Paris preview: how Highland heroes are helping Megan for Olympics

Monday 29th July 2024

Neil’s Eric Liddell Trophy link and Jake all set for 800m

To say Inverness Harriers are proud of their first-ever Olympian, Megan Keith, might be something of an under-statement.

The club’s home at Queens Park is already bedecked with ‘Good Luck Megan‘ banners draped around the outside of the track.

Come the day of the Women’s 10,000m Olympic final on Friday 9 August, a ‘watch party’ is planned by the Harriers for 100 guests while Megan will be cheered on in person by an Inverness contingent of family and friends in the Stade de France.

Torvean parkrun even had a special visitor for their 100^th edition recently to suggest the whole running community locally is relishing the moment.

But it is a much smaller group of Highland helpers who have been putting in the hard yards on the local track to assist Megan.

Scotland International Stephen Mackay; Lucas Cairns, son of Megan’s coach Ross; and three athletes from East Sutherland, Shaun Cumming, Blair Mackay and Gordon Lennox, are among the unsung heroes of this Olympic debut.

To those we can add: Harriers duo Luke Davidson and Donnie MacDonald; North-based Shettleston Harriers athlete Lachlan Oates; James Wilson of Moray Road Runners; and marathon runner Nikki Johnstone (on holiday from Germany). Talk about #SALtogether ethos.

‘I’ve been in the Highlands all summer,’ said Megan.

‘I think most endurance athletes headed for the Olympics are in the Alps or something like that but we’ve put together the programme we felt suited me best. We are making it work.

‘A number of guys (from various clubs) have been helping me in track sessions and that has been imperative in what we trying to do.

‘They have dragged me around that track quite a lot to be honest. They might be slower for 10k on paper but that’s not how it has felt! It has been very helpful as we’ve tried to get me in the shape to contend with the best women in the world.

‘People at Inverness Harriers are excited and I am hearing about a planned gathering for 100 folk to watch the race together. It’s great that the Olympics generate that excitement.’

Youngsters at the club have thus had a close-up of the training by the modest superstar which Megan has become. A bronze medal at the European Champs in Rome merely underlined that status.

The challenge in Paris will be much tougher than European-level, however.

‘It is going to be very tough, probably hot conditions and facing the very best in the world,’ added Megan, who of course has key support from Edinburgh Uni and a training group in the capital at other points of the year.

‘The level will be a couple of notches above the Europeans in Rome, where I won my first international medal at a Senior athlete. Italy was a good experience and I was at the front end of the race.

‘But I am looking forward to the huge challenge of the Olympics. I’ve been based in Inverness and been in the sauna a fair bit working there to try and replicate conditions but it is difficult.

‘The Stade de France stadium is huge and I imagine the atmosphere will be electric . . . but I have raced some very big venues now.’

Megan’s emergence over the past five years has simply bolstered an already strong Scottish endurance elite. Now part of nine athletes selected for Paris 2024, she feels it is ‘normal’ to have fellow Scots on GB and NI teams at major events.

‘It is all I’ve known being in athletics at Scotland (a so-called Golden Age),’ Megan told Charles Bannerman for BBC in Inverness.

‘I’ve been around it for five years probably from U17. I do not know any different but it is amazing the level our top Scots are performing at.

‘It is very cool to be part of something like that and you hope the ‘legacy’ can be maintained in the years to come. It is brilliant but as I say for me it feels normal.’