Eilish McColgan wins appeal against British Athletics Lottery funding snub
Eilish McColgan has been added to the British Athletics World Class Performance Programme (WCPP) for 2016-17 after successfully appealing against her omission from the list last month.
The 26-year-old made a successful return to the track this summer off the back of a serious ankle injury, finishing 13th in the Olympic 5000m final in Rio and setting personal bests over 1500m, 3000m and 5000m, and was incensed to be overlooked by the WCPP selectors in the initial announcement.
In a statement released by British Athletics on behalf of McColgan, who will be part of the Olympic podium potential group, she said: "Obviously I'm really happy that my appeal was successful. Naturally I was disappointed when not included on the original WCPP last month, as I felt I did everything I could this year after injury and hit all the necessary criteria. It's nice for that to have been recognised.
“I look forward to being a part of the World Class Performance Programme and hope to continue improving in the 5000m, which is still a new event for me, throughout the next year looking towards London 2017 and beyond.”
The Scot's addition takes the number of individually funded Olympic athletes to 45 - 15 in the podium programme and and 30 in the podium potential programme - while there are a further 26 athletes who are funded as part of the Olympic relay programmes.
McColgan was last on the WCPP programme for 2014-15, but was removed last November having missed the entire season with a broken ankle. Due to the severity of the problems with her ankle she opted against continuing competing in the steeplechase, which she had contested at the 2012 Olympics, instead choosing to focus on flat distance running.
Liz McColgan, 1991 world 10,000m champion as well as mother and coach to Eilish, was critical of the selectors last month at the initial decision, and called for endurance athletes to receive funding from a separate source, describing the oversight for endurance athletes as "not right and not fair".
She said at the time: "This year they have excelled themselves to the point now I think endurance running should be a separate funding group with separate criteria.
"The present criteria is way too sprint and relay biased, we have athletes funded who could not make it through the rounds of an Olympics never mind the final, yet on funding for relays."
