Athletics: McConnell can finish her 'dream summer' with lucrative flourish

Rapidly improving 400m runner has exploited main rivals' absence and justified difficult change of event

Lee McConnell, whose exploits over 400 metres this season have established her as Britain's most dramatically rising talent, received a predictably warm reception last month upon her appearance at Glasgow's Scotstoun Stadium, just a few miles from her home at Coatbridge.

Before the race began, the 23-year-old Commonwealth silver medallist and European bronze medallist received such sustained applause that she broke with her normal practice and waved in acknowledgement. Afterwards McConnell received that other traditional confirmation of star status as she was besieged by autograph hunters.

The reaction of the home crowd was not universally adulatory, however. McConnell's mother, Linda, was finding the whole experience difficult to take in.

"She was a bit taken aback at the level of interest in me," McConnell said with a chuckle. "She doesn't see me as someone who would give autographs. She still sees me as her little girl – no different to what I was a year ago."

McConnell may still be her mother's little girl, but in terms of athletics she bears no relation to the runner who, 12 months ago, had just completed her first season as a 400m exponent after switching from her established role as a high jumper.

Later this month her newly established reputation will be confirmed at the World Cup in Madrid, where she is one of four British women athletes picked to represent Europe in the quadrennial event. It is an honour that has been accorded in the past to 400m runners of the stature of Irena Szewinska, Jarmila Kratochvilova and Marie-Jose Perec, all either world or Olympic champions, and her own early role model, Sally Gunnell.

With the two women who finished ahead of her in Munich, Russia's Olisya Zykina and Germany's Grit Breuer, competing in Spain for their own countries, the opportunity presented itself for McConnell to finish off a startlingly good season with a flourish she could never have imagined even two months ago.

With prize-money on offer for places on a sliding scale, starting with $30,000 (£20,000) for individual winners, McConnell could have the biggest pay day of her fledgling international career. But she is more concerned to use the one-off race to achieve a time under 51 seconds. Comfortingly for British athletics, this is a runner who is thinking long-term. As some of her more experienced colleagues are beginning to complain about the stresses of a long, hard season, she is charging on in both hope and expectation.

Following the injuries that sidelined Katharine Merry and Donna Fraser, third and fourth respectively in the last Olympic 400m final, little was expected of Britain's women 400m runners this year. But for McConnell, who announced her arrival as a top-class competitor by winning the AAA Championships and European trials, the unhappy circumstances have created an environment in which she has thrived.

McConnell recalls watching Merry and Fraser on television as they ran in the Olympic final. 'I thought, "I would love to be there one day," ' she recalled. "They have been such great inspirations to me. I would never have thought I would now be in this position.

"I think the fact that they were not around this year has helped me in terms of publicity. I've got a lot more attention than I would have had if Katharine and Donna had been running. But I don't think them being there would have altered my performances."

In terms of hard statistics, McConnell has ground to make up to catch her established rivals – her best of 51.02sec, set in winning the bronze in Munich, is some way off Merry's best of 49.59. But the confidence and pace judgement she exhibited in Manchester and Munich underlined the fact that Britain now has another serious competitor in the event, and one who has many years in which to get even better.

It was competitive instinct which prompted McConnell to discard a career in high jumping that would have satisfied most athletes. She was ranked fourth in Britain in 2000, having jumped 1.88m, and had won the Scottish title for three years running. It was not enough.

"I didn't think I could become world class," she said. "I could not see myself clearing two metres, which is what I would have needed. And if you can't see it in your mind you are not going to do it. I could see myself more in that position in the 400m."

Her aspirations were not without foundation. As a 10-year-old she had discovered her aptitude for running when she attended an athletics scheme at Glasgow's Kelvin Hall during her school holidays. She soon joined the City of Glasgow AC, where she ran the 200m in 24 seconds as a 15-year-old.

She feels that the exercises and drills she completed in her high jump training helped her to make a transition that was overseen by her two coaches at the Coatbridge track, Alan Scobie and Roger Harkins.

McConnell received a little unlooked-for coaching advice during the European Championships when the double Olympic 400m champion Michael Johnson, contributing to BBC TV's coverage of the event, ventured the opinion that one of her arms came across her body while she was running as if she was preparing to take off in the high jump.

Having heard about Johnson's on-air comments, McConnell asked if she could speak to him about them, and the US world record holder demonstrated on video how the action was making her twist while she ran. Some might consider that this was a bit of a cheek coming from a man whose career was based on an improbable guardsman-on-parade style with minimum knee lift.

It was not an entirely comfortable experience for the Scotswoman, however, as the whole conversation was captured on camera. "I would have preferred to have a quiet word with him," she said. "Cameras are quite new to me."

That is a problem McConnell is quickly going to have to come to terms with after what she refers to as her "dream summer". It has surprised her as much as anyone. "I don't think I have realised fully what I have achieved," she said. "Everything has happened so quickly – it's been amazing."

It is another measure of her progress that this week has been dotted by meetings with shoe companies eager to sign her up. Robert Wagner, who acts for athletes such as Britain's Kelly Holmes and Colin Jackson, is already organising her race programme.

One important lesson has already been learned in the course of the last month. Having urged her mum to go on a holiday she had booked rather than coming to watch her at the European Championships – "I didn't really think I'd get a medal" – McConnell is not making the same mistake for Madrid. "I told her not to get talked out of the trip this time," she said.

Another important lesson is still sinking in. McConnell confesses to having the odd twinge of regret about abandoning her high jump career, a state of mind that is not helped by training regularly at the Coatbridge track in company with the young high jumper Tony Gilhooly. "I was watching him jump the other day," McConnell said, "and I thought to myself, 'I reckon I could clear that'. But then my coach came up to me and said 'Don't even think about it'."

McConnell may be Britain's most upwardly mobile athlete of the moment, but as far as she is concerned, the high jump area is now officially out of bounds.