Gauson’s four-minute mile leaves him disappointed

US-based Capital star Kris Gauson became only the fourth Scottish athlete to break four minutes for the mile indoors when he won the race in 3min 59.95sec at the Indiana Relays in Bloomington on Saturday.

But Gauson was disappointed as he had been hoping to beat the qualifying standard of 3:59.00 for the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March.

“I was just 0.95sec outside the mark,” said the Edinburgh AC runner, who is the Scottish 800 metres (outdoor) champion and is due back home this week.

“The pace-making was good and I ran very even splits but I felt a bit sluggish – now I’ll just have to do it in the UK Trials in Sheffield,” said Gauson, who is also hoping for a run in the Birmingham Games the following week.

The World Indoor standard for the 1,500m is 3:42.00.

Meanwhile, former EAC all-rounder Gregor MacLean added six centimetres to his own recent Scottish Indoor pole vault record when he cleared 5.25m to win the event in the Celtic Nations Indoor Cup in Cardiff yesterday.

Maclean, who set the previous mark in Lyon only the previous weekend, then had a close failure at 5.35m which would have exceeded his own outdoor record (5.30m).

The Loughborough student won the Male Athlete of the Meeting award and helped Scotland win the match with 44 points to Wales’ 43 and a Select 36.

Laura Muir (Dundee) took the Female Athlete award for her 1,500m win in 4:23.8, a personal best, and there were wins for Kris Baillie in the 60m hurdles in 8.18sec, Mark Mitchell (Forres), who was guesting, set a personal best of 8:07.90 in the 3,000m, Allan Hamilton (EAC) the long jump (7.00m), Kathryn Evans (EAC), a personal best of 2:08.67 in the 800m while Emily Stewart (EAC) chopped nine seconds off her best 3,000m with 9:21.13 and Nony Mordi (Fife) won the triple jump (12.78m).

In the under-20 match, England won with 48 to Scotland’s 35 and Wales’ 30.