A teenage Josh Kerr, future world champion Jake Wightman and Olympic medallist Laura Muir were among the athletes racing in Edinburgh a decade ago. As Glasgow stages the Commonwealth Games, the 2016 results read like a roll call of modern elite athletes.

On a cold January afternoon in 2016, an 18-year-old Josh Kerr took his place in Scotland’s second-string mixed relay team at Holyrood Park.

Kerr was already regarded as a promising young middle-distance runner, but few among the crowd beneath Arthur’s Seat could have predicted quite where the next decade would take him.

On Saturday he completed one of the most significant performances in British athletics history. Roared on by a crowd of around 60,000 at the London Stadium, Kerr ran 3:42.66 for the mile, breaking Hicham El Guerrouj’s 27-year-old world record of 3:43.13. His 1500m split of 3:27.62 was also quicker than his own British record.

Ten years earlier, the surroundings and the stakes had been very different. The terrain was muddy, the race was a four-by-1000m cross-country relay and Kerr was representing Scotland B alongside Neil Gourley, Emily Dudgeon and Carys McAulay.

The results show Scotland B finishing eighth in 12:16. Yet even that relatively modest entry on the results sheet has acquired extraordinary significance. Kerr and Gourley are now both part of Scotland’s formidable line-up for the Commonwealth Mile at Glasgow 2026.

A glimpse of the future

The relay was won by Scotland A in 11:34, nine seconds ahead of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Cameron Boyek opened with a 2:43 leg before handing over to Steph Twell. Jake Wightman then completed the third leg in 2:43, with Laura Muir anchoring Scotland to victory in 3:02.

The contemporary race report captures a fascinating moment. Wightman began his leg with Kerr, then racing for Scotland B, close behind him. By the final exchange Muir had received the baton with a lead, attacked immediately and stretched Scotland’s advantage to the finish.

Three of the Scottish men involved that afternoon; Kerr, Wightman and Gourley; will contest the Commonwealth Mile in Glasgow this week. Muir, meanwhile, is selected for the women’s 5000m.

Their careers since Edinburgh have made that 2016 relay look increasingly like an early preview of a golden period in Scottish middle-distance running.ye

Kerr has become the 2023 world 1500m champion, an Olympic silver and bronze medallist and a two-time world indoor champion. His London world record has now placed him above El Guerrouj, Noah Ngeny and every other miler in history on time.

Wightman produced one of the great championship performances to defeat Jakob Ingebrigtsen and win the world 1500m title in Oregon in 2022. He added world silver in Tokyo in 2025, missing another global title by just two hundredths of a second, having also won European 800m silver and Commonwealth and European 1500m medals.

Muir has won Olympic 1500m silver, world bronze and two outdoor European titles, as well as the 2022 Commonwealth 1500m crown. Her 3:53.37 national record, set in 2024, underlines the sustained quality of a career which was already flourishing when she powered away from the field in Edinburgh.

Gourley has become a world indoor and European indoor silver medallist. His 3:32.48 remains the British short-track record for 1500m, while his outdoor best stands at 3:30.60. In 2016, he was sharing a relay team with Kerr; in Glasgow, they will be two members of perhaps the strongest Scottish mile trio ever assembled, alongside Wightman.

Steph Twell was another established name in that winning quartet. Having represented Great Britain in the 1500m at the 2008 Olympics, she returned to the Games in Rio in 2016, racing the 5000m, before completing an impressive transition to the longer distances by contesting the marathon at Tokyo 2020 in 2021. The same summer as the Edinburgh relay, Twell claimed 5000m bronze at the European Championships in Amsterdam, closing strongly to finish in 15:20.70. Her career ultimately spanned three Olympic Games and events ranging from 1500m on the track to the marathon, another reminder of the remarkable depth and versatility contained in Scotland’s winning team at Holyrood Park.

Butchart mixes it with Farah

The relay was not the only 2016 race containing a future Glasgow 2026 athlete.

In the senior men’s 8km, Andrew Butchart finished seventh in 25:53, contributing to a commanding British team victory over the United States and Europe. He crossed the line just 22 seconds behind the winner and was among a strong British group which included Callum Hawkins, Ross Millington and Dewi Griffiths.

Later that year, Butchart finished sixth in the Olympic 5000m final in Rio, running a personal best of 13:08.61. He has also become a World Championships finalist and a European Cross Country bronze medallist. A decade after the Holyrood race, he is preparing to represent Scotland in both the 5000m and 10,000m at Glasgow 2026.

The athlete immediately in front of the Edinburgh field’s chasing pack was the meeting’s biggest attraction: Mo Farah.

Farah was making his first competitive appearance of 2016 and his first cross-country race since 2011. Despite closing quickly, he was beaten by the United States’ Garrett Heath, who won in 25:29 to Farah’s 25:31 and completed a remarkable third consecutive Edinburgh victory.

Seven months later, Farah completed his second successive Olympic 5000m and 10,000m double in Rio. He went on to win the world 10,000m title and 5000m silver in London in 2017 before turning towards the roads, where he won the 2018 Chicago Marathon in a then-European record of 2:05:11. He ended his career with four Olympic titles and six outdoor world crowns.

Yee and Gressier: junior rivals become global champions

The junior men’s result may be even more remarkable in hindsight.

Britain’s Alex Yee won the 6km race in 19:23, holding off Ireland’s Kevin Mulcaire by two seconds. France’s Jimmy Gressier, representing Europe, finished fourth in 19:33 — only ten seconds behind Yee.

Yee was still combining athletics with triathlon, but his exceptional running ability was already apparent. He would later become one of the most successful triathletes in Olympic history.

After winning individual silver and mixed-relay gold at the Tokyo Olympics, Yee produced a dramatic late surge to claim individual gold in Paris in 2024. He added mixed-relay bronze at the same Games and then secured the 2024 world triathlon title. His career also includes individual and mixed-relay Commonwealth gold from Birmingham 2022.

Gressier’s development has been similarly spectacular. The Frenchman won the world 10,000m title in Tokyo in 2025, outsprinting Yomif Kejelcha in a dramatic finish, before adding 5000m bronze at the same championships. He also won the 2025 Diamond League 3000m title and lowered the European 5km road record to 12:51 in April 2026.

Two teenagers separated by ten seconds on the Edinburgh mud had, within a decade, both become senior world champions in different sports.

Another future triathlon champion

There was a further clue to triathlon’s future in the senior women’s race.

Beth Potter finished 13th for Britain in 21:59, behind race winner Kate Avery and leading names including Fionnuala McCormack and Gemma Steel.

Potter subsequently represented Britain in the Olympic 10,000m in Rio before switching sports. She won the 2023 world triathlon title and claimed two bronze medals at Paris 2024, in the individual event and mixed relay.

Her journey, like Yee’s, illustrates the range of talent gathered in Edinburgh that day. The races did not merely contain future track champions. They included athletes who would go on to conquer the worlds of road running, triathlon and global championship athletics.

Holyrood’s lasting legacy

The Great Edinburgh XCountry regularly brought together the world’s leading endurance athletes, established champions and emerging talent. Paula Radcliffe, Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba and Eliud Kipchoge were among the celebrated names to compete during the event’s history in the Scottish capital.

Yet the 2016 edition feels particularly special.

Its results featured Farah on the eve of another Olympic double, two future world champions in the junior men’s race and five athletes who will represent Scotland at Glasgow 2026: Kerr, Wightman, Gourley, Muir and Butchart.

Most strikingly, it captured Kerr before the NCAA titles, the Olympic medals, the world championship victories and the fastest mile ever run. He was simply a talented teenager, racing for Scotland B through the mud beneath Arthur’s Seat.

A decade later, he returns to Scotland as the world record-holder and the headline act in a Commonwealth Mile packed with familiar faces.