Eilish McColgan has revealed that she has even been body-shamed by school teachers, as she called for social media companies to use formal identification to prevent the abuse she faces every day.
But McColgan, who will make her London Marathon debut on Sunday, has vowed to defy the bullies by staying on social media even though she was accused of “looking like a skeleton” and having anorexia when her mum, Liz, reposted a video of her training last month.
“Having a verified account where someone has to link their passport would make a big difference, because at the moment a lot of it is nameless and faceless,” said McColgan. “I think they just assume you’re like a robot. You’re not actually a human. You’re not a person. You don’t have a mum, a dad, a partner who’s going to read that sort of stuff. It’s very bizarre.
“It affects my mum way more than it affects me. Whereas for me, I’ve become pretty numb to it. The only reason I call it out is that I have a lot of young kids who follow me, and I don’t want them to think that the reason I’m breaking the British record, or I’m fast, is because I starve myself to do it or that skinny means fast.”
However McColgan admitted that she was stunned that people who hadn’t hidden their identities were also prepared to abuse her.
“I always find it bizarre when people have their name and face on there and they’re fully brazen,” she said. “One woman actually said something about my body shape, who was a teacher, and she had a young girl in her profile picture. So I wrote to her to say that the fact that you are openly writing this on my page as a school teacher with a daughter is a disgrace. And then obviously they vanish. They delete it because they panic.
“There was one guy who had three young daughters, and one of the comments he made was quite sexualized. I wrote back to him saying, ‘Could you imagine someone saying this to your daughters?’ They don’t think.
But despite all the abuse, McColgan insisted that she would stay on platforms such as Instagram.
“Someone said to me, you should just come off social media,” she said. “But would you tell kids that if they get bullied at school to stop going? Or to stop doing what they enjoy because one person is ruining it for you? Why should I change what I do just because of somebody that’s irrelevant for me? That is my mindset.
“I’ve had a couple of people message me saying they get bullied at school because of the way they look, so it’s helped them,” added McColgan, whose non-profit Giving Back to Track helps young athletes. “It gives them a little bit more confidence to fight their corner. So that’s really the only reason I do call it out.
“I would have loved to have been able to pop Kelly Holmes a message. But it’s also trying to get it across to the next generation that in order to get longevity in your career, your utmost priority is looking after your body. And it doesn’t matter what these people online think. They’re not your family, they’re not your friends, they’re people who are irrelevant. “
McColgan has set her sights on beating her mum’s personal best of 2hr 26min 52sec in what will be her debut marathon. In reality she may run several minutes quicker, although she admits she is nervous about running the distance for the first time.
“I’m absolutely bricking it,” she said. “I’ve never been this scared. It’s just a complete unknown. I’ve run 21 miles in training. We’ve never got anywhere near 26, so what happens after 20 miles? I don’t know, but there’s 55,000 other people on the start line all thinking the exact same thing.
“I’m super nervous, but there’s really an overriding feeling of excitement. I can’t wait to be on the streets with people cheering us, and having that sort of buzz in a race.”