showed the High Jump is in safe hands as she raised her indoor record by 1cm to 1.93 metres at Hustopece in the Czech Republic.

First time clearances at 1.80, 1.84, 1.87 and 1.90 led to achieving her record 1.93 on the second attempt before attempts at 1.95 and 1.96. Nikki has now put 5cm between her and the next ranked indoor high jumper.

And what can one say about the incredible start to the year that Jemma Reekie has made. Running in the Wanamaker Mile at New York's Millrose Games, Jemma set a new British indoor mile record and, for good measure, added the 1500 record en-route. Going through 400 metres in 63.78 behind the 63.50 set by Germany front-runner Konstanze Klostenhalfer, the positions remained as they were through 800m and 1200m which Jemma passed in 2:08.46 and 3:13.18, before USA's Elle Purrier came through with a final lap of 61.84 to win in 4:16.85, overcoming Klostenhalfer and Reekie. Jemma finished in 4:17.88, having passed 1500 at 4:00.52, bettering the British records of Laura Muir which stood at 4:01.84 and 4:18.75.

11 January 2020. New-ish additions to the website for this year: 

I've been writing historical articles for scottishathletics over the last few months. You will now be able to find them here as well - the first three have been added to Arnold's Archive which you can locate on the menu on the right.

There's also a new Athletes section added (see the menu on the top). Six years ago, Colin Shields and I published The Past Is a Foreign Country featuring biographies of Scottish athletes. These are now being added to the website (corrected and updated as appropriate) together with additional factual information on the athletes' careers. The first three have been added covering Helen Golden, Mike Hildrey and John Linaker, and this section will be added to regularly in the weeks and months ahead.