THE quality of contenders for this year's scottishathetics athlete of the year title is testament to a sport resurgent, with five Commonwealth and/or European medal winners.

Nominees Eilidh Child, Libby Clegg, Mark Dry, Chris O'Hare and Lynsey Sharp are the highest quality candidates to date. Clegg, Child and Sharp are ranked in the world top 10 while O'Hare and Dry are 33rd and 43rd respectively. Selecting the winner for the ceremony at Hampden a fortnight today is an unenviable task.

Absent and retired, however, is former winner Lee McConnell, Scotland's highest-profile athlete and most prolific championship medallist over more than a decade. Poster girl of the sport in Scotland, she appeared in every major event from the 2001 World Championships to London 2012, collecting nine medals. Only an Olympic gong eluded her, because the movement perversely allowed a US team with a convicted drug cheat keep their gold. McConnell was in the GB team which was fourth and should have been promoted to bronze.

Pregnant, but still nursing hopes of a return a year ago, the Glasgow woman gave birth to a son, Ethan, on Hallowe'en last year. She soon abandoned the race to recover fitness and challenge for a place in the 2014 team for Hampden, barely a couple of miles from where she grew up.

Despite more than two decades in the fast lane, the triple Olympian feels no withdrawal symptoms. She was behind the microphone for the BBC during the Commonwealth Games. She is fullfilled as a mum, but still trains five times a week. She cannot kick what amounts to a lifetime habit and is more likely to resurface in the sport as a coach than a competitor.

"I will definitely not try to come back and race again," she said yesterday. "I have made the right decision and never had any doubts."

She does not dismiss coaching, however. "It's a big time commitment and I don't have that at the moment. It takes as much time as being an athlete. And I don't even know if I have the qualities, though I'm happy to mentor and give advice. We'll see what happens."

Though fully absorbed in motherhood, she trains while Ethan sleeps. "He's great, just turned one. He has started walking and is into absolutely everything. I say 'no' and he just laughs at me. He is a bit of a monster. He has a new bruise or new cut every other day. He is at the climbing stage and not completely steady on his feet."

Lee and husband Craig have converted the basement of their home on the south side of Glasgow. "We have a gym and fitness centre down there. When Ethan goes for a nap, I can go down there and get on with it.

"I want to stay fit and healthy. I've always promoted health and fitness, and you should practise what you preach. But it is no longer a rigid discipline. If a miss a session, there's no guilt attached to it.

Missing a home Games in her native city was less hard than she anticipated. "I was really busy: there every day as a commentator. I really enjoyed the new challenge. I think it worked out well. I wouldn't have had been so involved if it had not been in Glasgow and would have missed it more."

Jamaica swept all three 400-metre medals in times she acknowledged she could not have beaten. "For me it was always a case of not wishing to waste time trying if I didn't feel I could medal and missing time with Ethan at that early stage.

"I'd love to have competed in Glasgow if it had been earlier in my career," she says, meaning she would have been more competitive. Regrets about opting out for the 2014 season were more keenly felt watching the Europeans in Zurich where this year's winner ran slower than McConnell did when claiming bronze in 2002.

"I was watching on TV and noticed that," she says, "but I wasn't the same athlete now that I was when I won that bronze. I would not have been in shape to do that. It was a softer event this year; a severe lack of Russians, a lot of them serving doping suspensions."

She can't look on medals lost to cheats with too much angst. "It happens so often and it's disgusting. They are stealing from other athletes, stealing a moment that can never be replaced and stealing finance as well. Then they come back after reduced periods. Sanctions don't outweigh the benefits, and until it does, people will be willing to take the risk. It's not fair. We never got our Olympic medal and a few others should have been ours as well, but never will be.

"The only people who know are those who cheated. I don't know how they can stand on the podium and be happy. They have not done it legally, but as an athlete you can't dwell on it. It would just bring you down. You'd have to leave the sport if you were worrying too much. Sanctions should be higher, rather than reduced for people who co-operate.They are back after a year. People are out longer with injuries."

Her former coach, Rodger Harkins, is now Scotland's director of coaching. "I think he will do well - I hope he will do well," she says. "Athletes and coaches respect him. I hope people in the athletics community give him a chance. People tend to be sceptical, but he looked after me all these years and knows what it takes as both a coach and athlete."

Being a mum keeps her too busy to do other than a little media work, and some motivational speaking. For McConnell the glass is always half full. Her biggest disappointment she says, was tearing a quad muscle on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. She was at her best, but did not fulfil her potential. Typically, she never mentioned it until the Games were over. Similarly she dismisses the injuries which prevented a successful transition to 400m hurdles.

"I've never thought about the bad experiences," she says. "I prefer to think about the good times. And there were a lot of them."