MANY eyebrows were raised when the World Junior 1500 metres champion, Stephanie Twell, confirmed she would be running for Scotland in future.
The new kid on the blocks for Britain is adamant she will line up at the World senior championships next week in Berlin feeling very much a Scot, and with thoughts of Delhi next year and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games among her long-term goals.
The jewel in the crown of a very promising crop of young female UK endurance runners, she was already being talked up as heir apparent to world marathon champion Paula Radcliffe. The 19-year-old has, after all, already run almost two seconds faster than Radcliffe ever has done at 1500m, and her world gold was the first 1500m medal by a Briton, male or female, in the 22-year history of the World Junior event.
Every time Twell raced north of the Border in recent years, it seemed that scottishathletics danced attendance on Twell and her much-respected coach, former marathoner Mick Woods. But in her first major interview since signing up to the Saltire, Twell made it clear that she is very much her own woman, and would not be pressurised.
We suspect Scotland owes a debt to national endurance performance manager Mike Johnston, who encouraged the possibility of Scottish allegiance for more than a year, and had already brokered the switch of European under-23 5000m champion Laura Kenney to Scotland's colours. But Twell is adamant: "It was definitely not scottishathletics that wooed me.
It was definitely my own decision.
It was approaching closer and closer to the Commonwealth Games next year in Delhi, and for me it's something I have thought about for a long time. Because every time I have been up in Scotland I have been made to feel so welcome, and felt really well supported when I have been racing at the Great Edinburgh Cross-country."
Her mum, formerly Isobel Hanlon, is from Paisley, and described by Steph as: "a fiercely patriotic Scot". Which may or may not account for the fact that Steph herself had never worn an England vest.
Her dad, a lieutenant colonel, has been a huge supporter of her track career, but this is one battle he has lost.
"My mum is more than ever getting involved in my athletics. It's something that my dad has been a major part of, but I felt it was something I wanted to do for my mum and my family, just because I do have Scottish heritage.
I really value that, and I think you should value your heritage. This is not me turning Scottish, because I am half Scottish already, so I have just decided that I want to run for Scotland."
Twell's dad, Andy, started as a boy soldier at 15. She is immensely proud of him. She has had a typical army child's up-bringing: born in Colchester, and living variously in Canterbury, near Paderborn in Germany where she attended an English-speaking school, and Northern Ireland. "I've been in Farnborough, where I live with my mum, since I was nine or 10."
She should not feel too out of place with the language in Berlin. "I had German friends whom I just went out and played with, when I was younger," she recalls, "but because I haven't actively continued speaking it, I think I have lost most of it. But I will have a few bits to get me by."
Twell won a unique three successive European junior cross-country titles, leading Britain to team gold each time, and the UK senior title at her first attempt this year, but her opening race in Berlin, the day after her twentieth birthday a week on Wednesday, will be a brutal test of her prodigy.
She says she has learned from her Olympic experience where she was drawn in a fast heat and failed to qualify though others who ran eight seconds slower reached the final from another heat.
Three Brits, trials winner Charlene Thomas, Commonwealth champion Lisa Dobriskey and Twell will line up for Britain in Germany where the team is hoping that world heptathlon No.1 Jessica Ennis (the only podium-ranked UK athlete) will get them off to an encouraging start on Saturday's opening day.
Dobriskey, fourth in the Olympics, is ranked eleventh (4:02.28) of those who will be in Berlin, Twell eighteenth (4:03.48), and Thomas twenty-sixth (4:05.6). The world leader is Maryam Yusuf Jamal (3:56.55) of Bahrain. Eritrean-born, she has sought political asylum in Lausanne, where she lives. She finished one place behind Dobriskey in Beijing.
"I am racing these girls regularly now, and hope I can make the final," says Twell, who set her personal best in Monaco last month, in her penultimate warm-up race. "I'm in shape to do that, but have to make it through the heats. Once I'm in the final, I'd like to get a top-eight finish.
"After Monaco, I still feel there is more in the tank. I am definitely in pb shape, but it's getting into the right race, and championship races can be tactical.
"Beijing made me more hungry, and taught me it's places that matter, not times. It's the best of the best, and that raises your game. I was bitterly disappointed not to reach the final, but my time was eleventh quickest overall. So that does give me confidence, but the main aim will be the rounds. You have to run your own race, go with your plan, and seize the opportunity."
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