Taking a break from the water’s edge to head back to the blue track of the Lohrheidestadion arena and this time for the women’s 1500m final.
Two days prior Sarah Calvert from the University of Edinburgh topped her heat with a time of 4:15.36 to advance to Sunday’s final with some eyes glancing towards taking a medal home with her on the plane back to Scotland.
Around rolls Sunday and Sarah lines up on the track in and amongst 11 other athletes waiting to battle out for the three medals up for grabs. Calvert took the lead at the front of the pack and started to dictate the pace with a calmness to go along with it.
For the next two laps Calvert then tucked herself behind a few athletes and let the race pace of the other carry here through. Crossing the line and hearing the bell ring for the final lap saw Sarah soar up the outside and make her attack on the leaders and with 200m’s to go lead the pack round the final corner.
Going down the final 100m saw the Swiss athlete come around the outside and pinch the gold medal position off the Brit and Sarah crossed the line with a silver medal waiting for her.
Post race Sarah said “It feels pretty good, I think I came in ranked about eighth so to come away with a silver is very exciting. If you could have told me before that I’d win silver I’d be happy, but to come so close to gold is a bit annoying.”
“I’m very competitive so my team manager sent me an email a few weeks ago before the start of the Games and said ‘what’s your target?’ And I said ‘I want to get a medal’.”
“You can’t go into a race and hope for any less than that really.”
