Scots athlete of year a female again as Olympians make shortlist

Published on 10/10/2012 01:57

Scotland’s Athlete of the Year will once again be a woman.

It is no surprise, with all five of Scotland’s track and field representatives at the 2012 Olympics being females, as the likes of Mark Dry and Andrew Lemoncello missed out. Three of those five Team GB members now complete the short-list for the award, which will be presented at the Scottishathletics annual dinner in Glasgow this month.

Olympians Eilidh Child, Freya Murray Ross and Lynsey Sharp are the women in contention for the prestigious title after being picked by a special selection panel acting for the governing body of the sport in Scotland. All three have strong claims on the title, which 800m specialist Sharp won last year and which was held by hurdler Child in 2010, when she won Commonwealth Games silver in Delhi. This season, Child set a Scottish record for 400m hurdles when running a PB ahead of her first Olympics; Murray Ross was the best-placed British women’s marathon runner at London 2012 after being catapulted into the event at the 11th hour; Sharp won the UK title and a European Championship silver medal during a truly memorable summer.

In the Under-20 short-list, all three featured in the World Juniors in Barcelona in July. Emily Dudgeon was sixth in the 800m final, Laura Muir had qualified directly for the 3,000m final while Nick Percy finished eighth in the discus after setting a Scottish age group record (59.53m) earlier in the season.

Six other athletes feature on the short-lists for the Under-18 Athlete of the Year – Lewis Boyle, John McCall and Kimberley Reed – and the Masters Athlete of the Year award – Fiona Matheson, Angela Mudge and Kerry-Liam Wilson.

The Para Athlete of the Year award has been sponsored this year by Haven, a social enterprise company that employs people with a disability. The short-list will be announced in due course.

Paralympic icon David Weir is the guest of honour at the annual awards dinner and will make the presentations on Saturday
27 October in Glasgow.