Great North Run
Date: Sunday, 7 September Course: Newcastle to South Shields
Coverage: Watch live on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport website & app 10:00-14:00 BST; finish line camera on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website & app 11:15-17:15 BST; highlights on BBC Two 18:30-19:30 BST
Eilish McColgan hopes this year’s Great North Run will prove third time lucky after twice going close to emulating her mum with victory.
The 34-year-old Scot beat three-time winner Liz McColgan’s best time on the course from Newcastle to South Shields last year.
But the 2021 runner-up crossed the line five seconds behind winner Mary Ngugi-Cooper in a dramatic six-athlete sprint finish on that occasion.
“Obviously, everyone would love to win. It’s such an iconic race. I’ve watched it from a young age, my mum’s won there, legends of the sport have all won this race,” McColgan told BBC Sport.
“I’ve been so close on both occasions. Ultimately, I’d love to go there and take the win and it would be amazing. But I am very aware that the field is always really strong.”
McColgan will be joined by Kenya’s New York marathon winner Sheila Chepkirui and two-time Great North Run winner Vivian Cheruiyot on Sunday’s start line, alongside 60,000 other runners.
Britain’s 2021 winner Marc Scott faces Kenya’s defending champion Abel Kipchumba, 2024 London Marathon winner Alex Mutiso Munyao and Belgium’s European marathon record holder Bashir Abdi in the elite men’s race.
The elite wheelchair races feature Scotland’s 2024 runner-up Sean Frame, Commonwealth medallist Simon Lawson and Paralympian Mel Nicholls.
It has already been a significant year for McColgan, who ended a two-year wait to make her marathon debut in London in April following knee surgery.
The British 5km, 10km and half marathon record holder, who has spent the past two months training at altitude in Font Romeu, admits that accomplishment felt like a “weight lifted” following a “really difficult” period.
“I just needed to get around a marathon and feel like I could do it, because I didn’t want it to end up becoming more of a mental thing, that I’m always just never quite going to make it to a start line,” said McColgan.
“It was a real confidence boost, knowing it’ll never be as nerve-wracking as that. Now that I’ve done it, it definitely feels like a weight lifted off me and I’m just looking forward to this next marathon build-up. I’ve learned an awful lot.”
