SCOTS ARE SET TO SHINE

Success is breeding success, says chief Harkins

BY any standards, it qualifies as an embarrassment of riches. Although there is certainly no reason for anyone in Scottish athletics to experience embarrassment.

Surveying the mother lode of home-grown talent about to flourish on a world stage, in fact, should leave all involved in the sport flushed with pride.

In Birmingham this weekend, it is more than likely that Scottish runners, jumpers and throwers will nail down a record number of Team GB places for the World Athletics Championships.

The previous high for this event is seven. It seems almost inconceivable that the Caledonian contingent picked to wear GB vests in London this August won’t improve on that figure.

For we now live in an era when our athletes regularly knock down numbers with record-breaking performances. Scotland is a country where even world-class times are no guarantee of even being No 1 in your own training group.

As the British Championships/ Team GB trials get underway today, the only downside might actually be Scots running each other out of contention for automatic selection.

Yet Scottish Athletics performance director Rodger Harkins points to this internal competition and local inspiration behind the rash of recent standout performances taking Scots to the top of the GB rankings.

‘When you see someone from your own country achieving at a high level, it becomes less mystical,’ said Harkins. ‘The rest of the Scottish athletes don’t sit wondering what they’re doing in Kenya or America.

‘When you are training with people who are doing it, I won’t say it becomes easy. But it becomes believable. And when it becomes believable, it’s achievable.

‘Part of me was expecting a flatter year after Rio. Most coaches work in Olympic cycles. That’s natural. Commonly, the year after, there’s a flatness.

‘But we’re not seeing that this year. People are coming out and it’s been: “Boom boom, shake the room!” from the off. It’s remarkable to see.’

References to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince aside, it’s easy to see why Harkins chooses such explosive language to describe the early part of 2017 for Scottish athletics. Even taking a headliner like Laura Muir out of the picture, who is recovering from a stress fracture in her foot, the spring/summer form of so many is raising eyebrows. Which is why, for instance, three Scottish 1,500metres runners — Jake Wightman, Chris O’Hare plus new NCAA indoor and outdoor champ Josh Kerr — could easily take up the entire GB allocation of spaces for the men’s metric mile. Further up the distances, we could see something similar occur in the women’s 5,000m, with Eilish McColgan and Steph Twell competing alongside genuine medal contender Muir.

We’ve got Zoey Clark leading the GB 400m rankings, Eilidh Doyle right there in the 400m hurdles. Beth Potter has already been picked to run the 10k, an event where McColgan and Twell are both also looking to qualify.

From the hammer circle to track events from one lap upwards, there are Scots vying for inclusion in a home games guaranteed to witness life-changing performances by GB athletes.

‘It used to be we were looking for Scottish athletes making an impact and trying to qualify for major championships,’ said Harkins.

‘Bizarrely, now we’re in a unique position in that we’ve got clumps of Scottish athletes in the same event, vying against each other for places and raising the bar.

‘In the past, you maybe had two or three, three or four at a push, Scottish athletes in a British team at a major championships.

‘With there being so many of them now, they’re feeding off each other. Although it’s GB, there is a Scottishness about them. They compete against each other and push each other on. That can only be good for the athletes themselves — and for Scotland.

‘Our photographer, Bobby Gavin, did a montage of the 15 Scots competing at the Rio Olympics. And, once they got out there, the athletes got together and took the same photo — the actual picture, not a cartoonish montage — as a group.

‘So they do feel proud to be Scottish, as proud as they are to compete for Britain. While they have other friends in the British team, they identify with the resurgence in Scottish athletics and enjoy sparking off each other.

When you see a compatriot achieve, it becomes less mystical

‘I think in the men’s 1,500, for instance, Chris and Jake have been running well over the last couple of years. Chris had a son last year and he wasn’t taking his eye off the ball, but he was enjoying fatherhood. And Jake ran a lot of 400s last year, clearly working on speed.

‘But then Josh Kerr coming out and winning the NCAA double, running so fast, it has made everyone say: “Oh, we’d better hit the ground running here — because it won’t be easy to qualify. What Josh did in the States is remarkable.

‘Endurance, in general, is strong. We might have had a number of head coaches, but we’ve had a constant endurance programme running for the past eight years.

‘The coaches are constantly taking athletes down south to compete in tough events. It’s easy to see how that would come to fruition, exposing athletes to intense competition, rather than just staying here and racing among themselves.

‘The guys in charge of the endurance programme go chasing the improvement. That’s why it’s flourishing, right from middle distance up to marathon, 10,000m and the like.’

Scottish athletics acts as a back-up, if you like, for athletes and coaches plotting their own paths. They provide things like an altitude camp in Boulder, Colorado, well used by the likes of Andrew Butchart and Callum Hawkins, among others.

As much as he is enjoying the current flowering of potential, Harkins points out: ‘It’s been a long-term thing. We’re not looking at these performances and asking: “Where did they come from?” They’ve been bubbling away for a long time.

‘The athletes and their coaches are doing a great job. What we try to do is empower them, facilitate things for them — but they’re the ones doing the hard work.

‘Andy Butchart is one who looks to have burst on to the scene but he’s been there or thereabouts for a while. He’s extremely confident. He works with a good coach in a good training group.

‘Or look at Zoey Clark, who everyone has just noticed. She’s been on this track for a long time, running for Scotland at Glasgow 2014 and winning a gold medal with GB at the European Under-23 Championships.

‘It reminds me of something years ago when someone asked me what it takes to become an overnight success. Simple. About 20 years of work.’