LONDON – Eilish McColgan’s latest European and British 10,000m records set at the Great Scottish Run earlier this month have been invalidated after the Glasgow course was found to be 150m short, organisers said.
Commonwealth Games champion McColgan had finished the Oct. 2 race in 30 minutes and 18 seconds but organisers said the course was “not laid out in line with the previously agreed plans” and apologised to the Scottish runner as well as the participants.
“The shortfall in the distance was wholly due to human error,” the statement read according to Reuters. “We will be reviewing our internal processes to ensure we cannot make this mistake again.”
McColgan remains the European and British record holder after setting both times at the Great Manchester Run in May.
The 31-year-old, who followed in her mother’s footsteps by winning Commonwealth Games gold in August, also picked up a silver in the 5,000m in Birmingham as well as two European Championship medals in Munich later that month.
“Human errors happen. The organisers have been so apologetic. They feel very embarrassed,” McColgan told the BBC.
“But I have no bad words to say. I only ran a second faster in Glasgow than in Manchester earlier this year so it doesn’t really change my year.
“My gut feeling was that it was short… I am used to running 10ks – I know pace and I know distance, and that to me did not feel like a 30:18. It did not feel that pace. So it didn’t come as a huge surprise to me.”
It is the second time the Great Scottish Run has had a discrepancy in the distance of the race, with the half marathon course in 2016 also found to be almost 150m short.
Paul Foster, chief executive of the Great Run Company, said: “We were recently made aware of a discrepancy with the 10k course at this year’s Great Scottish Run. Following an internal investigation, we have established it was 150m short.
“The shortfall in the distance was wholly due to human error. An area of the course was not laid out in line with the previously agreed plans.
“This error had a marginal knock-on to the half marathon, but it was within tolerance and the course on the day was valid.
Elsewhere, Polish athlete Jakub Krzewina has been suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for 15 months for violating the whereabouts rules, the Polish Anti-Doping Agency (POLADA) said.
Krzewina, who was part of Poland’s 4x400m relay team that won gold at the 2018 indoor world championships in Birmingham, was found to have violated the whereabouts rules three times in 12 months, the statement said.
The sanction was imposed by CAS.
