Neil Gourley insists the bumps in the road have made him stronger, and more determined to turn the track in Budapest into his golden mile.
The Glaswegian, 28, is set to touch down in the Hungarian capital today ahead of Saturday’s big kick-off at the world athletics championships where he’ll join fellow Scot Josh Kerr in the heats of the 1500 metres on the opening night.
It’s been a road less travelled for the Stateside-based star who claimed his first major medal with silver at March’s European indoors.
Along the way, Gourley’s had to battle with being axed from funding by UK Athletics because he didn’t rocket immediately into the middle-distance elite, along with losing his deal with Nike before rivals Under Armour happily stepped into the void.
How wrong the doubters were. After missing the Tokyo Olympics due to injury, the Giffnock product dusted himself down and accelerated into the elite but he won’t be screaming told-you-so if he returns home next week with a prize around his neck.
He said: “I don't feel like the sport owes me anything in particular. I feel really lucky to have gotten where I've got. Because if you told me in my teenage years that I would do anything like I've done in my career, I wouldn't have believed it. It's a real privilege to be in the position I am.
“I was hoping to maybe just compete for Scotland one day. But we've gone way past that. And obviously, the targets change the more progress you make and I've got such an appetite for that.
“But it hasn't felt like a slog. There’s been challenges, it makes it all that more satisfying when you do overcome those.”
He’s arriving in the form of his life following the personal best of 3:30.60 at last month’s Diamond League leg in London that left him as the sixth-quickest Brit of all time in the metric mile.
Only global medallists lie ahead on a list topped by Mo Farah. Coe and Cram just in front. Then the absent defending champion Jake Wightman and Kerr, the other two parts of the Tartan Trio who are pushing each other all the way, all over the world.
Ending up as best Brit in Budapest isn’t the goal here, Gourley underlines. “I don't think it's really a bragging rights thing,” he said. “If everyone was to focus on beating Josh, there's just so many other people to worry about. He's obviously one of the main players at the world level right now. But there's so many athletes are at such a high level.
“I'm not focusing on the domestic battles by any stretch. It's more that he's one of many people that’s going to make it very difficult to be a world champion.”
Head of the pack- and hot favourite – will be Jakob Ingebrigtsen with Norway’s tattooed titan still smarting from his shock loss to Wightman in Oregon 12 months ago. The European record holder, who took gold at the Tokyo Olympics with Kerr bagging bronze, will take some stopping. But as his compatriot showed in his history run, there is no such thing as fully invincible.
“It's a slightly different environment in the championship with three rounds,” Gourley declared. “There's more variables. And also there's no pacemakers, which is a big difference. So Jakob is more vulnerable, as we saw with Jake last year. That was the only time Jakob did lose. But it's still an enormous task to beat him.
“I was on his shoulder with 150m to go at European indoors and didn't manage to get around. But I would still back myself on a different occasion. I'd love to put myself in the same position in Budapest. And if I was there with 150 to go, I'd have a great chance.”
