Eilish wins BT Sport, Sunday Times awards; Laura and Jake BMC titles

Friday 18th November 2022

Eilish lands BT Sport Action Woman of Year award

Awards season is in full swing . . . and Scottish athletes are ‘smashing it’ to collect all manner of accolades and honours.

The trio of Laura Muir, Eilish McColgan and Jake Wightman went head-to-head for our own 4J Athlete of the Year title – with Jake the winner – and all three continue to make headlines across our sport.

Let’s start with Eilish McColgan being crowned BT Sport Action Woman of the Year at the broadcaster’s annual awards ceremony in London on Wednesday evening.

After a superb 2022 season which saw her come away with four medals from the major Championships and Games this summer, the Scottish athlete was a highly popular and deserving winner of the BT Sport accolade – presented by Clare Balding.

For this award, she had to see competition from five other inspiring nominees, including Beth Mead (Football), Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix (Diving), Hannah Cockroft OBE (Athletics), Molly McCann (MMA) and fellow Scot Eve Muirhead OBE (Curling).

Yet Eilish won the public vote in an historic year for women’s sport.

Your 2022 #ActionWoman is @EilishMccolgan ?? pic.twitter.com/gIYxDxPZcJ

— BT Sport (@btsport) November 16, 2022

Few will forget the August night at the Alexander Stadium as the 31-year-old somehow dug deep to outsprint Kenya’s Irine Cheptai on the final lap of the 10,000m to secure a sensational gold medal for Scotland, and match her mum Liz’s achievement from 1986 and 1990.

A 5000m silver added to a stunning Commonwealth Games for the Dundee Hawkill athlete as she contributed event further to Team Scotland’s medal haul in Birmingham.

She added to her success in the UK as she returned just over a week later to seal two further medals at the European Championships in Munich.

*Eilish has also won the top title at the Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year awards.

It’s another fantastic honour for the Scot as she collected a trophy won by Emma Raducanu in 2021.

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World medallists Laura and Jake in America in the summer . . . now they have won the BMC Athlete of the Year awards for 2022

The British Milers Club (BMC) have handed Laura Muir and Jake Wightman their main senior athlete awards.

Muir, who won European and Commonwealth 1500m titles in addition to world 1500m bronze, finished ahead of Calli Thackery for the BMC award, while world 1500m champion Jake Wightman took the men’s prize from runner-up Ben Pattison.

Laura used the BMC circuit to post an early-season 800m time of 1:57.23 – a BMC women’s record in a mixed race – at Trafford.

Jake for his part raced at the BMC Indoor Grand Prix in Sheffield last winter over 3000m, where he finished a close second to Ossama Meslek in 7:50.97.

Elsewhere on the BMC circuit in 2022, Pattison set a BMC men’s 800m record of 1:44.60 at Trafford in July, while Elliot Giles ran a BMC men’s record of 3:36.26 at the BMC Gold Standard meeting in Watford in August.

Geoff Wightman was named Coach of the Year for guiding Jake to not only global gold ahead of Jakob Ingebrigtsen in Eugene but also European 800m silver and Commonwealth 1500m bronze.

Andy Young was runner-up with Rod Lock earning a lifetime coaching achievement honour and Neville Taylor being awarded the Frank Horwill Award for Services to the BMC.

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Tags: BT Sport, Eilish McColgan, Geoff Wightman, Jake Wightman, Laura Muir, Sunday Times