Field of 50 runners competing in next month's £5,000 Edinburgh new year sprint features 16 Borderers

Having returned to the capital for its 153rd running in July after 23 years in East Lothian, it’s now back outwith the capital, taking place at Musselburgh Racecourse.

It’s back in its traditional festive-period calendar slot, however, meaning that the 154th event follows just five months after its predecessor.

The sprint itself – to be contested by 50 runners, almost a third of them Borderers, up from 14 in July – will take place on Sunday, January 1, at the East Lothian racetrack, preceded by an undercard at Edinburgh’s Meadowbank Sports Centre on Friday, December 30.

None of 2023’s competitors will be running its 110m distance from scratch, two-time winner and 2021 Scottish 200-metre champion Greg Kelly, of East Kilbride, being back-marker on 0.5 metres.

That’s 13.5m behind West Linton’s Stacey Downie, winner of July’s 153rd sprint and a dual world masters champion in Finland earlier this year, over 200m and 400m.

Downie, representing Edinburgh Athletic Club, is getting a 14m head start, three metres back from the mark of 17m she won off last time round in a time of 11.15 seconds to pick up the event’s top prize of £5,000.

The 35-year-old – a sprint contestant almost every year since 2004, with previous best placings of third in 2020 and fourth in 2015 – is one of three past winners taking part, the others being 1998’s victor, James Cunningham, of Haddington, and 1991’s Dougie Donald, of Oakham in Rutland.

January’s field also features three previous runners-up – Kelso’s Douglas Young, second in 2019, running from 2.5m, the run’s joint-second-shortest mark; Lasswade’s Murray Blair, second the year after, given a 6m start; and Tweed Leader Jed Track’s Scott Tindle, pipped to the post by Downie in the summer after clocking 11.18, on 6.5m.

Heats were drawn yesterday, December 1, at the Justinlees Inn in Eskbank in Midlothian and all but one of the seven will feature Borders entrants.

TLJT is the region’s best-represented club, with Gordon Armstrong, on 9m, up against six runners including Downie in heat one; Nina Cessford, on 22.5m, and Ryan Elliot, on 7.5m, in heat two; Iskan Barskanmay, on 10m, and Evie Renwick, on 18m, in heat three; Tindle in heat six, along with five other runners including Jedburgh’s Callum Murrow, on 8m; Rojin Barskanmay, on 18.5m, and Caris Brus, on 20.5m, in heat seven; and Cameron Clamp, on 7m, in heat eight, as well as Hawick’s Ryan McMichan, two metres ahead of him.

Selkirk’s Colin Bruce, given a mark of 19.5m, up from 10m after finishing fourth in July in 11.33; Jedburgh’s Scott Elliot, on 21.5m; and Gala Harrier Robert Noble, yet to have a handicap set, are also competing in heat seven.

For updates, go to www.sportingworld.co.uk/newyearsprint