Training pal Mo is main motivation to Butchart
REFUSING to be star-struck is one thing. Actually feeling like you belong in the same world as a sporting icon? That takes some work.
Never backwards at coming forward, Andrew Butchart must have struck a living legend like Mo Farah as borderline cocky when he pitched up, unexpected, at a British Athletics training camp in Arizona.
But, Mo being Mo, the new boy with the talent, desire and chutzpah to go far was welcomed into the group.
With a first major medal in his possession, and the promise of more to come, Butchart is still in regular touch with the greatest track athlete ever to pull on a Team GB vest (below).
Having finished sixth in the Olympics and eighth in this year’s World Championships, the 5,000 metres runner — just back from the European Cross Country Championships with a bronze to show for his efforts — feels comfortable talking athletics with living legend Farah.
Taking up the tale of their friendship, late bloomer Butchart insisted: ‘I’ve never really been star-struck.
‘In 2016, I flew myself out to America, I ended up getting into the British camp — and next thing I am doing runs with Mo.
‘Everyone is so welcoming, you just hit it off quickly.
‘You don’t look back and think: “Oh, I remember when I had to run in Dunblane every night”. It is just the progression.
‘In 2016, I just saved up a lot of money and flew out to Flagstaff. Andrew Lemoncello was out there and he helped me.
‘Before I knew it, British Olympics said there was a room I could stay at (in their training camp), so they kind of gave me a room. Then I went to the Olympics, finished sixth — and it was done. That was it.
‘Through the course of that, I wasn’t thinking: “Oh, what if this doesn’t happen?”. I was just doing the races I enjoyed and it just happened.
‘The appetite I get is because I am training and running with Mo. He is winning and I am not that far behind.
‘Then I get to the race and I am only three or four seconds off the medal. So it keeps you motivated.
‘You think: “Come on, it’s only three or four seconds”. You just need to keep motivated to get faster, get that one-per-cent gain.
‘We still talk all the time, we text and see each other out and about. If I needed anything, I am sure I could contact him, although we won’t do any training together as our disciplines are so different now that he’s gone to the marathon.
‘But, I mean, we will text each other and he messages me to say good luck.
‘And wee things like that could maybe make the difference. It could be that tiny little one per cent.’
Finishing third in a major championships did get the Scot some special attention, with messages jamming up his phone in the aftermath. All part of a process that has transformed the 26-year-old’s outlook.
‘It was kind of weird, I felt like I had already won something,’ he said of the recent achievement.
‘Then, when I was on the podium, I was like: “Oh, I’ve never been here before...”. Now it is sort of like, if I don’t medal now, it will be disappointing.’
Being part of Team Scotland on the Gold Coast in April will scratch an itch that’s been nagging away at Butchart since the summer of 2014.
Succinctly explaining how he didn’t make the team for a magical home games, he said: ‘I was crap! I genuinely thought I was going to make the team in 2014. Again, I flew myself out to the US to try to make the 1,500m time. But I tore ankle ligaments.
‘I didn’t really watch much of the Games because I thought I could maybe have gone.
‘I was jealous watching the Games. Guys like Callum Hawkins were there, guys I was racing against and beating were making the team and I wasn’t.’ In the past three-anda-half years, plenty has changed. As Butchart, and Mo, can attest. Olympic and world finalist Andrew Butchart will be one of several home hopes competing at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix Glasgow in 2018 and he is relishing the chance to perform at the Emirates Arena on Sunday February 25. Tickets are available at www. britishathletics.org. uk/events-and-tickets/ muller-indoor-grand-prixglasgow-2018/