Eilish McColgan’s brave run produces European silver in 10,000m

A fortnight of soaring glories continued for Eilish McColgan as she ran her heart out to take a brave European 10,000m silver for Britain here in Munich.

Once again, the 31-year-old applied the template that had served her so well at the Commonwealth Games this month, pushing to the front early and applying a cobra-like squeeze for lap after painful lap. But this time the Turkish athlete Yasemin Can proved to have a powerful antidote.

With seven laps remaining Can made a decisive move, kicking hard to quickly establish a lead that she never looked like relinquishing before coming home in 30:32.57. But McColgan had enough left in the tank to charge past the Israeli Lonah Chemtai Salpeter on the final lap to take an epic silver in 30:41.05.

Up until the start of this month McColgan had won just two major medals. Now, incredibly, she has won three in the space of 12 days. What made it all the more impressive is that it has come in a year in which she was wiped out for seven weeks due to Covid, and also suffered further illness and minor injuries in the run-up to last month’s world championships, where she finished 10th.

And, as usual, she did it the hard way. After a sedate opening first kilometre, McColgan decided enough was enough and kicked on. Soon the field was strung out and screaming. With 18 of the 25 laps remaining, only four athletes were left in medal contention. And while gold ultimately proved beyond her, this was another impressive performance.

Meanwhile the most powerful story of the evening came from the British 400m runner Laviai Nielsen after she won her heat in a season’s best 51.60sec – and then revealed that, like her twin sister Lina, she has multiple sclerosis.

“I got diagnosed last year, two days