Scotland Has Talent – Steve Cram

Thursday 17th April 2014

Steve Cram at press conference in Moscow

Steve Cram believes there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful about the future of athletics in Scotland.

The BBC commentator has been appointed to an advisory capacity by UK Athletics to work for Head of Endurance, Barry Fudge.

Cram will have a mentor role for Scottish athletes and coaches and says the ‘unpaid post’ merely formalises help he had already been giving to the likes of Laura Muir’s coach, Andy Young.

With no fewer than nine different athletes achieving Glasgow 2014 standards at various events last weekend, numbers for Scotland’s potential track and field team for the Commonwealth Games is growing by the month.

And Cram is optimistic about some of the young talent emerging and the impact of the Games themselves

I watched events in Scotland a few years ago and there were some impressive youngsters like Chris O’Hare, the Hawkins lads Callum and Derek, Eilish McColgan, Beth Potter and Lynsey Sharp.

‘And now Laura Muir is doing incredibly well. Scotland at the minute definitely has talent.

‘I remember going to see my son compete at the Inter-Counties and one of the Scotland teams won the Under-15 boys titles. That wouldn’t be the usual but those lads are starting to come through, like Chris.

‘That encourages others to come in and you hope the Games themselves will do that. If Scottish athletes are in contention, and maybe winning medals, that would be fantastic.

‘My role now is about trying to enhance what we do within the endurance community.

‘It’s a bit different to other events in athletics – we are looking at everything from fell running to 10,000 metres, half-marathons, 10ks on the road.

‘It’s not just about the funded athletes who win medals. A lot of the focus has been around that but itís about looking about what we can do to enhance that community.’

*There is a blog post from Steve here and we will have a full interview in next edition of PB

Tags: 10000m, Chris O'Hare, Glasgow 2014, Steve Cram