LAURA MUIR:
THE world is at her feet. Destiny and Doha beckon. Yet, the most constant and demanding rival for Laura Muir as she stands on the starting line in her quest to be world champion will not be alongside her.
The fuel, the fury and the fire come from within. ‘It is not about beating other people,’ she says. ‘It is about myself. I would try to improve myself all the time in everything. That’s where the competition lies.’
This is what has taken a girl, who was not the best runner in her primary class, not even the most promising athlete in her family, to the brink of being crowned as the very best in the world.
‘I always like the competition from within,’ she says. ‘If someone sets me a mark, I like to beat it. If I am doing a Sudoku puzzle, I will say to myself: “I am going to do this one faster than the last one”.’
This desire for speed will find a more recognisable outlet in Doha later this month when the 26-year-old Muir enters the 1500m as a strong favourite for gold despite suffering a calf injury that disrupted her plans.
She is, however, back running again with a training block in South Africa. Her major rivals, too, have other priorities. Sifan Hassan, of the Netherlands, is focusing on longer distances and Genzebe Dibaba, the world record holder from Ethiopia, is simply searching for form.
Muir is aware of the opportunity. She also appreciates the difficulty in achieving it. She admits she is excited but there is not a tremulous note in her softly-spoken words.
‘I do worry,’ she admits. ‘But about small things, not so much about big things. When I come to an Olympic finals, I have the feeling of: “This is cool”.
‘But if I am waiting for a delivery and I am going to be out, then I am all worried. I shouldn’t really be bothered by something like that but, then again, when it comes to big things I am pretty chilled. It’s a good way to be.’
Does the worry over a delivery give a hint to her mindset of seeking to control outside events?
‘Details are so important when you are trying to be the best in the world,’ she says. ‘It is getting every box ticked in the right order.’
Yet this scrupulous attention does not seem to be accompanied by any psychological burdens. ‘I take immense satisfaction from what I do,’ she says. But it was impossible to sit in the Emirates Arena in Glasgow in March and not quake just watching her prepare for the finals of the 3,000m and the 1500m. If the expectation had been distilled, it would have inebriated Glasgow for the weekend.
Muir (right) won both. She is straightforward about how she remained calm in the sort of atmosphere that was so loud and raucous that one suspected that lions were just about to be introduced into the arena.
‘My name is being called out and the crowd is going nuts,’ she recalls. ‘There is no way I can shut that out, so I don’t try. But immediately the focus comes in. I am focused on precisely what I am going to do. So, often on the track, I don’t really take that much in. ‘It is only when I watched it back on TV that I realised what the volume was really like. And having my family there was special. I travel all over the world to race and they can’t come with me always. It was the first time my granny had seen me win a medal. She went all the way to Rio for the Olympics and the London world championships and I didn’t get medals there.’ The triumphs were expected. The most genuine compliment to Muir is that she has become a serial winner. This has galvanised her team-mates and inspired children.
Twelve Scottish athletes will compete in the world championships but Muir has sparked a reaction in others. It is no surprise that the likes of Lynsey Sharp and Eilish McColgan have improved significantly since the 1500m runner became a world star.
These athletes are competitors and there is nothing like a slice of in-house rivalry to sharpen the senses and add a spring to even the most athletic of steps.
‘A couple of them have mentioned that to me,’ concedes Muir. ‘It means a lot when someone you know is running well. It can be difficult when you don’t see anyone progressing. But I have been winning Diamond Leagues, winning medals and I took that inspiration from others. It can be hard to see how you are going to get there, but if others do it then it pushes you on.’
Muir is now a celebrity and a heroine for young runners.
‘I suppose you finally recognise that when you see so many kids at cross-country events,’ she continues. ‘I try to compete in Scotland when I can. It is really lovely having kids come up to me.
‘It is very important to see that someone can do it by training in Scotland. My first steps were taken at Milnathort Primary School and Kinross High School.’ SUDDENLY, it changed. ‘I first started running in primary six,’
says Muir. ‘We would do laps around the school. My teacher was a good laugh and she was egging us on. It was fun. But I wasn’t a standout.
‘At sports days, I wasn’t the fastest. There were girls who would more than give me a run for my money. I was competitive but I wasn’t the best or winning everything.’
The other girls went into academics, one went to the USA on a hockey scholarship.
Muir inexorably climbed to the top of the world but with no early hint to future greatness.
‘My brother Rory was more the prodigy,’ she says. ‘He trained a lot with me as a youngster before I went to university. He was very successful as a junior but he got injured quite a lot. To be honest, when we were younger, he was the one winning everything and people thought he was going to be a future star.’
As a child, Muir wanted, with an endearing innocence, to become a zookeeper.
‘I was always around animals when I was growing up,’ she explains. ‘My friends had horses and I loved watching Animal Park. I told my mum and dad that I wanted to work in a zoo but they said: “You’re quite smart, maybe you could be a vet”.’
Then the path opened up, revealing two forks. ‘I went to vet school. I wasn’t at a very good level athletics-wise then,’ she says.
‘After first year, I made world juniors. Then after second year I made senior teams, then senior world championships. So I have these two full-time things on my plate, studying for a degree and running. I noticed the demands on me pretty quickly.’
Glasgow University was flexible in allowing her to pursue her veterinary medicine degree but the work still had to be done. She missed the Commonwealth Games last year to focus on her studies and graduated in the summer.
She reflects on the move to Glasgow and how it changed her world, saying: ‘I left school and home at 18. It was a whole different set-up. The training was so much more intense and I was competing with people — a lot of them, ten or so — and that makes you sharper.’
The most significant change was meeting Andy Young, who is still her coach. ‘He was — and is — hugely instrumental,’ she says of a man who introduced different routines, used technology, updated her equipment. ‘Everything that could have changed, did change.
‘I didn’t even contemplate the possibility of becoming a professional athlete when I left home. I had a realistic mindset in terms of career. It was all about going to university and seeing what jobs I could do.’
The realisation that she could make a life on the track came in 2012. ‘I made world juniors,’ she says. ‘It was a great crop with Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Adam Gemili both on that team.
‘They went on to compete in London that year. So you were at world juniors with them and literally two or three week later, you saw then competing at the Olympics. Okay, I thought, I was at the same competition as them and they became Olympians… so why couldn’t I be one?’
So what took her to the very top? ‘From a very early age I was very determined in anything I did,’ she says. ‘That determination and motivation to be the best translated very well into athletics. I was also used to achieving the best I could in anything. I may not have been at the top but it was the best I could be.’
She also points to her parents — her mother designs curtains and blinds and her father is a landfill engineer — as inspirations.
‘I was very appreciative of all the opportunities my parents gave me growing up,’ she says. ‘I was aware they were working really hard so I could get a good education. They worked and saved to give me and my brother the best. I want to do the best I can to repay them.’
Doha awaits, Tokyo and the Olympics can be glimpsed on the horizon. Does she ever reflect on the surreality of it all? ‘Not being the fastest in school, to trying to be the fastest in the world… not bad going,’ she laughs.
She is blunt about the demands of her life. ‘It is a pretty unique job. It is not just the physical side but the mental stuff as well,’ she says. ‘It’s tough when your body is giving out and you have to push through the pain, day in, day out. It is tough dealing with injury and being away from home a lot.’
Her life, too, is tightly structured. ‘I don’t watch much TV, don’t listen to much music, and I am not really reading after studying so much,’ she says. ‘It is amazing how much time athletics takes up: gym, physio, admin, training camps, travelling, sponsors.’ Any spare time is devoted to family and friends.
So why does she do it? ‘It sounds soppy but I really enjoy running,’ she says. And what does she want? ‘I would love to have a dog,’ she says. ‘I am looking at that possibility after Tokyo. It might not be a good idea to have a puppy before then.’