When a seven-year-old girl lines up for her first race and tells mum she will never be as good as her, the parent knows she has reached a lifetime watershed. That�s how it was recently for Yvonne Murray-Mooney, the former European, World and Commonwealth champion.

When a seven-year-old girl lines up for her first race and tells mum she will never be as good as her, the parent knows she has reached a lifetime watershed. That's how it was recently for Yvonne Murray-Mooney, the former European, World and Commonwealth champion.

Murray-Mooney won the match set of gold, silver, and bronze medals at the European Championships indoors and out, and at the Commonwealth Games. She also won Olympic bronze 20 years ago in Seoul (the first Scottish woman to win a track medal) but now she has taken up a new full-time role as senior athletics development and events officer with North Lanarkshire Leisure. The aim is to nurture and motivate athletes, as well as pass on her substantial expertise to elite performers.

A primary focus is the International Children's Games which North and South Lanarkshire Councils are combining to host in 2011.

Murray-Mooney, who lives in Motherwell, held a similar post in the area several years ago before quitting to start a family. After the birth of her daughter, Laura, she worked part-time in public relations, but is delighted to return to her first love.

"I'm really pleased I am able to continue to work in athletics, which I'm so passionate about," she said. "I haven't been so fired up about the sport since I stopped racing. This is a fantastic time to be involved in sport with the International Children's Games coming to Lanarkshire in 2011, the 2012 Olympics in London, and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I'm convinced there are kids in the area who will go to the Children's Games and be capable of going on to the 2014 Commonwealths. North Lanarkshire has always been blessed with athletics talent.

"This is an absolutely unique opportunity. I can't think we will ever have all three events together again in one country in my lifetime, and we have to grab this chance. I'll be working with children from grassroots to elite level, creating pathways and trying to help them achieve their ambitions. I was brought up on a council estate in Musselburgh, and could barely run 100 yards from my house when I started. I tell kids that if I could achieve what I did from my background, then anybody can."

She retired prematurely through back injury, unable to defend her Commonwealth 10,000 metres title in 1998, but has recovered from that. She has run with women raising funds for research into coeliac disease, from which her daughter suffers. "These were women with families, starting from scratch and doing the women-only 10k in five months. I got a really powerful emotional feeling from that, and it's helped me see athletics from a different perspective."

Her latest outing, though not what she would describe as competitive, was also profoundly emotional - a one-kilometre children's race with her daughter at Cumbernauld. "It was supposed to be for P5-7, but as Laura is only in P3, I went round with her. She loved it, but at the start, she says, out of the blue: I'll never be as good as you, mummy'.

"Well, of course, I had to tell Laura that mummy didn't have any expectations, and that she didn't have to live up to anything. I told her just to have fun. Well, there was a wee competitive streak there as she tried to beat an older boy whom she knew. There she was with her wee shoes, dolls on the heels, and first thing she said at the end is: I'll need to get a proper pair of running shoes'.

"I also had to tell her that I didn't really start running until I was 14, and that I went out from my house in my gutties. The very first race I remember was a skipping race, and I fell flat on my face."

Her running ability first emerged when she played school hockey on the left wing. Her PE teacher in Musselburgh was Meg Ritchie, who won Commonwealth discus gold in Brisbane. Yvonne was still at school, the baby of that 1982 team, aged 17.

"I heard them play Scotland the Brave for Meg's medal ceremony, and was determined that one day, it would be played for me. I should have won gold in 1986, but it was bronze. Then it was silver in 1990.

"When I finally won, in 1994, in Victoria, despite all the other medals, the Olympics, and everything else, that's the one that stands out most, because it was the only victory for Scotland."

Awarded the MBE in 1990, and still holder of several Scottish records, she was denied a better Olympic 3000m placing in 1988 by the Soviet, Tatyana Samolenko, who to no great surprise subsequently tested positive for drugs.

Though at 44, Murray-Mooney is reconciled to her competitive career being over, but admits: "I still want to run a marathon some day."

Part of her new role is to encourage overseas nations to use local facilities before London 2012 and Glasgow 2014. The area has four approved pre-Games training sites: Strathclyde Park, the new Ravenscraig regional complex, the track at Wishaw, and facilities at Broadwood Stadium.