Eilidh Doyle did not know it at the time but a European Championship final in front of a packed Emirates Arena in 2019 was to deliver the last race of her stellar career.
The most decorated Scot in track and field was on the anchor leg for GB and NI that Sunday evening in March and duly guided the women’s 4x400m team home to precious silver medals.
Six years later and Doyle is still passing the baton, only in a different way.
Helping the next generation in athletics was on her mind even before she hung up the spikes, joining the board of Scottish Athletics in September 2018.
Her life after competition features in an absorbing new documentary created for the governing body by Urbane Media.
“Eilidh Doyle – Passing the Baton” by Calum McCready features the 38-year-old talking about quitting competition, motherhood to two boys and giving something back to the sport she loves.
Keynote speaking engagements with the National Academy, Awards Dinner and Club Conference have shone a light on the hurdler’s career change.
And she feels passionately that Scotland must draw on the top athletes to help educate and guide those now on the same pathway.
“I was a PE teacher before I was a full-time athlete and, even when I was still competing, I was exploring different avenues to see what was out there,” said Doyle in the film.
“In my career as an athlete, I think I learned a lot and I experienced a lot. And it was trying to work out: ‘What did I learn and where would that be useful?’
“I think that’s kind of where I’m useful in all my roles, because it’s somebody who’s been there and done that, who can give an athlete’s perspective on it.
“I’m a member of the Board of Scottish Athletics. I also work with various coaches across the country.
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“As an athlete, you’re very much in your own bubble. Now that I’m out of that world, it’s nice to kind of understand what’s going on in the rest of athletics.”
Scottishathletics recently posted a short series, “Learning from our Olympians”, with video content from Laura Muir and Eilish McColgan and that chimes with what Doyle wants to see.
“There are lots of us out there, athletes who have been to so many championships and had success or not had success, but equally have really important life skills and lessons and experiences,” she added.
“They can share that with others. We can use our athletes that are coming to retirement or are retired and try to tell their stories and learn about their journeys. I think we have some great people who can pass on what they have experienced and share for the next generation as well.” Further roles give her other opportunities, too.
“I’m also working for Youth Sport Trust, which is a charity. One of the main projects I’m doing is a programme called Set For Success. You work with young people, do various activities with them, do some work with them to sort of draw out those skill sets that they have, that they maybe don’t know that they have.
“And then finally, I’ve just started a new role with Edinburgh University. Part of the university’s aims is to set up performance hubs. My role is more as a sort of mentor between the athletes and the performance team.
“So yes, lots of different projects, but really exciting ones and areas I am very passionate about as well.”
None of which was on her mind, presumably, as she took a lap of honour at Hampden after Commonwealth Games silver at Glasgow 2014 and then celebrated gold as European champion in the 400m hurdles in Zurich two weeks later.
“It’s a great life, you know, being able to kind of travel around and do what you love, is great,particularly when you’re in shape and you’re running well,” she said.
“I think the highs just come when you’re running really well and you’re just full of confidence.
“For me, there was no better feeling than crossing the line knowing I’d just left it out there, like you’ve nothing left, you’ve crossed the line and you know it has been a really good performance. Regardless of times or positions. I think just that feeling of crossing the line and having given it everything that was always a real high for me.
“Sometimes you can train really, really, really hard and not get the result that you think you deserve. Everybody trains really hard and everybody wants those results so that can be the hard things. But the highs always did outweigh the lows in my opinion.”
McCready joins Doyle at Grangemouth – where the Hampden track was laid after Glasgow 2024. And the memories, and senses, start to stir for the Pitreavie AAC athlete who began her sporting story in athletics and has openly admitted went off the rails while at university in Edinburgh.
“It’s really funny like, in no way is it the same or do I feel like that same athlete in 2014 but actually being on this track, it’s quite a humid day and there’s like a smell that tracks give off,” she said.
“And when I was running round there, I actually had a little smile to myself because I was sensing the smell that took me right back to 2014. For a moment I was back at Hampden and it was nice because it was like, ‘Oh, I remember that’. Thinking back gave me butterflies in my tummy.”
Glasgow 2014 fell between the Olympics in London and Rio. Competing at a third, in Tokyo, was very much the plan.
“In 2019, I competed in the indoor season, and then I took a year off to have a baby, and I was pregnant with my first son, Campbell, at the time. In 2020, my plan was to come back after having Campbell and compete at the Olympics. If I was being realistic, that was going to be probably my last hurrah. It would have been a third Olympics. And then Covid hit and everybody stopped.
“Nobody really knew what was happening and for me, it felt like I had another chance and more time to get back to full fitness. I was thinking, ‘The Olympics have been postponed for a year, I’ve got a whole year now to get back and be ready’.
“But during that time, and I think probably a lot of people were the same, my motivation was just up and down and up and down.”
One day, on that same Grangemouth track, the motivation stayed down. For good.
“Literally it was just one day I was training at Grangemouth and I turned to Brian, who is my husband, but was my coach as well at the time. I said to Brian, ‘I think I’m done. I think I’ve had enough now’. His response was. ‘Oh, thank goodness you’ve got there, thank goodness you’ve realised’.
“Brian could see my motivation was not quite there. The determination, the drive to train wasn’t quite there. But he couldn’t tell me to quit; that had to come from me. I probably got there a little bit slower than I might have done.
“I think becoming a mum was an easier way to transition out of the sport. Athletics took up a lot of my life, you know. It was what I did every day. And even when I wasn’t at the track, I was constantly thinking about making sure I was doing everything right to be the best athlete.
“Parenthood makes you balance and plan life around somebody else now and not just kind of geared around me and athletics. A couple of years later, we had Lewis, who came along as well.
“I love being a mum. It’s hard. I don’t know what’s harder, training for an Olympics, or being a mum of two boys...”
Watch Eilidh Doyle – Passing the Baton via www.scottishathletics.org.uk
