THE first indications that 2016 would be an auspicious year for Scottish athletics arrived amid the frost and mud of Holyrood Park in early January. A world away from the heat and humidity of Rio de Janeiro in September, the headline news was Mo Farah being pipped to Great Edinburgh Cross Country glory over 8k in the capital
by Garrett Heath of the USA.
But the fact Callum Hawkins, just ten seconds back, was the next British finisher, with Andrew Butchart not far behind, was an early indication of the giant strides Scottish athletes would make this year as they mixed it with best the world sport has to offer. By the end of the year, even all time greats like Farah and Eliud Kipchoge would grow accustomed to having to account for the likes of Butchart and Hawkins in their rear view mirror.
No fewer than 15 seats would be reserved on the plane to Rio for Scottish athletes – Butchart and Hawkins among them. While scottishathletics couldn’t quite find a place for all of them in the running for their top award, certain performances demand recognition and it is only right and proper that the usual short list of nominations has become longer than ever before. The statistics alone tell
the story of a year in which Scottish athletes have re-defined what even they thought was possible.
Butchart was crowned Scottish
cross country champion in Falkirk in February – followed in by Andrew Douglas, the Scot who would prove to be Britain’s best hill runner this year with a fourth-place finish in the European Championships and 11th place in the World Championships.
But it turned out that Dunblane’s other world class sportsman was just getting started. By the end of the year he had trimmed 21 seconds from his best time over 5000m and finished sixth in the Olympic final. He sent Scottish records in the 3000m and 5000m tumbling, including taking Nat Muir’s 36-year-old 5000m Scottish record despite a Brian Whittle-esque last lap with just one shoe.
Hawkins, meanwhile, lost one minute 25 from his marathon time
over the course of the year. With the temerity to lead at halfway, his ninth place in the Olympic event came in only his third attempt at the distance.
It was a remarkable outcome to a remarkable event where the other two members of Team GB were Scottish too, his brother Derek and Tsegai Tewelde. The younger Hawkins sibling showed little signs of slowing down as his 2016 came to an end, becoming the first Scot to win the Great Scottish Run since 1983.
Eilidh Doyle, with a new married name on her vest, ran like a new athlete. The 2014 Commonwealth silver medallist trimmed a whopping
0.37 seconds from her personal best over the 400m hurdles over the 12 months. While there was disappointment in
an eighth-place finish in her preferred event in Rio, it was mitigated somewhat by the bronze medal she took home to Bath from the 4 x 400m relay.
This was no ordinary medal. Not only did it complete her set of the major athletics medals, and move her level with Yvonne Murray as the most decorated Scottish athlete in history,
it was the first Olympic medal won by any Scot in track and field since 1988.
That was the heyday of Murray and Liz McColgan and the sense that the good old days of Scottish athletics have returned is unmistakeable.
Liz’s daughter Eilish finds a deserved place on to this shortlist for a year in which she has defied the governing bodies who removed her UK podium funding after a series of horrendous foot problems during 2015.
After a few home truths from her mother, she took the decision to focus on the 5000m and the results have been spectacular. Fit again, she took
39 seconds from her personal best over the year, finishing 13th in the Rio final. Steph Twell, also represented here, was another woman making giant strides during 2016. While she took out the British title in the same event, she and Laura Whittle missed out in the running for a final spot in Rio.
Lynsey Sharp ran into sixth place
in the Olympic 800m final, not to mention further controversy, when she mounted a heartfelt statement of the difficulties of attempting to keep up with hyperandrogenic athletes such as Caster Semenya, who can have three times as much naturally occurring testosterone within their system.
Then there is Laura Muir, who would trim three and a half seconds off her 1500m time in the course of the calendar year, ending the year outstripping even idols like Kelly Holmes in the British record books with a time which was 13th in the all-time list.
Eleven days after the disappointment of a seventh-place finish in a harum scarum Rio final, she was despatching all comers in Paris, including Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya, to become the first-ever Scottish winner of the overall diamond race.
Who needs gold, silver or bronze when everyone knows that diamonds are a girl’s best friend?
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