Eilish McColgan spent last summer in a moon boot to recover from ankle surgery yet tonight in Rio, she’ll shoot for the stars. Even at the outset of this year, the idea that an Olympic final might come into her orbit appeared unthinkable. Reaching one, against all odds, has been simply out of this world.
“In January I still wasn’t even walking without pain,” says the 25-year-old Dundonian. “If someone had said at the start of the year that I would be in an Olympic final, or even at the Olympics, I would have thought they were insane. To be here, and in the final...it’s crazy.”
Proving her worth over 5000 metres has meant banishing the self-doubts that continue to flood her mind, even though she has now accomplished something she never could in her former guise as a steeplechaser by reaching a global final.
Liz Lynch, once an Olympic silver medallist herself, has had to juggle the roles of coach, mother and psychologist, pushing her daughter to keep the faith, even when all hope seemed lost.
“Leading up to this, I was fighting with her loads,” McColgan admits. “I had a couple of days easing down and I hated it. I stopped the cross training to get myself a bit fresher. I felt I wasn’t training as much as I should be and she just kept saying to me, ‘Listen to me, believe in it.’ She was right again. Every time she says that, I come out and run a PB. I need to start listening to her a bit more and stop questioning her training. It’s working.”
Dialling down the relentless graft that worked so well for Lynch in her prime required a 180-degree shift. ”She was ‘old school’ – you get out there and get it done.” But to get McColgan in one piece to Rio, they’d no option but to ease up.
Survival accomplished, now she’s in a final she never expected to reach. “I am nowhere near a medal,” she admits with refreshing honesty. “But if I can come away with a personal best, or even close to a personal, and be one of the top Europeans, I’d be over the moon.
“I was really disappointed with my performance in the European Championships and I wasn’t well coming into the British trials, but being here has got my confidence back. I wasn’t 100% before and this is how I should be feeling when I am running. So, yes, a PB, or the top European, would be my aim.”
She was aged only two when her mother last walked onto the track for an Olympic final. Fifth place in Barcelona before one last crack in Atlanta over the marathon. “I don’t remember Mum at the Olympics. I was so young. But it still amazes me to this day that in this sort of race my mum won an Olympic silver medal. It blows my mind.”
It has also, despite the occasional rebellion, taught her offspring to listen and learn. “That’s what makes our coach-athlete relationship even stronger,” she admits. “I trust everything she does. She’s been there and done it.
Meanwhile Eilidh Doyle will hope GB&NI’s 4x400 relay squad survive tonight’s semis and then give her a call-up for Saturday’s final after proving her worth with a brilliant leg that took the team to European gold last month. And it would mean just as much to share in a medal than to pick one up exclusively for herself.
“It’s a totally different dynamic,” she said. “I find it more nerve-wracking because you have three other people to do well for, not just yourself. There’s a very different feel to it.”
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