3 days ago
Livingston runner who beat Laura Muir sets sights on GB place at World Championships
Sarah Calvert stunned elite athlete Muir to win the UK 1500m title
A Livingston post-grad medical student who pipped Laura Muir to a major UK title has set her sights on making the GB team for next month's World Championships.
Sarah Calvert, 24, became an overnight sensation after beating Muir to the 1500m post by five hundredths of a second at the UK Championships in Birmingham in the first weekend of August, and joked that she knew of her fame when a Wikipedia page appeared.
Former Linlithgow Academy pupil Calvert has now set her sights on achieving the 4.01.50 World Championships qualifying standard for Tokyo.
She told BBC Sport: 'As soon as I crossed the line, I knew it was crazy. I knew this was the biggest moment of my life.
'Afterwards, I had my first anti-doping test, so that was another good experience.
'Since then, I've had so many messages from people from school, from all my friends, from my parents' friends – it makes it all seem very special.
'My dad sent me a text to tell me I've got a Wikipedia page now. It's just kind of insane. I didn't really expect it to blow up like this.
'It feels incredible. I did not expect this ever to happen, but
especially not with being busy in May, studying for exams – that was pretty stressful for me.'
Livingston Athletics Club runner Calvert, who is studying at Edinburgh University, reckoned she had 'absolutely no chance' of making the GB team for Tokyo, but said: 'It still seems pretty far off, because I need to run a big personal best, I think I just have to go for it.'
Calvert's career was nearly over before it began, as she underwent an operation for the back condition scoliosis aged 15, leaving her sidelined for a year.
'It was a really tough and scary time in my life,' Calvert told Scottish Athletics. 'I had metal rods inserted in my back and, yes, they are still there.
'My family and I went through a lot at that time, and couldn't do any exercise at all for a year.
'I remember at the time thinking 'when will I get back to running again', will I even be able to improve my personal bests? I was thinking 'will I ever run again'.
'Then, getting back, it took so long to be fit. I never knew if I would win races again, and get to the top in my age groups.'
Now, aged 25, Sarah trains in the morning, cycles to a hospital placement and trains in the evenings.
She said: 'I often worry that I'm compromising running for medicine and then the other way around, but I think I just have to accept that I want to be a runner, and I want to be a doctor at some point in my life.
'So for now, the best way for me to do it is to combine the two. I rarely have to miss training for medicine, so I make it work pretty well.'
Calvert clocked a Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games qualifying time of 4mins 04.33secs to finish fourth at the Flanders International meeting in Oordegem, Belgium, taking almost four seconds off her personal best.
Though outside the World Championships qualifying time, she still has time to chase the Tokyo mark.
Sarah's younger sister Isla is also a middle-distance runner.
