Jake Wightman says he and Neil Gourley were finishing "middle of the field in races” as teens. Now both are WC finalists

You can see his results here

https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=63342

He's exaggerating a little, but he was finishing at the mid- to-lower end in Scottish championships which I guess is the equivalent of a state final. His XC results are also pretty underwhelming for a guy of that talent, he was still finishing 20th in local league matches as a u20. He was probably running them for fitness more than anything

rojo...

The two of them were finishing in the middle of Scottish Schools and National Club Championship finals. Like you said, middle of a 1500m final as not 100th out of 200 finishers in a XC race.

Jake is a very humble fella and 'middle of the field' will be a cliched response as opposed to anything concrete. He wasn't a 'wonder-kid' though. If I remember rightly, he went to school Steve Cram's son Marcus and Cram Junior was a long way ahead of him in XC races.

Hi Rojo, I was the year above Jake as an under 20 and beat him multiple times over XC. He didn't really shine as a talent until he was around 19. If you go back and check his Power of 10, at 17/18 he was 'only' a 1:57 800, 4:00 1500m guy. I'd regard that as pretty middle of the pack on a national scale. Regards, Andrew.

Nothing remotely impressive:

u15 (I'm guessing this is 15 and under as opposed to under 15) 4:32 1500m

u17 (assuming 16 years old) 4:22 1500m and 9:26 3k

u17 (17 yo) starts to show a little promise but nothing too impressive still... 2:05 800m, 4:13 1500m, 9:06 3k

There is an elephant in the room.

One factor to bear in mind is that Scotland has a small population but performs disproportionately well in distance running for some reason (many of the top team GB runners are Scottish- Hawkins, Muir, Butchart, McColgan, O'Hare, Wightman, etc. This should be statistically unlikely given that we only make up 8% of the UK population). Because of the small country factor, it's easy to find yourself in a race with top level national competition at our limited number of decent races. For example, I lined up alongside both Olympian Hawkins brothers at an 'amateur' 10k not too long ago. Similarly, last week an invitational road 5k in Fife had 27 runners finish in under 15 minutes (in Scottish winter). So Jake and Neil will have always been facing quite a high level of competition with limited national racing opportunities.

WIGHTMAN, GRICE & KERR FOR OLYMPIC SPOTS THIS SUMMER. THE OTHERS JUST DON'T HAVE A CHANCE

He was certainly a well above average talent. He ran 3:51 at the age of 17. I remember when I was 17 I had a mate the same age who ran 3:58 and I thought he was some sort of God! Yet Jake was 7 seconds faster... much faster than anyone I've ever trained with, that's for sure!

Who is coaching Gourley? I noticed he doesn’t have OTC and Nike in his Instagram bios anymore. Back with his college coach Ben Thomas?

Also something to keep in mind in regard to Jake is that his father was a great runner and I’m sure would have had a long term plan for Jake - can’t imagine he would have allowed Jake to do too much too soon. Very similar to Thomas Staines, both his parents were Olympian’s for GB in the 80s, and he had a very underwhelming HS career in Colorado before running 1:46 as a sophomore in college.

Armstronglivs wrote:

There is an elephant in the room.

What's that? Do you think he might be doping or something?

Trackfan55 wrote:

Who is coaching Gourley? I noticed he doesn’t have OTC and Nike in his Instagram bios anymore. Back with his college coach Ben Thomas?

He never left Ben Thomas

runderun wrote:

He's exaggerating a little, but he was finishing at the mid- to-lower end in Scottish championships which I guess is the equivalent of a state final. His XC results are also pretty underwhelming for a guy of that talent, he was still finishing 20th in local league matches as a u20. He was probably running them for fitness more than anything

I always want to know the training changes that happened. Progression like this seems unbelievable but tell me he was running 15mpw as a 16 year old and then hooked up with a solid coach at one point sure.

his Dad has always been his coach.

Should give hope to youngsters who give up far too early in the game, or if they plateau for a year or so.

Also another example of training for the long-term, and nor for some HS state meet, or in a competitive HS group (or College for that matter) that beats the crap out of you. Development should be best between 20 and 25 (JI aside). If you peaked in HS (or College as well) then you didn't get the best out of you.

Whiteman ran 1:48 as a 19-year old and Gourly 1:52 as a 17-year old. Ireland must be the Kenya of middle distance running.

Sdsu Azutec wrote:

Ireland must be the Kenya of middle distance running.

Ireland?

Knowing both Jake and Geoff personally, I can confidently say that it was not in Geoff's master plan for Jake to be a super competitive youth athlete. In reality, it shouldn't be in any good coach's master plan - who cares what you run at age 16? However, everything Jake was doing as a run young was building fundamentals for his improvements in later years.

Let's not forget that Jake was a 1:48.0 guy as an u20 and was also a 3:43 guy who could win big champs (Euro Juniors for example). He was not joke. He improved year on year under the tutelage of his father and is now flourishing in the pro ranks as a genuine world beater. Definitely a serious medal contender at next year's Olympics.

Sounds like similar story to Stewie McSweyn's. Some promise but nothing too impressive all the way through the junior ranks (never won a national junior medal in Australia) then huge improvement in his early 20's to now be world class. Stories like this should be very encouraging for solid but nor star high school runners and show that sticking with it can pay off!

bigote wrote:

Nothing remotely impressive:

u15 (I'm guessing this is 15 and under as opposed to under 15) 4:32 1500m

u17 (assuming 16 years old) 4:22 1500m and 9:26 3k

u17 (17 yo) starts to show a little promise but nothing too impressive still... 2:05 800m, 4:13 1500m, 9:06 3k

Close, but minus 1 year.

Under 15s have to be under the age of 15 for the whole of the competition year.

Under 17s have to be under the age of 17 for the whole of the competition year.

So the oldest possible athlete who competed as an u15 this summer gone would have been born 1st October 2005. Anyone 1 day older will have already spent one year competing as an u17.