McColgan 10km record ruled out due to Great Scottish Run short course

British and European record of 30:18 set in Glasgow will no longer stand after Great Scottish Run course is found to be 150 meters short.

Runners who tackled 10km in the Great Scottish Run on October 2 have found that their times are invalid after the course was discovered to be 150m short. These include Eilish McColgan, who set a British record of 30:18.

The apologetic organizers say runners who did the event in Glasgow this month can have a 10% discount on their entry to the event next year.

It was McColgan’s final race of a busy and successful 2022 season. She is now on holiday in Egypt and was told of the news by Great Scottish Run organizers – the Great Run Company – before their chief executive, Paul Foster, put out a statement saying: “We were recently made aware of a discrepancy with the 10km 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.”

At the same Great Scottish Run event in 2016 Callum Hawkins’ Scottish half-marathon record of 60:24 was also ruled out after the route was found to be 149.7m short of the full 13.1-mile distance.

On this month’s event, Foster continued: “We are extremely disappointed that this happened at the 10km on what was an incredibly positive return to the city for the Great Scottish Run following the pandemic.

“This error invalidates Eilish McColgan’s European and British 10km records that were believed to have been set that day. We have been in touch with Eilish directly and to apologize.

“We will be reviewing our internal processes to ensure we cannot make this mistake again.

“We know we’ve let out customers down on this occasion. There are no excuses for this happening and we’re very sorry. We’ll be in touch with everyone who took part in the 10km offering a 10% discount into the 2023 event.”

posted Wednesday October 19th
by Jason Henderson