Rhona McLeod on shining a spotlight on our "inspirational" athletes

The National

08-05-2025

It's not where you might think; in McLeod's opinion, many of the most interesting, inspirational and moving tales within Scottish sport come not from the football world but from athletes who excel in so-called 'minority sports'.
McLeod has interviewed everyone who's anyone in the world of Scottish sport; she began her career as a journalist in the 1980s at the athletics magazine, Scotland's Runner, before joining BBC Scotland where, for over 20 years, she was a regular on television screens and radio airwaves across the country.
It was during her years as one of the faces of BBC Scotland that McLeod began to realise that many of Scotland's best sporting stories were not being given the spotlight they deserve. And it's this conviction that led her to develop her new initiative, 'Capital Conversations'.
In collaboration with Edinburgh University, the monthly Capital Conversations event takes place in front of a live audience and aims to showcase some of Scotland's most successful, but often unheralded, athletes and will McLeod hopes, go some way to increasing the appreciation of some of Scotland's greatest-ever athletes.
McLeod interviewing Yared Nuguse trackside at Paris 2024 (Image: .) 'Growing up, I loved watching all sports, so when I became a sports journalist, I considered all the different sports. When I started with the BBC in 1995, though, I was shocked at quite how much the focus was on men's football,' she says.
'I've interviewed literally thousands of people over the years, and the athletes I speak to from these smaller sports are incredible, inspiring, motivational, funny, hard-working, intelligent and eloquent.
'Footballers and football managers can be quite suspicious of the media whereas working with athletes from different sports is just so much more enjoyable for me because they so often give amazing interviews, and that's why I've gone in this direction with Capital Conversations.'
There's been two Capital Conversation events so far, with the first a rugby special which featured Scotland legend, Chris Paterson, referee, Hollie Davidson plus Scotland internationalists, Matthew Currie and Harry Paterson while the second event was a Team Scotland special which featured World, Olympic, Paralympic, European and Commonwealth medallists in the shape of Eilidh Doyle, Hannah Miley, Libby Clegg and Kirsty Gilmour.
Both evenings have, says McLeod, been extremely well-received by the audience in attendance and this is down to giving the athletes the time and space to speak freely.
'I believe there really is an appetite for this kind of event in Scotland,' says McLeod.
'You don't need to be an athletics geek, or a cycling geek, or whatever, because this is not about the ins and outs of a particular sport - rather, these are people's life stories and because it's an audience of like-minded people, it's a very safe space for the athletes so they really open up.
'The athletes feel able to speak about things they might not speak about otherwise and so it makes for a fascinating evening.'
McLeod and Femke Bol from The Netherlands (Image: .) McLeod does, unsurprisingly, have a wish list of athletes she'd like as future guests.
And while she'd never say no to any of Scotland's household names, it's some of the less well-known champions she'd love to give a platform to.
'Of course, I would love to have someone like Andy Murray as a guest because he's a huge name, but the most fascinating people I've interviewed over the years are not necessarily the biggest names,' she says.
'Take Hannah Rankin. She grew up in a farm, trained as a classical musician, became a world champion boxer and now she's a bare-knuckle fighter. What a story.
'There's Luke Patience, who is an Olympic medalist in sailing and is such an interesting, inspirational guy and there's Sammi Kinghorn, who I could listen to forever. It's these type of people who have something a bit special and so we want to really get into their stories.'
The next edition of Capital Conversations takes place in Edinburgh on the 29th of May and McLeod is bracing herself for an emotional but inspiring evening.
The guests are David Smith, who Herald readers will know from his weekly column in these pages, and international swimmer, Archie Goodburn.
Smith is a cancer survivor who has been faced with countless challenges, including paralysis, while Goodburn was, last year, diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.
McLeod is confident that having the duo on stage will make for an unforgettable evening and will be just the latest example of the remarkable stories within Scottish sport.
'I often wonder if people who say they're not sports fans are actually just not being given the sports coverage that they want,' she says.
'Sport is the greatest reality show that you could ever have so let's talk to the people at the heart of it and hear their emotions, their vulnerabilities, as well as their highlights.'
Tickets are available for the next Capital Conversations on the 29th of May here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/capital-conversations-inside-the-mind-tickets-1303070552099