With two Beijing targets, Bernard Lagat is looking for a flying start in Glasgow, reports Duncan Mackay.

BERNARD LAGAT may have been born and raised in Kenya before switching his allegiance to the United States but he is a runner who is impressively clued up on the athletics history of his adopted nation.

"It was in 1908 the last time an American won the 1500 metres at the Olympics," he said last week after completing an early morning training run in the warm winter sun of Tucson in Arizona. "If another American were to win it 100 years later it would have a nice symmetry to it, don't you think?"

Mel Sheppard was the man who crossed the line first at White City all those years ago, one of three gold medals he won on the occasion London staged the Olympics for the first time. One of Sheppard's successors as Olympic 1500m champion was Paavo Nurmi, the first of the Flying Finns, who also won the 5000m at the same Games in Paris in 1924.