Hawkins and Muir among big names in line for award

● Wheelchair champion Kinghorn also on Scottish Athlete of the Year shortlist

Five top names are in line for the Scottish Athlete of the Year award at a ceremony in Glasgow next month.

The shortlists for the five awards were revealed yesterday and Laura Muir, winner for the past two years, is in the running again.

She finished fourth in the 1,500 metres at the World Athletics Championships in London in August.

Callum Hawkins, who was fourth in the marathon at the same event, also makes the list. Wheelchair racer Sammi Kinghorn, a double World Para champion, is also named along with Eilish Mccolgan and Chris O’hare, who each broke Scottish national records during impressive 2017 track seasons.

Females athletes have dominated the award in recent years, Muir preceded by Eilidh Doyle and Lynsey Sharp. Both Doyle and Sharp made individual finals at London 2017 but such has been the level and depth of quality performances that they did not make the 2017 shortlist.

Former GB and NI heptathlete Kelly Sotherton and distance runner Jenny Meadows are the guests of honour at the dinner on Saturday 4 November, which is backed by professional recruitment specialists FPSG, who lend their name to the main prize.

Scottish Athletics performance director Rodger Harkins said: “Our shortlists are chosen by an independent panel and I am involved in the process. It is becoming one of the toughest decisions we have to make each year.

“For 2016, we took a one-off decision to extend the shortlist to eight given a number of high-quality performances and national records set at the Rio Olympics. This year, the panel decided to return to the more usual practice of three to five names and that has made it very difficult indeed.

“Sammi Kinghorn came up with a spectacular week at the Para World Champs with three medals, two of them gold, and a T53 world record in the 200m final.

“The Para performances in London were such that we’ve very strong contenders in that category, too, with Derek Rae having won a bronze medal at the IPC World Marathon event in London in April. Similarly, our U20 list of candidates was very strong indeed with a number of athletes representing GB and NI to a very high level.”