LYNSEY SHARP has been relaxing in Montego Bay this week, reflecting on a bitter-sweet finale to the athletics season and experimenting with her new underwater camera. It's her only indulgence from a year which has concluded with a world ranking of fifth - highest by a Scot in any Olympic discipline since the era of Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray almost 25 years ago - and matched at 1500m this summer by fellow Scot Laura Muir.
Sharp sliced more than a second from her Scottish 800 metres record in Berlin last Sunday with the fastest time by a Briton since Kelly Holmes won Olympic gold in 2004. Victims included Marina Arzamasova, the newly-crowned World champion whom she also beat three days earlier in Zurich. In these races the Edinburgh woman beat five of the eight World finalists from Beijing. But there is pain behind the plaudits. Sharp failed to reach the final in China which was won in a slower time than the Scottish record of 1min 57.71sec she set in Berlin.
In Zurich last week she finished runner-up to world No.1, Eunice Sum, who collected $40,000 and the Diamond Race trophy. "But there's no prize for second," said Sharp. "I was third last year, second this year. Hopefully I can win it at some stage."
Five Diamond League appearances this year: two second places, a third, a sixth, and a seventh, won her $19,500. Athletics is far short of rewards at a comparable level in the likes of golf or tennis.
"All I have thought about is the next race. I have just been looking forward to enjoying this holiday. I did not even look at how much I was making. I never really know, going into a race. I bought a Gopro camera at the airport the other day - so underwater photography has been on the agenda in Jamaica. That's my justification for buying it."
Despite the record, she described it as: "frustrating, because it shows I could and should have been in that Beijing final. At the same time, I'm happy I've managed to get something out of the season. I'd have been pretty gutted to finish without a pb [personal best] as well as not making that final. Fifth in the world will help get me into races next year. Obviously it's a massive confidence boost to know there's not much wrong. It will keep me hungry for next year."
Just a fifth of a second faster would have raised Sharp to second in the world, behind Sum. Berlin conditions were far from ideal: rainy, windy, 59 degrees, and Sharp was shivering on the start line.
"I was not even thinking about running fast. I was just going tor the win, and didn't even realise at the bell or at 600, that it was that fast."
In UK terms she ranks third all-time, behind Olympic 800 and 1500m champion Holmes and Kirsty Wade who twice won Commonwealth two-lap gold, doing the 800/1500 double in Edinburgh in 1986.
Sharp thinks it is "pretty cool" to have ties with both women, "and see I am not that much slower than them. I can't believe I'm the fastest since 2004. Britain has had such a lot of good 800m runners.
"Obviously I grew up knowing who Kelly is, and I've spoken to her. She presented my medal in Glasgow."
Wade ran in the same heat as Lynsey's mother, Carol, at the 1982 Commonwealth Games before claiming gold. When Lynsey's dad was fighting for his life in a Newcastle neurosurgical unit following a traffic accident, Wade took Carol and her daughters into her home on Tyneside. "Kirsty even provided me with clothes," recalls Carol.
Kirsty and her husband, Tony, now run a B&B on Lewis. "We visited them there," says Lynsey. "I'd have been about seven, and obviously at the time I did not appreciate what Kirsty had done, but it's pretty cool we have that link. And Tony emailed mum after the semi-final in Beijing, which was really nice."
In 2001, I saw Lynsey - aged 10 - take the Scottish indoor under-13, 200m title and win the pentathlon. She was so tiny that she was almost dwarfed by her father's ancient starting blocks. Former European 200m silver medallist and Commonwealth relay champion Cameron reckoned she'd be unable to carry them. There was a minor huff before she stomped off without them. And won.
Prodigious sprint ability and her mother's endurance genes - Carol was still winning internationals for Scotland at 40 - is the foundation of Lynsey's talent.
She says she will never be an 800-1500 runner like Holmes or Wade. "I am more sprint-based: 400/800, and don't do high mileage. That's what my coach, Terrence Mahon, believes, and that's why altitude training is probably not the thing for me."
Sprinting and weights are where she believes improvement will come from. "I will probably spend more time with [sprint coach] Rana Reider this winter. It took a bit longer to get my sprint mechanics up to scratch this summer - otherwise I don't see much change.
"I will catch up with Rana wherever he is - Holland or the US, and maybe spend longer in South Africa. I may do an indoor season.
"My strength and conditioning coach has a lot of ideas for this winter. We could do only so much last year, because I started back late, to give my leg wound time to recover. This winter I'll be able to build on what I had last year, so strength-wise I should be able to make big improvements as well."
Sharp's time last Sunday would not only have taken gold in Beijing. It would have won World gold in 2003, and 2005 when the title went to Maria Mutola (10 World titles indoors and out). In the past decade Sharp's Berlin performance would have won World silver twice, and in the 32-year history of the championships would never have been out of the top five. Since the women's 800m returned to the Olympic programme in 1960 it would have won gold four times and silver twice.
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