Lee wants to be a runaway bride for now

Stewart Fisher

Sports Writer

Sunday 15 July 2012

LEE McConnell has put her wedding plans on the back burner to concentrate upon her love affair with the Olympics.

Lee McConnell is heading for her third Olympics

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Stewart Fisher

The 33-year-old, who is due to marry investment manager Craig Bonthron in Ayrshire in November, will equal the modern Scottish record set by Liz McColgan when she appears in her third Olympics in London, a milestone in her career which has taken precedence over stage managing every last detail of her other big day.

The Scot, who will play big sister of sorts to a three-fold contingent of first-time Olympians in the form of McColgan's daughter Eilish, Eilidh Child and Lynsey Sharp this summer, is entered into both the individual 400m and the 400m relay and craves the chance to get her hands on a first Olympic medal, and on home soil too.She heads off to a holding camp in Portugal imminently, and although her A standard in the 400m was achieved last year, rather than this, she is buoyed by a recent fifth-place finish in the European Championships in Helsinki."I got engaged in October, so the plan was to get most of the wedding planning done before warm weather training in April," McConnell said. "That is what we have done. At the moment we are doing bits and pieces, but nothing much, I only sort of do things when I need a bit of a break from the athletics and it is a bit of an escapism for me. I quite like the organisation side of things but everything is now on hold until after London when the final things will be done."For all that McConnell adores the four-yearly sporting showpiece, her appearances on this stage have been bittersweet. She could have been heading into her fourth Olympics as she was an aspiring high jumper at the time of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but fell just short of the qualifying time. Having changed to the 400m shortly afterwards, things still haven't always run to plan. After a fourth-placed finish in the 4x400m in Athens, her experience in Beijing was painful, as she tore a quad in practice just days before the event, and had to withdraw."We are always there or thereabouts, generally in the top four in the world, so we have as good a chance as any," she said. "The difficulty in the 4x400 is four girls all delivering on the same day, that can be pretty tough and we have found it hard in the past. We were fourth in Athens, that is the highest finish we have had, but I don't think everyone ran the best they could on that day. "In Beijing we had really high hopes, because we had finished in a medal position at the world championships and everybody was doing really well, but unfortunately just two days before the Olympics I tore my quad in the last session and it just destroyed any hope I had."McConnell hasn't been entirely happy with her season to date and has to manage a lower back problem, but even though she will be 35 by the time the Commonwealth Games in her home city come round, as a native of Glasgow's King's Park she will find it hard to resist the temptation to carry on for a further two years. "I think we will just wait, see out the season, and then make a decision," said McConnell, who owns a collection of bronze and silver medals from the European, Commonwealth and World championships and is coached by Roger Harkins. "But definitely the fact that Glasgow is hosting the Commonwealth Games will make the decision to retire very hard. Having it in Glasgow would be a bit special. It is tough when it is not going well, sometimes there are only so many knocks in life someone can take. If it is a good season then the chances are I will continue, but if the season doesn't get any better it will be hard to justify continuing."McConnell makes light of the selection issues – most controversially in regard to the selection of Sharp, her fellow Scot, and Dwain Chambers, a contemporary with whom she came through the junior ranks."Dwain has been punished, he is sorry for what he has done and I don't think you can keep punishing him when the rules are such that he is allowed back in," she said.Her personal best in the 400m, of 50.82 secs, was achieved in 2002, so what has kept her going for the last decade?"The belief that I can run faster," she said. "I hope I do it in London. That would be the perfect scenario."o Lee is part of TeamRedSky and supported by Adidas and Pentland Land Rover. She trains regularly at the East End Healthy Living Centre, Crownpoint Road, Glasgow.

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Lee wants to be a runaway bride for now

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