Against the odds

In the last two years, Libby has been plagued by bad luck and injury. She was ruled out of the European and World Championships, which in turn meant she lost her funding from UK Athletics.

She split up with her guide of five years and her deteriorating eyesight – she suffers from an eye condition called Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy which left her with only slight peripheral vision in her left eye – meant she was reclassified from T12 to T11 just two months before the Paralympics.

This meant running with a blindfold, a whole new, and even more daunting experience.

Then, despite winning her 100m heat with a world record time in Rio, she was subsequently disqualified because her guide was deemed to have pulled her along in the race.

The British team appealed against the decision and she was reinstated for the final, in which she won gold.

She went on to win a second gold in the 200m and those two gold medals surpass surpass the achievements of any British sprinter ever, at World, Olympic, or Paralympic level.

Libby burst on to the scene aged just 16, winning 200m silver at the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships. She had started to excel in athletics around the same time – aged nine – she began to lose her sight.

“I was diagnosed after I started to struggle to read the blackboard at school,’ she says. “I fell in love with running the first time I was taken to an athletics club. I discovered that I liked being competitive.”

She began in sport with a far milder disability, as an 800m runner doing cross-country at the Royal Blind School Championships a decade ago, and her tenacity and talent have wowed fans and commentators ever since.

Last year, the British Athletics Writers’ Association named her Female Para Athlete of the Year.

She is also an ambassador for the Royal Blind Charity, and an inspiration to all young people, disabled and able-bodied, considering taking up sport.

Libby is one of the few women to reach the Scotswoman of the Year shortlist twice in the space of a few years. She was shortlisted in 2014 following her remarkable achievements in the Commonwealth Games and narrowly missed out to the eventual winner of the trophy that year, activist Ann Moulds.

Currently training in Tenerife, Libby said she was delighted to be nominated for the Evening Times Scotswoman of the Year award again.

“It’s a real honour,” she said.