Familiar tale for Scots as Muir runs PB but denied 1500m dream

For the second time in five days, a Scottish athlete has run faster than they have ever run before over 1500m but left the Stade de France without the reward they came for.

It happened to Josh Kerr on Tuesday, his premonitions of gold replaced by a vision of silver. And it happened to Laura Muir on Saturday.

The 31-year-old Olympic silver medallist from Tokyo had quietly warned all week that the event had moved on significantly in the three years since. That the field had got quicker. She wasn't wrong.

Muir was so far back at one stage that she was almost in a different departement. The leaders were gone.

Eventually, she girded herself, dug in, and somehow clawed herself back into contention to the extent that she had a sniff of a medal as she hit the top bend.

Ultimately, she'd left herself too much to do, though and had to settle for fifth.

Fifth, having sliced a half second off her previous PB, set in this city in July. And fifth, having slashed almost a second off the time she posted in winning silver in Toyko.

Turns out Muir was right about this event having moved on.

“You know what, I'm just really happy with it," she said. "I ran exactly how I wanted to and the fastest I ever have, so I can't ask any more.

"They went off so fast at the start and I just knew if I did that I'd be out the back door. So I had to run my own race.

"I picked off so many people but the race was just 10 metres too short."