FOR many set to descend to Glasgow's Emirates Arena today for the start of the European Athletics Indoor Championships, the name of a Renfrewshire star will barely cross their radar.
Instead, the attention of guests from all across the continent will be taken by the likes of poster girl Laura Muir and Eilidh Doyle, Scotland's most decorated athlete of all time.
Often for young up-and-coming athletes, the shadow of such sporting titans leaves them gasping for air as they struggle to live up to their predecessors' achievements. But, for Kilbarchan ace Jemma Reekie, it's exactly where she wants to be at this time in her career.
READ MORE: Jemma Reekie eyeing Glasgow glory after landing British gold
The 20-year-old runner is one of the nine strong Scottish contingent picked to select Team GB at the event as the Kilbarchan AC star looks to build on a fine showing at the British Championships. There, she fended off a strong field to claim her first senior gold.
Unsurprisingly, this has raised the hype around the youngster tenfold with many keen to see if she can follow in the footsteps of her training partner Muir, who burst onto the scene with a double medal haul in last year's event.
It has been Reekie’s dubious privilege to attempt to keep up with Muir for the last three years, as part of the elite little training group they share under Andy Young.
“It is fun being under the radar,” Reekie, who has happily recovered from a recent bout of cold and flu symptoms which threatened to derail her progress, told our sister title The Herald. “I know at one point – hopefully – I’m going to be like Laura, that I’m going to be on billboards. So I am just enjoying surprising people, proving people wrong.”
From the moment three years ago that Muir introduced herself, this pair have been great friends – even if there is a nice contrast in their personalities. Until she gets a dog of her own, trained vet Muir fusses over the ones owned by Reekie in the family home in Beith.
“We push each other so much,” says Reekie. “As soon as I get a little bit close to her, she is off again!
“We are very different in some ways but when you see us on the track we are both really determined, really committed, we will do everything we need to do,” she added. “That is nice, because we are good friends. She chats about veterinary stuff while I am just really into more sports stuff really! But I have two dogs as well and she comes to visit them. Hopefully she is going to get one soon. We can share mine till then.”
READ MORE: Steph Twell fulfils lifelong dream representing Kilbarchan
Has Muir changed since then? Well, yes and no. Refreshingly, still the same engaging character off the track as she was before, Reekie simply speaks in awed terms about the amount of reps the 25-year-old can get through in training. It is intense training like this which allows her to make mincemeat of records like Kirsty Wade’s 31-year-old indoor British mile record the other week.
“Her reps are going up. She’s 25, 26 this year and is running faster than ever. She will do more laps than me because I’m 20, and there’s that five-year gap. I don’t want to peak at 20. I want to have a long career.
“I’m quite bad for saying to Andy that I want to do this and that, do whatever Laura is doing. He has to tell me to slow down, that we’ve got a long time ahead of us.”
Jemma Reekie will be in action from 7.10pm tonight in the 1500m race.
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