She's barely had a minute to think about where to show off her Commonwealth Games medals with this week’s European Championship following fast after those magical few days in Birmingham.
But then Eliish McColgan already knew the most fitting arena for the gongs. Parading the silverware has become the open top bus tour for Scotland’s elite band of individual sports greats.
Josh Taylor and his world title belts got a hero’s homecoming at Hibs. John Higgins took his snooker world championship trophy to a packed Parkhead. And Paul Lawrie lapped up the Open plaudits at Pittodrie. But for our latest national treasure? There’s only one venue and one audience most deserving of the prize she has worked almost an entire lifetime for.
Back where it all started. Dundee Hawkhill Harriers athletics club. Having provided not only Scotland’s moment of the Commonwealth Games but arguably THE biggest story of the entire event by matching mum Liz ’s achievements with the run of her life, the 31-year-old is hot property.
And after proving she’s a champion on the track, McColgan is proving she’s a winner off it too.
Together with boyfriend, training partner and confidante Michael Rimmer, she set up a not-for-profit organisation to support young athletes and help get more youngsters into sport because they are absolutely committed to giving a bit back.
As she heads out to Munich for the Euros, McColgan said: “I’ll go back to the Hawks. That’s a special place for me. I wouldn’t be competing and where I am without Dundee Hawkhill Harriers. Some of the girls I support through the not for profit I set up - Giving Back To Track - I support five young girls through a scholarship then another six with travel grants.
“I know first hand how difficult it is as a female athlete going through school and exams and into higher education and puberty and growing and there’s so much comes with that. It’s a huge area where women drop out of sport. So I felt if I could be a supporting hand during that transition to help people it would be brilliant.
“As athletes we’re helping under that tier of support. They’re not at a level where GB are going to support them. They’re not on the talent funding. They’re on the peripherals and it was an area I’d like to help. Trying to help kids who can’t afford to go to the club. Every time I go back the facilities are incredible. But the price is always going up.”
This is a subject close to McColgan’s heart. She knows she was one of the lucky ones. But her mum and her boyfriend - former 800m Olympian Rimmer who had to rely on being handed faulty spikes for free to get his own career up and running - not quite so.
She said: “I don’t like the thought of a kid being outpriced by athletics. Mum said herself if athletics was the way it is now she wouldn’t have been able to be a member of the Hawks, travel to the races, pay for the clothes and shoes. She’d have been priced out.
“Also my boyfriend .. he lost his mum at a really young age and his dad brought him up on his own. He relied on one of the coaches at the club giving him faulty spikes, the ones shops couldn’t sell because there was a thread missing or whatever.
“Yet he’s had an incredible career and been to three Olympic Games. I was lucky. I had my mum and dad and financially they could drive the length and breadth of Scotland and buy me the shoes I needed.
“But other kids aren’t in that situation. We’re in a fortunate position now the two of us can help the next generation. I feel I’m giving back. I’ve always wanted to help my club. If I can extend it to other clubs around Scotland great.”
Rimmer was trackside as McColgan swept home at a raucous Alexander Stadium to claim the biggest prize of her life. Mum and coach Liz has been there every step of the journey but the part Rimmer is now playing is equally important both on and off the track.
McColgan said: “A lot of people who aren’t athletes probably find it bizarre we spend 24 hours of the day together. We’re in each other’s pockets all the time but it just works. I just feel so much more relaxed when he’s around me. It’s essentially like having my best friend with me at every moment of my life – through the highs, the lows.
“He’s just given me a lot of confidence. Not only with running but with the whole trolling online and body shape. He’s given me this extra belief. I feel like I’m a much better person for having met him.
“And he’s taken a big step forwards in a coaching role. It’s great having my mum but she’s so far away that Michael every single day if I’m tired he’ll adjust things, he’s on the bike every session in the pissing down rain.
“Since the pandemic we got stuck abroad at altitude. It’s the longest time I spent at altitude but I was training amazingly. We just fell into this routine of being at altitude and being in better weather. We’ve been living out of suitcases for the last two years.
“It’s a big commitment on his behalf too. But he’s retired now and I feel he’s shifted all his energy. So when I stand on the start line I feel like I’m not just doing it for myself.
“There’s my mum, my dad, but Michael is a huge part as well. It was the first time I’d seen him – he’d never cry – but he was really emotional after that 10,000m race.
“That was special for me because it felt like we’d done it. It wasn’t just me, it was a team. I felt he could feel that and was so proud of me too.”
Meanwhile, McColgan insists Laura Muir’s excellence played a huge role in her own Birmingham brilliance. Moments after crossing the line on Sunday to claim 5000m silver to add to her 10,000m gold, McColgan was seen in a trackside embrace with her pal who had just delivered her own second medal of the Games with a 1500m gold.
Muir coasted her strongest distance just 24 hours after winning bronze in the 800m - in so doing completing the set of medals at major events. And McColgan reckons her old Dundee Hawkhill colleague is now one of the best runners on the planet.
She said: “I think that’s what makes Team Scotland special. It is the people you’ve grown up with. I’ve seen Laura break through to become one of the best in the world. The fact we could both win two medals here is incredible.
“If you could have told me at the start of the year I could have won two it’s insane. I put Laura on such a high pedestal. The fact I’ve managed to do that too? I watched her win the medal in the 800 and knew she was going to walk the 1500 metres. I thought ‘she’s won two and I’d love to do it too’.
“It makes you strive for the same thing. She deserves it for all the work she puts in. She’s one of the hardest workers. It’s the fact it was the last medal she didn’t have. She’s done it the other way around – she already had her worlds and Olympics, now she’s got Commies. It meant a lot to her.”
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