A FEW years ago, a world championship medal would have made you almost a stick on to become the Athlete of the Year, or at least be guaranteed a nomination. However, no longer.

2017 saw Eilidh Doyle win a silver medal as part of the 4x400m relay team at the World Championships, which took place in London in August, but it still was not enough to secure a nomination for the flagship award at Scottish Athletics’ FPSG awards dinner, which takes place in Glasgow tonight.

Doyle is a previous winner of the award but this year, the five-strong shortlist is made up of Laura Muir, Sammi Kinghorn, Callum Hawkins, Chris O’Hare and Eilish McColgan.

All five have had outstanding years and Doyle admits that she is finding it impossible to predict a winner. “It’s so difficult to pick a favourite because everyone has done so many different things, which makes it almost impossible to compare them,” the 400m hurdler said.

“If you look at the World Championships results, Callum and Laura were both fourth and they would both have been disappointed not to get a medal but you can’t really compare fourth in the marathon to fourth in the 1500m. But then you add in Laura also winning two golds at the European Indoors, which was amazing.

“Eilish and Chris both had a great year too with their Scottish records, and Eilish broke Laura’s Scottish record so she’s got one up there. And Sammi is world champion and world record holder so I really don’t know who should win – I’m just glad I’m not the one having to make the choice.”

The strength of the shortlist is indicative of successful Scottish athletes have been over the past twelve months. A record-breaking 16 Scottish athletes were selected in the British team for the World Championships, obliterating the previous best of seven from 1983 and 2015.

For Doyle to have quite so many compatriots alongside her wearing the GB vest, including her fellow relay silver medallist Zoey Clark, is quite a change from when she broke onto the international scene almost a decade ago.

Back then, it was not unusual for Doyle’s sole Scottish companion to be Lee McConnell and the Perth-born athlete admits that she can’t quite believe the turnaround in Scottish fortunes in such a relatively short space of time. “It’s crazy the difference in recent years,” she said.

“I love having so many Scots in the team because it’s your mates who are there with you.

“We all have a familiarity with each other and it’s always nice to have some Scottish accents around and the competition pushes you on to do better.

“ I think what’s been such an important change is that the entire mentality within Scottish athletics has changed because before, just getting in the team was seen as a great achievement whereas now, we all want to be getting on the podium or breaking records.

Doyle’s own season was, by her own admission, somewhat up and down. She maintained her remarkable consistency of reaching yet another major championship final at London 2017 but she was somewhat disappointed with her performance in the final. However, she bounced back and was part of the relay team which departed London with a silver medal, taking Doyle’s major championships medal count to 14. There was, though, one stand-out accolade for the 30 year-old. “I think my favourite moment was being named the captain of the British team,” she said.

“That was a real honour for me and for it to be at a home championships was amazing. With it being chosen by the other athletes, it just meant so much to me.

“Winning silver in the relay was fantastic and so then being names captain was the real icing on the cake for me.”

Doyle may not be nominated for an award herself this evening but she has a vested interest in one particular category. Her husband, Brian, took over coaching duties from esteemed coach Malcolm Arnold earlier this year and has been nominated for Coach of the Year.

Husband and wife partnerships on the track are not always a success but Doyle believes that they have got the balance absolutely right – there’s not been any serious fall-outs yet anyway.

“We’ve been quite good at getting the balance – we really try to have an athlete coach relationship when I’m at the track but there’s been a couple of times when he’s said ‘you wouldn’t have said that to Malcolm’,” she laughs. “And I’m normally like yeah, you’re right. But I don’t think I’ve been too bad – I’ve not had any hissy fits yet anyway. “Malcolm’s not been involved in my training at all this winter so Brian’s had a blank canvas which has been good for him.

“And it’s also been good for me - it’s freshened things because I’m doing new sessions so that’s really helped my motivation. We know what my strengths are and we know what works training-wise but this is a different way of doing things and that’s been great.”