EILIDH DOYLE will tap into what’s fast-becoming a unique knowledge of home championships to lead the Great Britain team into London 2017.
The 30-year-old hurdler from Perth was elected captain by her fellow athletes last week, the first time the position has been decided by peer voting.
The World Athletics Championships complete a hat-trick of global events on home soil for the Scot after the 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
And she hopes to make it four with the World Indoor Championships staged in Birmingham next March.
“I’ve been extremely lucky,” Eilidh says. “It’s brilliant if you can get just one opportunity to compete at a home championship. When I look back on my career, I’ll see just how fortunate I was.
“Many athletes say that after an Olympics there’s usually a down period, but I’ve always had something to aim at. After 2012, I had Glasgow and after Rio I’ve had this.
“When I make my speech as captain, I’ll draw on my experiences of competing in a home championship. I’ll just talk from the heart like I always do.
“I think it’s really important to use that home element, as we did in 2012 and we Scots did in Glasgow. I’ll stress how the fantastic home support can get you fired up.”
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For Doyle, the captaincy is one of a number of additional elements that have combined to make these Championships even more significant for her.
“I was surprised to be nominated, because I felt there were so many more athletes ahead of me in terms of what they’d achieved,” she says.
“It definitely adds an extra dimension to a championship that I was so excited about anyway.
“And there’s a source of extra pride to be captaining so many fellow Scots in the British team.
“It also shows how Scottish athletics has developed and everything that’s come out of Glasgow 2014.
“And they’re not in the team to make up the numbers. They’re capable of competing with the best in the world. They can win medals.”
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