Campbell makes his point

Wednesday 21st May 2014

Javelin thrower James Campbell was Scotland’s captain for the Loughborough International Athletics event – and he landed his first Commonwealth Games qualifying standard.

A final round throw of 70.01m was enough for Campbell to start thinking about Glasgow 2014 after two or three of injury heartache and frustration.

His performance was one of the early day highlights as Emily Dudgeon clocked 2.02.67 in the 800m to make her Hampden dream that much closer to reality.

Dudgeon won that event for Scotland and there were second places in the men’s hammer for Mark Dry at 71.47 and Eilidh Child in the women’s 400m at 52.40.

Kris Robertson took a third place in his 400m match race at 46.45 while there were PBs for Kathryn Christie in the 100m women’s match race and Grant Plenderleith in one of the guest 400m races. Jake Wightman, representing the hosts Loughborough University, won the men’s 800m race in 1.48.

Campbell, who took third, said: ‘It feels like being a junior again because I have done so little technical work over the past two or three years.

‘The idea was to throw over 70m in the first couple of throws but that didn’t happen. I would have been really embarrassed if it had been 69.99 or something like that.

‘I did feel it had gone a metre or so beyond the other ones. I have competitions every week now until the close of the qualification window so hopefully this is a platform for me.

‘I do feel I can throw 75m reasonably soon and make it respectable by the time the Games comes around.

‘I’ve not thrown hard for the past couple of weeks and I’ve only really thrown a couple of times in two or three years.

‘It has been a tough road for me, no doubt about that. You want to be part of the Commonwealth Games and you don’t want to just go along and wear the tracksuit. When it was announced, I was hoping to be at my peak in 2014.