Ian Kennedy reports on the World Indoor Tour meeting
Just six days after Piers Copeland’s fabulous 1500m win in Dortmund, he was lining up in the high profile World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Glasgow, broadcast on live on BBC1. Naturally, after the performance in Germany he was brimming with confidence.
The international field in Glasgow would be a challenge. Piers, however, was particularly keen to measure himself against the Brits in the race … the biggest British name being Charlie Grice. Piers spent the first part of the race next to last in the long train which was running at a spirited pace in those early laps. The first signs of Piers’ kick came at around 1200m. At the bell with 200m to go, we saw a major injection of pace from two athletes, leader and eventual race-winner Bethwell Birgen of Kenya, and Wimborne AC’s Piers Copeland!
Seventh with a lap to go, turned into fourth at the finish line … and first Brit home. Steve Cram, in his commentary said, ‘Copeland is finishing very, very quickly indeed … he’ll be 4th … with a massive performance’. Piers, though still only 21, is already starting prove himself to be tactically very smart, he’s expereienced more than 20 races on the boards, and has made real progress in that time, making great use of his ability to finish strongly.
This race places Piers 3rd on the UK ‘All Time’ list for an under-23 for an indoors 1500m. He is currently ranked No. 1 in the UK overall for the 1500 indoors. On the UK ‘All Time’ overall indoors 1500m list Piers squeaks into the top 20 at No. 18, just ahead of Mo Farah (19), Mo recorded his time in Olympic year, 2012.
In Dortmund Piers set a new PB over 1500 indoors, in Glasgow he went quicker again, 3:38.81 claiming an indoors PB that is faster than his best time outdoors too. It’s wonderful to witness a Wimborne AC club record being set live on terrestrial television.
Rankings at time of writing:
2020 UK 1500m indoors U23 – Ist
2020 UK 1500m indoors overall – Ist
All time UK 1500m indoors U23 – 3rd
All time UK 1500m indoors overall – 18th
