Coming home has shown Dundee athletics star Eilish McColgan that she isn’t just chasing medals, records and glory for her family – she’s doing it for her local area as well.
McColgan captured the heart of a nation with her heroic last lap gold in the 10,000 metres Commonwealth Games final.
Nearly three months after the career-defining triumph, which brought memories flooding back of mum Liz’s breakthrough win at Meadowbank Stadium in 1986, the former Dundee High School pupil has had the chance to return to Tayside to meet up with family and friends.
And McColgan, 32 next month, admitted that the public reaction to her summer success has given fresh perspective and inspiration for the rest of her career as she seeks to add World and Olympic achievements to Commonwealth and European ones.
“After the Commonwealth Games I went straight into the Europeans, then it was the London Big Half, then abroad on holiday,” she said.
“I didn’t really have a chance to process everything. You’re just in your own bubble.
“This is the first time I’ve been home.
“It’s been a natural time to really start to think about things. It’s actually been a bit overwhelming.
“I was going for a run around Carnoustie and everyone was stopping me to say ‘well done’.
“It was surreal. It’s actually given me a lot of motivation for next year.
“I’ve always run for myself and my family but I feel it’s a lot bigger now.
“I’ve got so many people in Dundee and Carnoustie switching on their TVs to watch me now, which feels pretty special.
“It can be a lonely sport but at times like these that you realise you’ve got a lot of people behind you.”
Mainstream moment
There aren’t many Scottish gold medal moments – or indeed, sporting moments – that crossover into the mainstream.
But McColgan is aware her last lap, lung-bursting August efforts at the Alexander Stadium did just that.
EILISH MCCOLGAN OH MY WORD!!! 🤯
Scotland's fourth gold medal today and what a way to win it! 🥳
Matching her mother Liz's success in Edinburgh in 1986 by winning the 10,000m❤️ pic.twitter.com/ieTe4I6Dk0
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) August 3, 2022
“It’s pretty cool,” she admitted.
“I’ve lost count of the number of people who have said ‘I’d never watched athletics before in my life’ but were shouting and screaming at the TV for my race and then crying after it.
“And to hear they stuck with a 10,000 metres, which is always classed as the most boring distance, is really special!
“Not a lot of people get that.
“I feel very grateful and lucky it has happened this way.
“Even if I go on to achieve anything above this in the rest of my career – Worlds, Olympics or whatever – I don’t think it will ever be the same as that.
“I know it won’t be.
“It almost felt like it didn’t happen to me. I was at a conference in front of 300 people from the financial world recently and they showed my last lap. I actually cried which really isn’t like me!
“I hadn’t ever sat down and watched it before then. My mum was with me as well.
“It was like watching someone who wasn’t me. I was getting proper upset.”
Liz McColgan wins BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1991. Will Carling second, Gary Lineker third. pic.twitter.com/joeKVYCb2z
— PictureThis Scotland (@74frankfurt) February 13, 2018
Liz was notorious for not taking time to dwell on her (many) achievements, famously deciding to forego the champagne and celebrations of being voted 1991 BBC Sports Personality of the Year to make sure she was ready for an early morning run through the streets of London.
Eilish intends to smell the roses.
“Mum looks back on her career and feels she never really took in those high moments,” said the Hawkhill Harrier, who will run her first marathon at London in April.
“I’ve tried my best to avoid making the same mistake.
“We went to the Pride of Britain Awards this week. I might never get invited again.
“You’re being invited along with proper, actual celebrities.
“From athletics it was just me, Mo Farah, Greg Rutherford and Sally Gunnell. I was thinking: ‘This is mad’.
“I got my picture with Mary Berry! She’s UK royalty. It was really cool.
Frank Bruno blast from the past
“Randomly, I also got a picture with Frank Bruno.
“I heard someone laugh and straight away I knew who it was.
“I have a picture from when I was maybe three-years-old. Mum is holding me up and Frank Bruno is in the picture.
“I look petrified because I was only tiny.
“Weirdly, we had been chatting about this picture a few weeks before. I texted my mum and dad to see if they could find the picture.
“Neither of them could but I went on Facebook. I’m like a detective, I can find anything. I showed him the picture then told him that was me. So we got an updated picture and I sent that to mum and dad.
“Mum would have just declined that awards invite and not bothered going. In the past, I probably would have as well.
“The year my mum won Sports Personality, there was a big after party – but mum and dad went straight home!
“She was thinking: ‘What’s the next race?’ That’s why mum was so successful.
“But there does need to be a balance. I want to be an athlete but I want to be more than an athlete.
“I don’t want to have a robotic life.”
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