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Eilish McColgan’s mother and coach Liz McColgan has hit back at comments on social media about her daughter’s body shape and says they are “demeaning and abusive”.
Eilish McColgan, the current Commonwealth 10,000m champion, posted a video on Instagram of her running on a treadmill as she steps up her preparations for her London Marathon debut in April.
However, the comments were flooded with negativity as trolls questioned whether the 34-year-old had an eating disorder, with some telling the four-time Olympian to “go and eat”.
Liz McColgan, an Olympic 10,000m silver medallist in 1988, highlighted some of those comments on her own post on Instagram.
“Some of the abusive comments Eilish received on one of her running posts,” she said. “We come in all shapes and sizes, they obviously do not understand that being an elite runner brings lower body fat but being an idiot and not fully understanding that your body needs to be fueled properly by eating or your body will not perform especially for marathons.
“Stop the jealousy and abuse of women athletes online by posting ridiculous and stupid comments as above. My concern as a parent is not for Eilish as she is of a strong enough character to deal with these people my concern is for other kids, athletes that are not so strong of character to deal with demeaning and abusive comments on their appearance.”
Eilish McColgan has described an attempt to lower Paula Ratcliffe’s British record on her London Marathon debut on April 27 as “unrealistic”.
She underwent knee surgery in late 2023, only to return for the Paris Olympics in August, but having broken Radcliffe’s 21-year-old British 10k record and improving upon her own British half-marathon record in Berlin, the Scot believes she could beat Ratcliffe’s mark over 26.2 miles at some point.
“Do I think I’m capable of getting down to those times in the future?” she said last month. “Absolutely. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I was. But I’m playing more of a long game, and just taking things month by month and year by year rather than trying to rush things.”
