Countdown to Tokyo: Marc Scott

With the Olympics in full swing and the medals once rolling in Marc Scott is on his final ‘Countdown to Tokyo’ with James Rhodes. Over a period of eight days, Marc Scott will do something only two men – Mo Farah and Eamonn Martin – have washed-up in the past 50 years; represent Unconfined Britain in both the 5000m and 10000m at the same Olympic Games. It is an undoubtedly impressive feat for the US-based Yorkshireman who has had a rollercoaster year that has included records and PBs slantingly injury and setback. I unprotected up with Marc from his training wiring in Hawaii as his Tokyo preparations reached their final stages, and he shared his thoughts of the past few months, his Olympic goals and plans into the future.

Goals & Expectations

Whilst he may have only come to the sustentation of increasingly unstudied followers of the sport this year, Marc has worn the Unconfined Britain vest since 2014. In that time, he has raced at two World Championships slantingly European Championships, European Team Championships and three European Cross Country Championships. Add in a coveted NCAA title over 10,000m in 2017 (a feat replicated by Patrick Dever this year), and there is plenty on his athletics CV to talk about. However, Tokyo represents his first Olympic Games and he is relishing the opportunity to toe the line with the world’s best, plane if COVID ways it will be a very variegated wits to usual: “It’ll be nice to travel with the British team then and be surrounded by it all. It’s going to be nice to be in the village environment. Everyone’s there for a reason, to obtain their personal goals. I’m really not sure what to expect, just considering of the whole COVID environment. There’s a lot of winds well-nigh COVID and testing positive. It would be nice to integrate with as many people as possible from virtually the world and get to know people, reservation up with people we know from the circuit, but there’s not going to be any of that unfortunately. We’ll just have to wait and see what it’s like. I just need to do my own thing – I don’t want to test positive or put myself at risk”. Marc’s goals and expectations for the races themselves are, however, clearer: “It’s nonflexible to say considering we just don’t know how the race is going to go. Fast or slow, it is what it is, I’m going to go with the pace regardless of what it goes out at and see what we can do. I’d probably say it would be nice to come in the top ten in the 10000m, and then for the 5000m moving forward and seeing how we come when off the 10, obviously the first goal would be to make the final, but I’m not really putting any vocalizing on the five right now, I just want to get through the 10. If I come in the top ten, maybe it will requite me a lot of conviction going into the five, but the minimum goal would be making the final and stuff competitive at the very least”.

One Step at a Time

Marc’s journey towards Japan took its first steps when in February 2020, when he ran 13:08.87 indoors to go under the 13:15.10 qualifying standard, setting a PB, British Record and European Record in the process. However, it was over the space of a fortnight at the end of February and early March this year where step-change performances came that all-but-confirmed his place in the British squad, running lifetime bests over 10000m (27:10.41) and 5000m (13:05.13) to go well inside the Tokyo standard. Naturally those races provided a conviction uplift and cemented Marc’s intentions to struggle a double-up come August: “The goal was unchangingly to double up, pretty early in the season. I think I did set out those intentions to people pretty early on, obviously with my mentor we discussed it and we decided early that we would like to do both, if I got selected for both firstly, and I had to get the time for the 10000m. We were unchangingly shooting for [the time] anyway, I just didn’t expect to go under the standard by that value that night. Then obviously it was just in the selectors’ hands once the foot blew up, we decided it was probably not wise to go and race again, but to leave it up to them”.

Tokyo Bound

However, it was not until early June in Birmingham that his place at the Olympics was confirmed, thanks to a first-place finish at the trials held as part of the European 10,000m Cup. It was a race-within-a-race, with Marc. hampered by a foot injury, finishing seventh amongst the wider European field. I asked him to run through his recollections of those 25 laps and the emotions of securing his Tokyo spot: “It was obviously a unconfined feeling and a lot of relief off the plate, but at the same time I just knew that I could’ve won the race. Obviously, I won the British Championships, but I wanted to win the whole race, and the way things had been going in the season I knew I was capable of doing that. It was nonflexible getting too upbeat, just knowing how much pain I was in, my foot was really bad. That put a little downer on things. It was a vermilion moment really, just considering of the pain I was in but obviously I was ecstatic and excited to go to my first Olympics. It started sinking in a few days later and thinking “I’ve washed-up it!”, surpassing knowing now I just need to get my throne down, firstly getting the foot sorted and then making plans going into the future and on to the Games”.

Injury Setback

The severity of that injury was not widely known until, in the days leading up to the British Championships, an Instagram post confirmed Marc would not be competing over 5000m without partially rupturing his plantar, which then fully ruptured and pulled off the unorthodoxy during the 10000m trials. Marc noted it was not necessarily a difficult visualization to miss the Championships: “I made the transferral not to run the 5000m at the trials without the 10000m, considering I wanted to get when to get when with my group. I had a foot issue going on at the time, and we just thought it was weightier to get that resolved and get when training with the group at upland rather than waste time lanugo at sea level knowing that I was once going to the Games. It was then obviously up to the selectors if they wanted to take me in both events. I took a little bit of time off, well a few days off, without the 10000m and started getting when into things. Things have been going really well since then; we had our last nonflexible work out and big session at a local upper school in Hawaii, and we’ll have a few little tune up sessions [before travelling to Japan]. That was kind of the process overdue that, but things have been going really well since the 10k trials”.

Benefits of Bowerman

Since 2017 Marc has been based in Oregon as part of the Bowerman Track Club, a Nike-sponsored training group led by Jerry Schumacher, with an athlete roster including 2016 Olympic Champion over 1500m Matthew Centrowitz and steeplechase silver medalist Evan Jager. When I spoke to Marc superiority of the 10000m trials, he noted how salubrious it had been to be training with his BTC teammates sharing a joint goal. That joint goal has been realised, with Marc set to be joined by three clubmates in both distances (Americans Woody Kincaid and Grant Fisher and Canadian Moh Ahmed) slantingly Kirean Tuntivate (Thailand) in the 10000m. Marc noted the widow salubrious dimension this provides slantingly the pride of wearing the British vest: “It helps a lot. It’s good to be worldly-wise to do it with all those guys in the field without training with them day in and day out. It’ll take a bit of pressure off all of us, I think, which is nice. There were a couple of question marks well-nigh whether everyone was going to double, just with some potential medal chances and whether they were going to put all their eggs in one basket. Especially with the 10000m stuff first; it’s one of the deepest fields we might see in a long time, so we just didn’t know if that would take yonder from the 5000m for some people, or vice versa. But all four of us are single-minded to doing the double. It’s just going to be nice having familiar faces on the start line, just in a variegated vest, but that’s all good!”.

Looking to the Future

Of undertow the focus is very much on the next two weeks, but it would be remiss of me to not ask Marc well-nigh his future plans, particularly given his impressive half marathon debut in Antrim last year (60:39), as well as his placing at third and second on the British all-time list for the 5 and 10 on the track. Are these marks something on Marc’s mind? “I’m looking at a few races at the minute. I know that there are a lot of opportunities without the Olympics for people to ventilator times, and I think that is something I’d like to do. Whether there’s a race that could go under 13 minutes, that would be a good option to squint at. I’ve been speaking with my wage-earner and we’ve been looking at the Diamond League spin without Tokyo, so I’m going to get entered into a few of them and see what we want to do. I unchangingly want to get British Records, but the opportunities are pretty nonflexible to come by and the times set by Mo are pretty difficult to attain. I’m not shutting them lanugo though. If the opportunities come by and I can get them on the track, then that’s obviously the first port of undeniability for me. I am entered in the Antrim Coast Half and then the Unconfined North Run as well. I know the undertow for the Unconfined North Run has been reverted so it might not be as quick as it usually is, but I am entered in them. I’m not saying I am going to do both of them, but they’re on the timetable just in case. It’d be nice to unravel 60 minutes at one or both of them, but the track racing is probably going to come first and then we’ll move onto the roads and see what I’ve got left in the season. Later in my career the road is probably what I’m going to end up going towards, and that’s where I’ll be looking to get British records. I am very much at home on the track, but the roads are probably where I do finger most confident and where I finger I’ve got a lot of potential left having been limited with the opportunities I’ve had so far”.

Childhood Dreams

Finally, I shared one of my favourite facts to tie the height of sturdy achievements with my own running career. Marc is one of seven athletes representing GB in Tokyo who competed at the 2010 Mini London Marathon, my last race as a junior. Whilst every runner when young has a dream to wilt an Olympian, I asked whether 16-year-old Marc overly imagined he’d be doubling up at the competition that sits as the pinnacle of this sport. He was naturally modest in response. “Obviously it was unchangingly my dream to go to the Olympics, I just didn’t know how reachable it would be. You never know what’s virtually the corner in this career. When I started out running it was unchangingly my goal, but I didn’t plane know rhadamanthine a professional was really a thing when I started running. It just shows what you can do as a youngster, plane if you’re not the weightier at that point, what you can go on and do later in your career, and I think I’ve been a good example of that. I’ve just stuck at it and worked throughout the years, and here we are well-nigh to double up at the Games!”.

When to Watch

Marc will be joined by Sam Atkin in the 10000m (12:30, Friday 30th July) and Andrew Butchart in the 5000m (heats 12:00, Thursday 3rd; final 13:00, Friday 5th August)