Eilish McColgan out of World Athletics Championships in Budapest due to persistent knee injury

Eilish McColgan has been forced to pull out of the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest after failing to recover from a knee injury.

Back in May, the Scot said that her chances of winning gold at the competition were a “pipe dream.”

The 32-year-old, whose mother Liz secured a gold medal in the 10,000 meters event at the 1991 Tokyo competition, achieved a British record in March for the same distance, surpassing Paula Radcliffe’s previous record.

Following in her mother’s footsteps, she then clinched gold for Scotland in the women’s 10,000 meters at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, outpacing Kenya’s Irene Cheptai, and setting a new Games record time of 30 minutes and 48.60 seconds.

In the lead up to the World Championships, McColgan has been training with the Great Britain team in Switzerland, aiming to regain her fitness.

However, McColgan shared her decision to withdraw from the event via social media, citing the persistent knee injury she had been carrying since April.

“Sadly, I’ve made the hard decision to miss this year’s World Championships in Budapest,” she said on Instagram.

“We always knew it was going to be tight to make it to the start line, having carried a knee injury since April… But I was moving in the right direction and banked a solid three weeks of training out here in St Moritz with the GB team.

“We tried everything we could to be race ready for this weekend, but unfortunately, I ran out of time to get back into spikes. And with the Olympics just around the corner, the stakes are too high.

“I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to showcase my fitness on the roads this autumn before taking a break to prepare for 2024.

“Thank you as always for the support! It’s been a very challenging (but still successful!) year for me… however us Scots are made from hard stuff! Looking forward to cheering the rest of the GB team on.”