The prospect of revenge is an additional incentive for Callum Hawkins as he prepares to line up among some of the world’s top runners at this weekend's Great Edinburgh Cross Country.

Hawkins is representing Great Britain in the day’s blue riband event, just as he was at his last high profile meet, the European Cross Country Championships, when he led them to victory in the team event, picking up an individual bronze medal.

However as well as teaming up with Mo Farah as they bid to successfully defend their title won last year when Britain’s greatest ever athlete finished second and Hawkins was the next member of the home team to cross the line in fourth, the Kilbarchan AC runner has scores to settle.

While the BBC’s commentary team registered their concern at the way Hawkins and his fellow Scot Andrew Butchart, who was captaining the British team at the Euros, took the challenge to the field in Italy last month, Hawkins’ only regret was that he had been unable to sustain it to the finish.

Far from intimidated by the gold and silver medal winning performances of Turkey’s Aras Kaya and Polat Kemboi Arikan in the individual event he was consequently delighted when they were both named in the European team for this three way match which also involves the USA.

“They’re both doing Edinburgh,” said Hawkins, with some relish.

“Hopefully I can get my own back on them. It should be pretty stacked and Mo always brings a good crowd as well so hopefully the atmosphere will be really good.”

Farah has his own revenge to gain after suffering the rare experience of failing to finish first in a race this time last year when Garratt Heath, the American who was winning over the Holyrood course for the third successive year, proved too strong for him on the day.

In fairness the experience did Farah no harm whatsoever as he went on to defend both his Olympic 5000 and 10,000 metre titles later in the year.

Hawkins meanwhile got a huge lift from the experience, noting that: “Edinburgh was a great kick off point for me. I used it as prep to see how my training was doing. It showed that training was going well.”

Even so he admits to having been almost bewildered by how well things subsequently went last year, saying: “This time last year I was just trying to qualify to make the Olympics and now I’m able to go to the head of races to push the pace on and do some damage. It’s quite surreal. It’s not quite hit me.”

Watching him race throughout 2016 it was as if he, like Butchart, had suddenly realised that they were capable of taking on the world’s best, but that they would only ever prove that if they had the courage to take them on rather than be more cautious as some commentators have urged them to.

“It started after London a little bit, but after the Olympics it really kicked on,” said Hawkins.

“Finishing ninth there I came back and I really want to go for it now for Tokyo. I want to really hit hard with a lot more hunger. Not that I didn’t have any hunger in the first place, but it seemed to add to it a lot.”

In spite of which he was once again surprised by his form a few weeks later at the Great Scottish run in October when he maintained a pace that Ugandan defending champion Moses Kipsiro found too hot to handle, winning in a Scottish half marathon record time – albeit a time which is now possibly in doubt due to GPS data collated from runners which suggests the course was 200m short of the full 13.1 miles. The course is to be re-measured at the end of this month.

“I wasn’t expecting anything at Glasgow,” he said.

“I’d only been back training for about two weeks after Rio. I had a lot of fitness from Rio, but it was a bit of a weird day. Everyone was up for it and just looking down the results everyone ran quick, but it was really good.”

So to the weekend and another opportunity to gauge how he is running as a New Year gets underway.

“I took a mini break after the European cross country but I was still training and doing decent mileage and keeping that going over the festive period as well.”

Last year’s performances have brought their rewards and while that means 2017 will bring with it the added burden of expectation, Hawkins he is clearly raring to tackle that challenge too as he looks with excitement towards both the short and long-term future.

“I’m still quite young and the Marathon is so unpredictable, even more at championship level, so you never know, but I’m going to put myself about in Rio and see what happens,” he promised.

“The World Champs in August is the big target. I’m already pre-selected for it which was a big boost. It means I can 100 per cent focus on that without really about anything else worrying. I think it’ll be amazing. The crowds for the London Marathon itself are usually big, but I can’t imagine what the Worlds will be like.

“It’s definitely all about working on my weaknesses to try to make sure I can get even better for Tokyo now. After the World Championships at the end of the year we have the Commonwealth Games at the start of 2018, so it’s about moving from them and using them as building blocks towards Tokyo.”