Sammi Kinghorn took to the Gold Coast Roads on the final day of the Commonwealth Games to compete in the T54 Marathon. Sammi arrived in Gold Coast as the T53 World Champion at 100m, 200m and 400m and had finished fourth in the Gold Coast T54 1500m final on day six of the Games.
History was to repeat itself for Sammi as she once again finished in fourth place in the marathon, with a time of 1:45:02, finishing only 42 seconds behind English bronze medallist, Jade Jones. Aussie gold medallist, Madison de Rozario, took her second title after also winning the 1500m on the track.
After the race Sammi said;
‘I am gutted. I tried to so hard to stay with the leaders and did so for a very long time. In fact, we went at it so hard early on that I have set a PB for the half marathon.
‘Then Maddy made a break and I was left with two T54 athletes in Eliza and Jade. I know these athlete and they are so strong so I was thinking ‘this isn’t good…’
‘I gave it all I could and to finish fourth for the second time this week is agonising. It just feels like the worst position in some ways because you are so near yet so far from being on the podium.
‘I don’t know if I will be doing marathon again – maybe when I am older but not any time soon. I actually didn’t feel too bad until the last mile and a half or so.
‘But I want to be Paralympic champion in the sprints. I want to get inside 16 seconds (for the 100m, not yet achieved by a T53) – I just want to be fastest, not go the furthest!
‘I’m chuffed for Maddy, the winner. She came over to Scotland for Glasgow 2014 but developed DVT on the plane and could not compete. I only heard that recently because at the time I thought it was a shoulder injury. That must have been awful for her but now she’s won double gold in front of the Aussie crowd – it’s that home advantage factor again, isn’t it?
‘I’m now taking a holiday here for a few weeks to chill out and enjoy myself. So it will be later in the year before we get back to track training and competition.’
This brought the curtain down on the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and after the spectacular closing ceremony, Team Scotland could reflect on a final medal count of 44 (9 gold, 13 silver, 22 bronze); with a final medal table position of eighth.
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