Hanging up her spikes: we say ‘Thank You’ to Heather Paton

Tuesday 19th March 2024

Heather races for Scotland at the 2022 Commonwealth Games (photo by Bobby Gavin)

Scottish Record holder Heather Paton has taken the decision to end her competitive athletics career.

The hurdler, who represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, follows the likes of Lynsey Sharp and Jack Lawrie into retirement in recent months.

Heather has no fewer than three Scottish Records to her name in the sprint hurdles and being selected for the Commonwealths was a major achievement, too.

When that happened in 2022, she became the first to compete for Scotland in the 100m Hurdles since Pat Rollo in Edinburgh in 1986.

English-based throughout her career, Heather was always hugely proud to represent Scotland via her dad, Billy McGinty. In the 1990s, Billy was a professional Rugby League player with Wigan, Scotland and the British Lions.

Those (still held) Records are:

Outdoors: 100m Hurdles at 13.22 seconds at Hendon in 2019

Indoors: 60m Hurdles at 8.28 seconds on two occasions – Loughborough in 2020 and Birmingham in 2022.

Native Record: 60m Hurdles at 8.34 seconds in Glasgow in 2018.

All at scottishathletics say thanks for the memories to Heather and wish her all the very best for the future.

Final hurdle: Jack Lawrie retires after fine career