ANDY Butchart is such a kent face these days it is easy to forget how recently the 26-year-old from Dunblane has timed his run. By his own admission, he was awful when he missed out on the Glasgow 2014 team, when he was little more than Scotland’s fifth best 1500m runner.
Yet, having opted for 5000m, he now carries the billing as one of the top eight over that distance in the world. The Scot almost had to be reminded that his bronze medal at the European Cross Country Championships in Slovakia was his first from a major international event.
“It was kind of weird,” Butchart admits. “I felt like I had already won something. Then when I was on the podium I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve never been here before’. Now it is like if I don’t medal, it is disappointing. I need to keep medalling at every championships I go to.”
Butchart, who will race in Glasgow at the Muller Grand Prix in February before making final preparations for April’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, is doing himself a disservice regarding his 2014 levels of performance.
His failure certainly wasn’t for the lack of trying, having based himself in the US in autumn 2013 in a bid to make the team, only to damage ankle ligaments. A similarly speculative journey to Flagstaff in 2016 had a happier ending, as he made his way into the Rio Olympic team and an eventual sixth place finish.
“I thought I was going to make the team in 2014 – I flew myself out to America to try to make the 1500m time,” he said. “Even still, I think I made a step that year that I think a lot of young athletes have to do – just put yourself out there. A lot of them just stay at home and think they aren’t good enough.”
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