Thirty years after her mother Liz won the 10,000m world title in Tokyo, Eilish McColgan looks set to follow in her footsteps and compete in her third Olympic Games this summer.
The 30-year-old staged a brilliant sprint finish to pip Selamawit Teferi on the line and win the European 10,000m Cup in a thrilling race in Birmingham.
McColgan had already gone under the Tokyo qualifying standard and did so again on home soil as she overhauled Teferi, who had led for much of the race.
"She said don't leave it to the last lap," McColgan said of her mother.
"I did have that in the back of my mind so I just kept reminding myself to keep calm over the last couple of laps.
"You have one opportunity to try and knit it together on the day so I suppose there was a part of me that was like, 'don't mess this up'. I'm absolutely buzzing."
On an emotional night in Birmingham, Jessica Judd also ran under the qualifying time and is on course for her first Olympic Games.
The smile says it all 😃 @jessjuddxx clinched her place at #Tokyo2020 yesterday evening 👏 #Muller10kChamps #Euro10kCup pic.twitter.com/SD8OLngido
— British Athletics (@BritAthletics) June 6, 2021
There was mixed news from the men’s race, where Mo Farah’s return to the track did not go to plan.
Farah was running in his first 10,000m race since the 2017 World Championships after a brief switch to the marathon but finished in eighth.
In a race that doubled as the Olympic trial, the 38-year-old faded in the second half of the race and crossed the line in 27:50.54, 22 seconds off the required time.
He later said he was bothered by an ankle injury and finished as the second Brit behind Marc Scott.
“It is what it is. The last ten days hasn’t been great but, no matter what I’ve achieved in my career, it was important that I come to the trials. It would have been easy not to show but I did show and I dug in deep,” he said.
“With 15 laps to go I was hurting hard. I just had to keep fighting, keep digging in and finish in the top two.”
Scott finished in seventh and, although his time was also outside the Olympic qualifying standard of 27:28.00, he ran under that in America earlier this year and a top-two finish edges him closer to the Games.
“It’s a shame not to win the race overall but I just wanted to get the job done against the British guys,” he said.