LAURA Muir reckons discovering her arrogant streak can help her make up for her Olympic disappointment with a World Championship medal next year.

The 23-year-old capped off a remarkable year on Sunday, when she was named Scotland’s athlete of the year for the second successive time.

The Perthshire racer became just the third British woman to claim a Diamond League title and also broke the 12-year-old UK 1,500m record held by Dame Kelly Holmes in July, before setting an even quicker time a month later.

It is those kind of performances that have finally convinced Muir she belongs in the same field as the world’s best middle-distance runners.

However, her recent achievements have been left tinged with regret after her debut Olympics failed to produce the medal she had been dreaming of.

But with the Indoor European Championships pencilled in for next March ahead of the World Championships in London in August, Muir hopes her new-found self-belief will stop her missing out again in 2017.

She said: “Everything went well last year, apart from the one big race.

“The way I have been running and the times I’ve been putting in has given me so much confidence and people have been noticing that.

“Each race that I’ve done well in over the last couple of years just boosts that confidence more and more. I’m getting more confident about the way I’m running and how I attack races.

“Before I’d stand on the start line looking at the other girls thinking: ‘Oh, she is really fast and so is she.’ I was probably feeling a wee bit intimidated and that I didn’t really belong there.

“Now when the gun goes I’m thinking: ‘Right I’m one of the best, so let’s do this.’

“Is it about having an arrogant streak? I think it is. If you’re going to do well you have to have that mentality that you are going to race well. I always now try to have that positive attitude.”

Muir added she was surprised to reclaim her athlete of the year prize, especially after seeing Team GB colleague Eilidh Doyle win Olympic bronze in the 4x400m relay.

The veterinary student from Milnathort had been dreaming of medal triumph herself in Brazil but saw her ambitions fall apart down the final stretch.

She managed to put herself in the mix for the podium with half of the race remaining.

But the lightening pace of Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba blew Muir’s game plan apart before Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon of Kenya eventually surged to victory, leaving the Scot to trudge home in seventh.

Muir, though, is already eyeing up the World Championships as her chance for redemption.

Reflecting on her Rio setback, Muir said: “I remember that with 700m to go Dibaba just put the foot down so I just thought: ‘I’m going with this.’

“But with 250m to go I just felt the legs going and fell off. It was pretty horrible but there was nothing I could do about it.

“I ran as hard as I could to the line and still came seventh, but I’m proud of that for my first Olympics.

“I still took a lot of positives from that. I did everything right in terms of my race plan. You just can’t influence what other people are doing in that kind of environment.

“I left everything out on the track, so I was actually okay with how it finished. But missing out on a medal in such a big event like that is driving me on to get one next year.

“I know I’m capable of it. It’s just about doing it on the day.

“A medal at London next year is definitely realistic. I came fifth in the World Championships last year and I’m ranked second this year, so if things continue and I’m not disrupted by injuries I should be in that top three, which is where I want to be.”


Racing: Jim Crowley is home but Frederik Tylicki still in intensive care