She is unquestionably the best female athlete ever to emerge from the city of her birth.
Dogged determination and dedication steered Liz McColgan to the very top.
But there has been nothing straightforward about her career progress, whether pounding the mean streets in Dundee or stepping back on a treadmill just weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Eilish.
She even lost her main sponsor, Nike, after revealing she was pregnant, but, whatever trials and tribulations the former Liz Lynch has faced, on her journey from Cheviot Crescent in Dundee to celebrating her 60th birthday in Qatar, she has done it on her own terms.
So, while she might once have appeared on This Is Your Life when she was only 27, that doesn’t mean we can’t take another trip down memory lane and honour one of Scotland’s legends.
After all, when it comes to recording milestones, Liz has boldly gone where no-one from her homeland has gone before.
At the outset, she was the youngest of four siblings in a family led by parents Martin and Betty.
Liz attended Whitfield Primary School and St Saviour’s High School where PE teacher Phil Kearns was a marathon runner.
Phil used to make the class participate in cross-country runs.
Liz was always first back with that trademark determination to be the best she could possibly be.
Liz began her athletics career in 1976
Phil quickly spotted the potential and sent four girls from St Saviour’s to Harry Bennett, head coach at Dundee Hawkhill Harriers.
But only one of them became queen of the world.
Liz shared how it all started in a forgotten speech about her career from 2008.
“We went there three days a week,” she said.
“After a year, I was the only one still at the club.
“I enjoyed the athletics.
“In 1976, I had my first win in the Dundee schools cross-country championship.”
Her talent was obvious.
Harry soon became her trusted mentor, coach, and above all, friend.
“I was the captain of the hockey and volleyball teams,” said Liz.
“I had decided to leave school at 15, but Harry asked me to stay on, stop all my other sports and concentrate on running.
“Instead of training three days a week, he told me that I needed to train for six days a week.”
And she heeded his advice, prepared to pound the streets of Tayside whatever the heavens might throw at her.
Harry accompanied her on a motorbike.
In 1979, aged 16, Liz left school and went to work on a youth training scheme place at H&A Scott textile manufacturers for £23.50 a week.
But that didn’t put a dent in her athletic aspirations.
Instead, she got up at 5.30am, ventured out for a run, worked a full day in the jute factory, met Harry at 6pm and trained again at night.
Running from Whitfield to Wyoming…
She was offered a track scholarship in the US at the age of 18.
Harry gave Liz some of the money for the flight, then an uncle came up with the rest and the die was cast.
Within a week she was on a bus from Dundee to London and thence to America.
When she went to Ricks College in Idaho, Harry wrote to her regularly with training schedules to supplement her work on campus.
But his protégé received shattering news as she was starting to impress her Stateside coaches.
Liz recalled: “Unfortunately, after I had been away for a year, Harry died of a heart attack.
“He never got to see the success that he started, but he put me on the road to that success.”
Thereafter, she won every title that was available at Ricks College.
Liz subsequently progressed to a four-year course in Sports Management and Recreation at the University of Alabama, where she helped the institution secure its very first All-American athletics title.
They were so delighted at Liz’s massive contribution that she was gifted the keys to the local town of Tuscaloosa and lavished with a civic reception.
She returned home to Scotland with a specially-framed letter from one of the most powerful men on the planet
The congratulatory note was on White House paper and signed by Ronald Reagan.
Liz was overcome with emotion in 1986
So while she was a celebrity in Alabama, Liz could walk unrecognised through Dundee.
But her Commonwealth Games win changed all that after she returned to Whitfield.
When she swept to a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games women’s 10,000 metres final in Edinburgh in 1986 – the first time the distance was on the schedule – she became the darling of the Scottish crowd.
For the hosts, it was the highlight of an ill-fated Games, badly affected by an African boycott and appalling weather.
But the tears streamed down Liz’s face as the band played Scotland the Brave and the Scotland flag was raised.
Pupils from Whitfield Primary cheered her on from the classroom.
It was the start of an astonishing period of success and inspirational achievements, on and off the track.
Liz met John Anderson – who later became a referee on TV show Gladiators – after the Games and he coached her for 18 months.
Success followed relentlessly after Edinburgh.
She became the first lady to beat Ingrid Kristiansen in Bali’s richest road race.
Liz won a silver in the 1987 world cross-country championships, and hoovered up a host of British records.
She took Olympic silver in a thrilling 10,000m race in Seoul in 1988 and established a 10km world road record for the next year, before retaining her Commonwealth crown in 1990.
BBC Sports Personality of the Year went to Liz McColgan
In the same year, she gave birth to Eilish, but by March of 1991, was fit enough to finish third at the world cross-country championships in Antwerp.
Then, on a sweltering night in August, Liz gave what Brendan Foster described as “the greatest performance by a male or female British athlete in the history of long distance running” when she won the 10,000 metres World Championship in Tokyo.
Unsurprisingly, she was a runaway winner in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
But still there was no stopping this Dundonian Duracell bunny.
She also won the New York Marathon with the fastest female debut at the distance and, in November 1991, was surprised by Michael Aspel during a dinner to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Grampian Television at the Caird Hall.
“I’m not old enough. I’m not good enough,” she responded.
“But you’ve done quite a lot,” said Aspel.
“World champion Liz McColgan, tonight this is your life.”
The famous opening four notes of the This Is Your Life theme tune boomed.
All the family were present and the programme featured filmed tributes from Deacon Blue, Des Lynam, Kriss Akabusi and Roger Black.
A family affair brought more gold medals
She appeared to be in the form of her life and was widely regarded as the favourite for gold at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
But athletics can be a precarious business.
She finished fifth in the 10,000 metres after struggling with a virus, but did win both the World Half-Marathon Championships and the Tokyo Marathon.
However, the incessant strain on her body was taking its toll.
It took nearly two years before she could run again following a knee operation at Kings Cross Hospital in Dundee.
In 1996 she won the London Marathon and the Great North Run but was left disappointed at the Olympics in Atlanta.
She finished 16th, prior to being diagnosed with arthritis in her feet.
Liz eventually retired from athletics in 1997 but at the age of 40, in 2004, she won the Scottish cross-country title in a short-lived comeback.
Thereafter, she was a coach at Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, and became the chairwoman of Scottish Athletics from 2003 to 2005.
Since then, she has worked with many athletes, including Eilish who emulated her mum by winning at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, ensuring there wasn’t a dry eye in the stadium as the pair embraced at the climax.
And while her daughter ran faster than Liz had done for either of her Commonwealth golds, she freely admitted that she couldn’t have done it without her mum.
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