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Competing under her maiden name of Lynch, Liz McColgan had achieved her
first major international success when she won the Commonwealth 10000m
title at Edinburgh in July 1986. The following month, she finished 7th
at that distance in the European Championships, finishing over a lap
behind the winner and world-record holder, Ingrid Kristiansen (Norway).
In the 10,000m final at the 1987 World Championships in Rome held on 4
September, Kristiansen surged away from the field on the second lap and
quickly built a substantial lead.
A group of four runners behind her,
led by Lynch, seemingly made no effort to catch Kristiansen, although
none of the others made any effort to help Liz reel in the Norwegian.
Kristiansen duly won the race, and when the trailing group of four
started their sprint for the minor medals on the last lap, Liz was left
behind. However, although she finished fifth, Liz smashed her own
Commonwealth record, setting a new time of 31min 19.82sec. Following
her marriage to Irish steeplechaser Peter McColgan in October 1987, and
competing under her married name, Liz further reduced her Commonwealth
record over 10,000m to 31min 06.99sec at Oslo on 2 July 1988.
At the
Olympic Games in Seoul, both McColgan and Kristiansen were easy winners
of their respective heats on 26 September. In the final held four days
later, Kristiansen again broke away from the field in the early stages,
but retired from the race after 7 laps with a bone fracture in her foot.
McColgan (see photo above) took the lead from just after the
halfway point, gradually dropping the other challengers, until by the
bell, only Olga Bondarenko (Soviet Union) remained. Bondarenko sprinted
past Liz with 200m to go, and went on to win the gold medal, leaving
McColgan a comfortable winner of the silver. (Ron Casey)
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