8 hours ago
8
The sprint from Mrs Thomson’s primary three class became a slog through the mud in the woods at Callendar Park and soon a spin around college tracks in the USA.
Neil Gourley now has the world at his feet. His pedigree as a 1500m run is the very stuff of greatness. He wants to come home, though, to achieve a victory that would add his signature to a beguiling tale of triumph, resilience and a life lived quietly in the fastest of lanes.
His story has traces of Andy Robertson, Ally McCoist, a grandfather who was playing badminton in his eighties and bedtime reading with a world champion. Gourley tells it with an unassuming and unaffected honesty.
Gourley, who has been pre-selected for the mile race at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year, is part of that extraordinary triumvirate of Scots male 1500 runners that also includes Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr. He does not quite seem to appreciate his fame. He smiles when told that at the Monument Mile in Stirling recently most of the youngsters mentioned him and his Caledonian rivals.
Sitting in a studio in the East End of Glasgow, he has his eyes fully focused on being prepared for Scotstoun next year. At 30, he does not see it as the end of the road, with the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 and the world championships in London a year later piquing his interest.
But he knows how far he has come and Glasgow 2026 offers a spectacular opportunity for an athlete who has failed to make the starting line in two huge events in his native city because of injury.
Neil Gourley will be looking to win the mile race at the Commonwealth Games in his native Glasgow next summer
Neil Gourley celebrates his silver medal in the men's 1500m at the European Indoors in Istanbul in 2023
Scotland's Gourley looks to see how he has fared in semi finals of World Championships in Tokyo earlier this year
So if the Commonwealth Games might not be the finishing tape it is instructive to pinpoint the spot in the suburbs that was the starting line.
It can be definitively stated as the primary three class of Mrs Hilary Thomson at Merrylee. Gourley says: ‘She suggested it would be a good idea to go along to Giffnock North (Athletic Club) after she watched me in a fun run. And she was on to something. Who knows where you end up if that little conversation never takes place?’
It ended up in college in Virginia and podiums across the world. But first there was Callendar Park. At 16, Gourley had decided his future was in athletics. He played football -once against Andy Robertson at secondary school - and rugby but running was his route to elite sport.
‘I have been told I played against Andy but I really can’t remember it,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t getting scouted for football or rugby.’ He does recall Callendar Park and the national cross country under-17 event some 14 years ago.
‘That was a big turning point. I was 16. All winter we had set an unrealistic goal of winning it. At that point I was maybe one of the top 10 in my age group. But Gordon Lockie, my coach, changed the training, basically to do more, take it all more seriously. And it all worked. I won.’
He emerged from the woods in the lead and his family and friends erupted in joy at his performance. He learned an important lesson that has stayed with him.
‘We had committed to a plan. I got hooked on that process: setting up a plan, putting in the work, committing to it, and seeing the result. I had won races before that but that was when I got sold on the sport. I had worked and got my reward for it.’
Gourley chases down Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the 1500m final at the European Indoors in 2023
It also led to his spell at college in Virginia. Gourley was never a ‘chosen child’ of British Athletics in terms of funding. He did the hard yards on the college circuit. Another lesson was learned.
‘I didn’t have my hand held,’ he says. ‘I thought Virginia Tech was the best opportunity for me academically too. I was doing mechanical engineering.
‘I loved it. I had been to the USA as a kid and loved how many different Americas there are. I ended up in a small town. There is the college and that was basically it. Blacksburg had a close-knit, community aspect.’
He had an influential coach too. ‘Ben Thomas made me mentally stronger. I changed because of some of the stuff he instilled in me. It was old school. You didn’t want to let him down. He was measured but he would talk in certainties. It was ‘’We are going to go here and we are going to win’’. Growing up in Scotland, there wasn’t really that attitude.
‘He would say: ‘’We will do this and you will beat people’’.’ Gourley did.
There is pain on the journey but there can be fun too. The 1500m is a punishing event. How does he handle the agony?’
‘If it’s a more tactical race, it really doesn’t hurt until the last lap. If someone decides that they’re going to make it hard from the first metre, like we’ve seen in the championships in recent years, I’d say from about 1200 metres out, so you’re hurting for a good two minutes.
Gourley, far left, with his fellow Scottish running stars Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr in 2022
‘It is hard to describe. Maybe the best way to relate to it would be doing something in the gym where you feel like you’re going to exhaustion and you reach that point and you’ve still got quite a long way to go. Every sort of part of you is screaming: ‘’Stop’’. Your nervous system is activated, your brain’s screaming: ‘’Stop, we’re not enjoying this’’.
‘And you have to fake it, you have to pretend you’re not hurt and you have to force yourself to kind of relax. It’s a counterintuitive thing.’
He believes it is learned through experience but credits his maternal grandfather, Alex Gow, for his endurance. ‘He was playing badminton right up to the week he passed and he was in his eighties so I probably get it from him. My dad was a decent rugby player who could beat people but he was so slow that they could come back to tackle him,’ he says.
The smiles that accompany this observation lead to the serious subject of why Scotland has been blessed with such athletic talent in the 1500m with Laura Muir a consistent wonder on the women’s side. Gourley has been asked this question so often and has given it much thought.
He believes the only link is mental strength as all his peers have individual processes and ways of working. Gourley’s Scots rivals are more likely to provoke a smile rather than a snarl.
‘I was rooming with Jake (Wightman) at the world champs this year and he’s famous for never shutting up. He’s always asking questions. We did this pretend thing every night when both of us were trying to read a book. I think I must have read a page in the entire two weeks I was in Japan because every time I got to open it, he’d ask another question.’
Gourley was reading Ally McCoist’s chronicle of travelling with the Tartan Army while Wightman was opening, if not reading, a story of human trafficking.
‘I find that when people are competing for the same spot at Olympics or world champs, whatever it is, it can be hard sometimes to sort of lose the ego a little bit and just let your guard down and be real. But I do find that I get that with Jake and Josh.’
He embraces his reality. ‘I just feel really lucky with it all, to be honest with you. I think sometimes we get a bit too much credit as athletes for the lifestyle we live and the dedication we have,’ he said. ‘Yeah, it can be challenging. But it’s choices that I want to make. Fortune has definitely always outweighed the lower moments.
Neil Gourley will be competing for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow
‘I do get fixated and I do lose sight of the big picture sometimes by being massively disappointed by this or that. But, overwhelmingly, I just feel lucky to have had a career that I have had and so many people that have helped me get there.
‘I just never thought growing up, I could ever have so much support from people that just want to see me succeed and get nothing else out of it. Some people are doing it out of the love for the sport. And I’ll never be able to repay that.’
There will be one price. His club is still Giffnock North and he visits regularly. Croy Thomson, a coach at the club, is the husband of Hilary who fired that starting pistol.
‘She’ll be on the list of people that I’ll need to get tickets for the Commonwealth Games next year. It’s quite a long list. I might need a stand,’ he says.
When the cheers from those stands fade and the legs became irredeemably heavy for elite racing, he intends to stay in the sport.
‘I’d like to try getting into coaching. I’ve always gotten a kick out of helping people improve. So, yeah, when I’m done with the whole selfish running thing I’d like to start helping other people for a change.’
The rise to the top is sometimes perceived as a rocket-like trajectory. Gourley will come back to earth gently. He always has had his feet on the groun
