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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Jacob Murtagh

Eilish McColgan breaks Paula Radcliffe's 19-year-old European and British 10km record

Eilish McColgan broke Paula Radcliffe's 19-year-old European and British 10km record by just two seconds in Sunday's Great Manchester Run.

The Asics athlete came within a whisker of the feat at the Vitality 10k in London earlier this month when she ran 30:23, which was enough to break her mum, Liz's Scottish record.

However, McColgan finally surpassed Radcliffe's long-standing effort with a time of 30:19 in Manchester, with her decision to delay her track season paying off as she finished second to Kenyan Hellen Obiri.

The 31-year-old from Dundee told Athletics Weekly : “I’m obviously over the moon with that time. I didn’t think I would get it today as it was a little bit of a tougher course than London.

“Hellen [Obiri] and Ruth [Chepng’etich] went off so fast and that pace was just too quick for me, I think they were running world record pace at one point!

“I had to keep telling myself that I was running fast and I had to keep going. To run a personal best, a national record and to be that close to Hellen, I’m really happy today.

“London was a good experience that it gave me a lot of confidence that I could run the record. Today was a different way of running where I went off hard and it was tough to keep that going but I think I’m so much stronger this year that I knew that even though I was tired I could keep going in that final 2km.

Eilish McColgan also set a new British 5km record at the Asics META: Time: Trials event last month (Eilish McColgan also set a new British 5km record at the Asics META: Time: Trials event last month)

“She [Paula Radcliffe] just said ‘congrats’ and it just feels crazy and it’s very surreal. We’re in a new generation and there are new shoes now involved but I’ve certainly moved on from last year and I don’t quite have the words to say how happy I am.”

McColgan's latest achievement follows on from her new British 5k record at the Asics META: Time: Trials event last month.

She broke her own record set in the UAE back in February to post a time of 14:45 in Malaga, Spain.

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