Champion runner stripped of 10,000m record after it was discovered track was too short

A Scottish championship runner has been stripped of her 10,000-metre record after officials discovered the course was marked a tad too short.

Eilish McColgan, who also secured the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games earlier this year in the 10,000-metre event, broke her own record at the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow.

She completed the course with a time of 30 minutes and 18 seconds, beating her previous time by one second.

Skully / Alamy

However, it wasn’t meant to be as lo and behold human error by the race’s organisers proved to be costly.

The officials decided to double-check the length of the circuit and realised there was about 150 metres missing from the 10,000m course.

A pretty vital mistake to make considering it completely invalidated McColgan’s time and saw her new record stripped.

Despite having her accolade rescinded McColgan wasn’t overly devastated and even jokingly put some of the blame on herself.

She told BBC Scotland: “Human errors happen. The organisers have been so apologetic. They feel very embarrassed.

"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 in all honesty.

"Yes it would have been nice to finish my season on a personal best and another record, but for me it is not the end of the world.

"I'm sure that are loads of races around the world that aren't measured correctly and the only reason this one has been highlighted is because I broke a record.

“So I've probably given the organisers a headache."

Kay Roxby / Alamy

And ultimately she wasn’t overly surprised when she received the call that the race was indeed short.

She added: “My gut feeling was that it was short. I crossed the line and said straight away to my partner 'I think that is out by about 15 or 20 seconds.

"It's not a huge amount, but 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’s the second time in the space of six years that the Great Scottish Run has fallen short by about 150m in distance.

In 2016 the error invalidated the record set for the men’s half marathon by Scotsman Callum Hawkins who ran a time of 1:03:35.