Laura Muir has a bigger goal ahead of ’emotional’ Glasgow homecoming

In the depths of winter, the bell would signal time for Muir to hastily lace up her cross-country spikes and make the short trip down to the school playing fields. By the time the rugby and hockey teams would arrive soon after, and switch the floodlights on for their afternoon practice amid the gloom, they would be greeted by the slight figure of Muir churning up mud, illuminated only by the headlights from her devoted mother Alison’s car.

A solitary young girl sowing the seeds for an athletics career that has so far seen her win an Olympic silver, three world medals indoors and outdoors, and more than half a dozen European titles.

This summer, she will attempt to upgrade that superb second-place 1,500m finish from the Tokyo Games when the Olympics go to Paris. But before then, there is business to attend to in the city she called home for the best part of a decade until relocating last year.

Ifthis weekend’s World Indoor Championshipswere not taking place in Glasgow, Muir admits she would happily have skipped them. But the chance to compete at such a prestigious event so close to the place that moulded her into the athlete and 30-year-old woman she has become, was too appetising a prospect to forego.

“It’s such a huge opportunity as we’ve never had a global track championships in Scotland before,” she says. “I didn’t think I would ever get this opportunity and I don’t know if I will again in the rest of my career.

“There’s a really big emotional attachment to it because it is like home, essentially. But I think it’s just really important, as well, because I want to inspire the next generation, and where better to do it than in Scotland on a track that I have trained at? That’s huge.”