“I’m confident I’ll be at the trials. I’m doing as much as I can. But I can’t run, which is what I need”
EILIDH DOYLE Scotland’s Olympic hopeful on why she is in a race against time to be fit and ready for Beijing
Eilidh Doyle has revealed she is up against the clock to earn a place at the Tokyo Olympics after an injury double-whammy that has severely compromised her preparations.
Themost-decoratedathletein Scottish history was one of the few hoping to benefit from seeing the Games postponed by 12 months due to Covid, providing extra time to recover and rebound following the birth of her first child in January of last year.
Yet the path towards June’s British trials in Manchester is now littered with diversion signs, with the Rio 2016 silver medallist tearing her calf and breaking a toe in the space of three weeks, ruling her initially out of next month’s world relay championships in Poland.
“I tore my calf five weeks ago which we knew could be an issue because I’d torn it before at the world indoors in 2018,” the 34-year-old said.
“I’ve had to do a lot of training at the Emirates Arena with the bends on the track and that might have contributed to it.
“It was a bad tear but I just got back to running and doing my drills when I had the freak accident with the toe. I just caught it on the doo rframe and I broke it.andsinceit’sonthesameside asmycalf,ican’tputanyloadon it, so I had to tell them I wasn’t available for world relays. Which is a shame because I felt I was ready to put in a decent 400m.”
It leaves European indoor medallistzoeyclarkasthelone Scot in the British 4x400 squad
for the world relays in Silesia from May 1-2. The recent disruption, Doyle acknowledged, means any ambition to hunt an individual medal in the 400m hurdles in Tokyo is likely now atanend,leavingtheteamevent as her singular target if she is to beat the odds and make the third Olympics of her storied career.
“I won’t be able to get enough
quality hurdles session in before the summer even if everything goes to plan,” she confirmed.
“I’m confident I’ll be at the trials. But it’s going to be about doing what I need. I can’t get access to a pool to go aqua jogging. I’m on the bike. I’m on the Reformer. I’m in the gym. I’m doingasmuchasican.but,ultimately,ican’trun,whichiswhat
I need. I’m doing everything in mypowertobereadybutiwon’t be in spectacular shape.”
Doyle will divert some of her spare time to her role as a trustee of the newly-constituted Athletics Trust Scotland, a charitable spin-off from Scottish Athletics that will aim to raisefundsandboostthesport’s reachandimpactatgrassroots.
However, as soon as the green
lightisgiven,shewillthrowherself into her Tokyo plans and keep fingers and repaired toes crossed that there is enough races to ease her quickly back into the fray following a longerthan-expectedmaternityleave.
“We’vegotawhatsappgroup toleteveryoneelseknowwhere we’reracing,sowecangetsome good competitions,” she said. “Even if I could get one or two
races in that would be good.
“I didn’t get to race before the Commonwealthgamesin2018 and still got silver but the last timei’veracednowwas2019.i’d love if we could even get one in Scotland so we don’t even have to travel.
“But even if I race at trials, I could hopefully come on after that before the Games themselves.”