ELDERSLIE’S Callum Hawkins smashed the Scottish Half Marathon record on Sunday – and duly became the first men’s home winner of the Great Scottish Run for 33 years.

The Olympic marathon runner clocked a stunning 60.24 to win from Glasgow 2014 10,000m champion, Uganda’s Moses Kipsiro, with a huge PB that takes him second to Mo Farah on the British all-time list.

It was also a course record as the 24-year-old eclipsed the 61.09 run by Haile Gebrselassie three years ago and the first Scottish winner since Peter Fleming in 1983 (when it was a full marathon).

The Kilbarchan AAC eclipsed the Scottish record and he successfully defended his Scottish Half Marathon title, with Beth Potter doing the same with a 72.07 PB in the Women’s race.

Callum ground out the resistance of 2015 Great Scottish Run champion Kipsiro after the halfway stage – even though Hawkins had already been through 10K marginally quicker than his PB at that distance.

The lead was significant by the time he turned into Glasgow Green and the look on his face close to the finishing line, as he spotted the time on the clock, was priceless – his shock and awe only matched by the excitement of the crowd.

“I was not expecting that; I thought I would be around 62 minutes or something like that,” said Callum, who clocked 62.42 last year and had a PB of 62.36 from Paris early in 2016. Kipsiro was second in 60.54 with Kenyan athlete, Joel Kimutai, third in 61.34.

“I still can’t believe it. Actually, out on the course, I thought the mile markers had been wrongly placed. It was only close to the finish I really realised when I saw the clock.

“In terms of Moses, luckily I raced him last year so I knew what to expect. But he’s a quality athlete. Just having him trying to hang on really spurred me to put the boot in.

“It is great to win it and follow on from Rio. Marathon training seems to agree with me. I did take a couple of weeks off after coming back from Brazil but it has been good to pick it up again in the past few weeks and this augurs well for the winter.”

There were Scottish medals for Shettleston’s Tewolde Mengisteab in 64.23 and a bronze for Fife AC’s Andrew Lemoncello 65.49. There were also fine performances by Tsegai Tewelde (65.53), Neil Renault (66.11) and Jack Walker (66.29) to make it six Scots under 67 minutes.