Jake Wightman, Laura Muir and Eilish McColgan all competed at Glasgow 2014 and are nonetheless among the many world’s elite as we progress by way of the summer season of 2026.
There’s an image that retains popping up on Jake Wightman’s telephone. “It’s of me and Neil Gourley competing on the Scottish Beneath-18 Championships at Scotstoun,” he says. “We’re first and second and the image is from 2011. That’s psychological, is not it? It is now 15 years in the past, and we’ll be competing once more alongside one another, however for a really completely different spectacle.”
Totally different, sure, however no much less keenly fought. The pair, together with Josh Kerr, will type a Scottish trio going seeking Commonwealth gold in opposition to some top-class opposition over the lads’s mile in Glasgow and it’s apt for Wightman that he will likely be racing in one in all athletics’ traditional occasions that has such a depth of historical past. This championships has echoes and connections to his personal private previous working proper by way of it.
The event additionally serves as an illustration of how far he has come and what he has achieved. The final time Wightman stood on the beginning line at a Commonwealth Video games in Glasgow, in 2014, he was the reigning European U20 1500m champion and getting his first style of competing at a significant senior championships.
A variety of miles have been coated since then and this time he arrives with a world title, a world silver, in addition to European and Commonwealth medals, safely banked from a profession that has already prolonged past what the 31-year-old had anticipated.
If it have been to all finish tomorrow, he would retire completely satisfied along with his achievements and the subsequent few championships, he says, signify “free hits” at including to his record of honours. However Wightman is a aggressive animal. A championships animal. You don’t get to stay round on the prime degree for the size of time that he has with out having one thing further. And he’s not the one member of his crew to whom these standards apply.
He’s a member of an elite membership of Scottish athletes who competed at these earlier Glasgow Video games 12 years in the past and can now be doing so once more on the 2026 version. His outdated associates, Laura Muir and Eilish McColgan, harm allowing, can say the identical – of their case as reigning Commonwealth champions.
Wightman has recognized each for years. He remembers a time from his youth when Eilish’s mom and coach – the previous Commonwealth and world 10,000m champion Liz: “Picked me as much as take me to the [Scottish] East District Championships. I’d have been round 15. I additionally did the Junior Nice North Run as soon as as a child, and Eilish got here previous me, so I’ve recognized her for a really very long time.”
He has nothing however respect for an athlete who has all the time carried a weight of expectation given her high-achieving dad and mom – her father Peter was a world steeplechaser as nicely – and hasn’t been afraid to place herself on the road throughout a wide range of occasions from 800m by way of to the marathon, profitable main medals, breaking information and reaching 4 Olympics alongside the best way.
“I really feel like she’s used that as a constructive,” Wightman says of the McColgan dynasty. “It positively implies that folks know Eilish as a result of they bear in mind Liz and have adopted Eilish’s journey from a younger age due to it. The vary of occasions that she’s been in a position to be tremendous profitable over is essentially the most spectacular factor. Going again to 2012, how many individuals from these Olympics would make this Commonwealth Video games? It is a large, large profession, and he or she’s nonetheless acquired plenty of years that she will be able to hold working so nicely over the marathon if she needs to as nicely.”
One of many standout moments of the 2022 Video games in Birmingham got here when McColgan emulated her mom by profitable 10,000m gold, a feat she adopted by profitable 5000m silver.
Not talked about fairly so continuously is the truth that Muir additionally left Birmingham with two medals – 1500m gold and 800m bronze – only a matter of days after having gained 1500m bronze on the World Championships in Eugene.
“I might have first met Laura in 2013 after we went to Portugal on a Scottish Athletics camp,” says Wightman of the two-time European 1500m champion outside, who will likely be racing over 5000m in Glasgow. “She made her first [British team for the world championships] that 12 months. Individuals generally do not give her sufficient credit score, particularly when you may have Georgia [Hunter Bell] getting medals the final couple of years over 1500m and 800m. You overlook that Laura was doing that 12 months after 12 months for an enormous, huge interval. And she or he was doing it in an period the place there have been, dare I say it, some questionable athletes.
“It’s additionally an period the place folks have been simply performing outrageously in comparison with the remainder of the sphere and he or she was the one which was bridging the hole to them. In case you put Laura perhaps even 5 years earlier, she in all probability would have had a couple of extra wins and much more medals than she has. It was simply ridiculous who she was racing in opposition to.
“She has nonetheless acquired it in her. It is simply that now she’s going to need to run faster than she ever has earlier than, as a result of that is the character of 1500m. Or maybe she’s acquired a profession over 5000m and that is only a new chapter for her.”
Megan Keith is a fellow member of Group Scotland who at the moment sits on the different finish of the expertise scale. The 24-year-old has made it to an Olympic Video games and two World Championships however solely started the swap cross nation to trace and highway racing 4 years in the past. This will likely be her Commonwealth debut. However the influence Muir and McColgan have had on her has been profound. When requested about each, there’s a sure reverence to her solutions.
“I shared a room with Laura at a race lately and he or she was reminiscing about competing at Glasgow 2014 and I used to be reminiscing about ending main college!” laughs Keith.
“It’s fairly surreal. The primary time you’d see them can be on TV after which we have been additionally very fortunate to get to see Laura and Jemma [Reekie] working up shut, as a result of they’d come to Scottish cross nation races.
“That was fairly eye-opening for me, as a result of I’d battle to piece collectively that these actually cool, quick athletes that you just’re impressed by truly exist. So the truth that they’d then flip as much as the identical races made you realise that they are truly actual folks.
“I raced Laura on the Scottish quick course cross nation throughout my first time within the senior race in 2021 and that transition was simply such a surreal expertise. I knew she was working on a very completely different degree from the remainder of us however, being the naive racer I can generally be, I nonetheless did my greatest to completely take it. It was 4km over two 2km laps, and I believe I went absolute eyeballs out on the primary lap, then seemed over my shoulder and he or she was nonetheless jogging!
“I did not actually know any completely different, apart from to try to beat anybody I used to be racing into the bottom. I wasn’t underneath any illusions that she was beatable earlier than however you are simply so conscious that it is a completely different degree to be working at.”
Keith admits she has witnessed different methods by which Muir has set an instance for her, too.
“I do not suppose I’ve essentially gone looking for recommendation [from her], however she’s only a cool particular person to have round. I am certain subconsciously I soaked issues up from my first senior world championships on the monitor in Budapest. Laura was crew captain, she did her personal race after which simply fully threw herself into the captain’s position.
“The 5000m warmth was [the morning] after she had raced, so then she was down on the warm-up monitor in full captain mode. There’s all the time a distinct vibe primarily based on who’s performing in that position, however she made herself out there and completely satisfied to supply assist. My response was to get a photograph along with her however, in hindsight, perhaps I ought to have requested for some recommendation on find out how to make it out of the warmth!”
After which there’s McColgan, who provided a literal shoulder to cry on when the Olympic 10,000m ultimate that Keith had battled by way of an ankle harm to achieve didn’t go to plan for her in Paris two years in the past.
“Whether or not it is to my detriment or not, I be taught by doing after which assessing, however I believe it is simply actually particular to have these ladies as folks to look as much as, or additional down the pathway,” says the European bronze medallist. “Even when I am not essentially selecting their brains or utilizing them in a mentorship kind of place, I believe simply having the ability to see what what might lie forward is actually helpful, as a result of it may be straightforward to get so honed in on the place you might be, to overlook to search for and take into consideration the larger image or the steps forward. They have been there and accomplished it.”
The larger image for Keith includes her personal degree rising to such an extent that she changed McColgan as European record-holder for 10km earlier this 12 months, trimming a second from her fellow Scot’s mark with a time of 30:07.
She has been a quick learner since that “half-hearted” try and qualify for Birmingham 2022 tempted her on to the monitor and, only in the near past, broke the Scottish document for 3000m in Oslo. But it doesn’t look like she’s about to start out getting carried away.
“I see Eilish as miles above me,” says Keith, who will race together with McColgan over 10,000m at Scotstoun. “I did not essentially see it as breaking one in all her information, though I assume it was a European document. I nonetheless have Eilish on a whole pedestal. She’s nonetheless the highest class of world and European highway working, so it’s kind of humorous to have had that document for a really quick time. I believe I’ve nonetheless acquired work to do to problem her.”
Any athlete in a Scottish vest can anticipate to have the total consideration of the group at Scotstoun in coming weeks and Keith is desiring to get pleasure from each second.
“I believe the stress will likely be placed on externally, and I am unable to management that, however internally I do know that I do my greatest after I’m as carefree as I might be going into it, which is my pure state,” she says. “You possibly can let an event overwhelm you, or you should utilize it to deliver out your greatest, and that is completely what I will be aiming for. Will probably be a championships like no different, hopefully.”
It will be no shock, nevertheless, if there’s an additional heat to the cheers for McColgan, Muir and Wightman as they get pleasure from one final Commonwealth hurrah. The appreciation proven will likely be as a lot for deeds previous as what they obtain this time round. Every have their very own classes to show, however what’s the widespread consider having the ability to construct an athletics profession of such longevity?
“A variety of it comes all the way down to the truth that you’ve acquired to place your working above anything,” says Wightman. “That is an enormous factor. Doing every thing you probably can to be nearly as good as you might be additionally includes so many boring little bits, and there’s a bit little bit of luck concerned, too, however mentally you have to have a fireplace in you that does not exit very simply.
“Laura and Eilish have each had intervals the place you don’t get the success you need, or have summers the place you are sidelined or disrupted, and it is the way you bounce again by way of that that I believe is a testomony to how lengthy you possibly can hold your profession going.”
Wightman has additionally had greater than his justifiable share of harm distress to beat and, whereas 2023 world champion Kerr is honing in on a pursuit of the mile world document in London beforehand, the newly-crowned British 800m champion has opted as an alternative to maintain himself as recent as potential for the Commonwealth ultimate that will likely be staged on the ultimate day of competitors. A gold medal, he admits, can be a somewhat good parting present.
He has two Commonwealth 1500m bronze medals, from 2018 and 2022, and that third place behind Olli Hoare and Timothy Cheruiyot from 4 years in the past nonetheless grates. It’s a title he feels was winnable however there have been simply 9 days between Wightman having the win of his life with that world title in Eugene and him lining up for the Commonwealth heats within the West Midlands. The preparation was maybe lower than superb.
“I look again and I am proud that it was a bronze – I might have gotten nothing from it and on the time I used to be actually relieved to get one thing – however I additionally suppose it could have been good to have gained that,” he says, “And that’s why these Glasgow Video games are so essential, as a result of it’s my final Commies. It will be good to go and get a title as nicely.”
However there’s extra to it than that.
“It’s so cool that we are the ones that signify Scotland, and we’re additionally those that make international finals as nicely,” he provides. “However you do not get the possibility to do it fairly often, so it is an opportunity to showcase how good a interval that is for Scotland. In idea it needs to be the nationwide sport, nearly, as a result of I believe in case you have a look at the chances of medals at international championships from Scottish athletes, certainly athletics is ridiculously excessive in comparison with every other sport and generally I do not suppose it’s that appreciated.
“So whenever you get to go to a Video games, it is an opportunity to truly showcase that and the typical viewer who would not watch athletics usually can see these Scottish vests. However primarily it’s an opportunity to provide again to what Scotland has accomplished to us. We have been produced by the golf equipment there and produced by the system, so then it is an opportunity to provide again to that, to say how good a job [they did] across the alternatives we got as children to have the ability to get to the purpose we’re at at present.”
In case you have been questioning, it was Wightman who got here out on prime in opposition to Gourley, 4:02.21 to 4:03.47, in that 1500m race a decade and a half in the past. You think one other one-two end at Scotstoun would go down somewhat nicely.
