Who is Neil Gourley? Meet the British champ who just progressed to the 1500m Olympic semi-final
Team GB's Neil Gourley has reached the 1500m Olympic semi-final. With 200m to go, the 29-year-old put in a late surge to secure his spot in the semis on Sunday, where he'll join teammate Josh Kerr to battle it out for a place in the final. Fellow Brit George Mills will need to jostle for a second time for a semi-final place, however, after finishing 10th in his heat this morning.
Competing in a packed Stade de France, Gourley told BBC Scotland that he 'had to take a moment to soak it all in after my race'.
The Glaswegian athlete has endured a difficult run of injury in recent years. He was ruled out of Tokyo 2020 due to a soleus tear, and in February this year a bone injury left him barely able to walk.
Determined not to let history repeat itself, Gourley has been laser-focused on his recovery this year and has returned to the track stronger than ever. He became British Champion in June before smashing a season’s best of 3:30.65 at the Monaco Diamond League a few weeks later. That time ranks him sixth in the world this year, ahead of any other Brit.
Gourley isn’t shy about declaring his medal hopes for the Games — and for good reason. He’s got some impressive achievements behind him and is currently up there with the world’s best. Gourley was the 1500m British Champion in 2019 and 2023, both indoors and outdoors, and won a silver medal at the 2023 European Indoor Championships, just behind Jakob Ingebrigsten. Gourley also won the 2023 World Indoor Tour Final in Birmingham with a British record of 3:32.48, previously held by teammate Josh Kerr.
Where it all began
Growing up, Gourley enjoyed playing football and rugby with his friends, some of whom were scouted for teams. So, he was excited when his teacher Mrs Thompson spotted him at a fun run and suggested he go to the local athletics club. ‘I was just quite excited by the fact that someone had scouted a little bit of talent,’ he recalls.
Spurred on by Mrs Thompson, Gourley went along to the club – Giffnock North – and loved it. ‘I was lucky to have Clare Stevenson who still works with the club. She guided me through my early years, but really what it was about was nurturing and having fun,’ he remembers.
Gourley always visits the club when he is home, and says many of the faces that helped him get him to where he is now are still there. He also enjoys meeting all the young athletes coming through. 'We didn't have anyone running at a global level. It wasn't tangible to me at that point – when I was a young athlete – that I could get to that level,' he says.
Young athletes may look up to Gourley now, but who inspired him? ‘My first memory of athletics was Kelly Holmes. That's the first time athletics was on my radar, her doing the double in 2004,’ he says. ‘I have a distinct memory of sitting on the couch and my Dad explaining that Kelly likes to sit at the back and outkick people at the end of races, and she always came from a long way back. I couldn't understand that. Why wouldn't she be up the front if she wanted to win? But she was so good at coming past people in the last lap.’
Moving to America
Like many athletes, Gourley decided he wanted to move to America for university. ‘When I was about 17 or 18, it’s something I decided I really wanted to do. It’s not something I had to be convinced of,’ he says. At that point, Gourley says he wasn’t good enough to have received the support and funding to stay at home and train, and the US set-up allowed him to pursue a degree and athletics while financially supported.
Gourley attended Virginia Tech and was coached by Ben Thomas, who he clicked with immediately and whose ‘reputation has grown as being one of the best middle-distance coaches in the US, if not the world’. Gourley says Thomas, now head track and field coach at Virginia Tech, had a knack at taking athletes who were maybe not that strong going into uni onto much bigger things.
Building back up
Things were going well, and Gourley hoped to make the Tokyo Olympic team, but despite being in good shape, an injury ruled him out of the chance to qualify. ‘It was a tough one to deal with because the injury itself [a soleus tear] was never that bad, it was [just] at the wrong time.’
Gourley says a lot of low moments followed. ‘I did struggle mentally. There was a whole period there where I just didn't enjoy it so much anymore.’ Gourley says he lacked motivation and enjoyment, exacerbated by losing his Nike sponsorship and British Athletics pulling its funding. ‘All of these things just accumulate and make you reflect on whether this is all worth it, if you want to do this without the financial support and give it another go,’ he says.
But Gourley did give it another go. Shortly afterwards, he joined an Under Armour-sponsored training group based in Flagstaff, Arizona, and is now coached by Stephen Haas, who he says he has a lot to thank for. Training with the group, which includes athletes representing a host of nations in Paris, has been game-changing. Gourley responds well to the altitude, but also the people: ‘If they are good people, it just lends itself so much to enjoying the training, enjoying the lifestyle.’
Injury strikes again
Gourley had a great 2023 indoor season, winning the British Champs, the World Indoor Tour Final and European silver – before taking the outdoor British title. He then made the World Championship final in Budapest but finished ninth behind teammate Josh Kerr, who won the race in 3:29.38. Gourley competed with an injury but was unaware it was as serious as a pubic bone stress reaction.
With a wildcard place secured at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow the following February, Gourley returned to training only to be thwarted by another injury. ‘It was a sacral stress reaction. Right down the bottom of my back into my glute,’ he explains. ‘I remember getting out of the car one day and just not being able to walk anymore, having felt like I was in the shape of my life the day before.’
Missing a home champs made it much harder for Gourley. ‘You become so transfixed on this one plan, and this one set of circumstances, that when that gets taken away from you so quickly, you then really struggle,’ he says.
Gourley started working with a sport psychologist, who he credits with helping him shift his mindset. ‘The biggest realisation was that I needed to take myself away from the mindset of thinking about one date on the calendar as being the end all and be all, and start living and training one day at a time,’ he says.
‘Experimental’ cross-training
Although he struggled mentally for the few weeks he couldn’t walk, things got slightly easier once Glasgow had passed. Gourley threw himself into cross-training while he recovered. ‘It was difficult physically. I was putting in really long hours and being quite experimental with the cross-training, in that I was spending more time aerobically training than I ever had before,’ he says. ‘Most of that was on the bike – certainly for all the intense stuff – but it was swimming, aqua jogging, on the elliptical. Things I hate but needed to be done.’
Gourley scratched his competitive itch by virtually racing people on the multiplayer online cycling and running platform Zwift, where he was humbled by the impressive performances of amateur exercisers around the world. Gourley saw quick results that effectively translated to the track.
Having only been back running for barely over a month, in May, Gourley ran a personal best of 3:47.74 for 4th in the men’s Bowerman Mile at the 2024 Prefontaine Classic in Eugene. Then, he finished ahead of George Mills and Adam Fogg at the UK Athletics Championships in Manchester, and with Olympic qualification safely secured, picked up a season’s best in Monaco.
Proving people right rather than wrong
In those moments, Gourley says it would be easy to think about all the people you want to prove wrong, like the sponsors that dropped you. ‘But I never found that as strong. I got way more out of proving my supporters right than the doubters wrong,' he reflects.
Gourley says while Olympic qualification was a weight off his shoulders, he enjoyed the whole process and having his family there. ‘It means so much more when you have been with those people and shared those tough times in the sport,’ he says.
Hopes for Paris
Gourley is hoping for more highs in Paris. ‘I want to win the thing. I know that sounds audacious, perhaps even unrealistic to some, but if you go in with the expectations of, "maybe I hope to be in the final, maybe I could sneak a high position in the race", then you're putting a ceiling on yourself,’ he says. Gourley appreciates the challenges that lie ahead, but concludes: ‘I'd love to have the absolute race of my life in the most important race of my life.’
One challenge is his teammate and fellow Scott Josh Kerr, a 1500m Olympic bronze medallist, the reigning World Champion over that distance and a double World Indoor Champion in the 1500m and 3000m. But Gourley has known his rival for a long time and is grateful for the depth they collectively bring to Scottish middle-distance running. ‘Between myself, Josh and Jake [Wightman], I feel like we are internally driving higher standards, even just domestically, which lends itself to international success,’ he says.
Switching off
Over time, Gourley says he’s realised that when running is your job, switching off from it is vital. ‘It's about being present in the sport when you're there and trying to get away from it when you're not,’ he says. Gourley no longer obsessively watches old races, he’s stored enough of that in his brain to last a lifetime. These days he enjoys watching other things, particularly the Tour de France. ‘It’s refreshing to find out all these nuances about a different sport,’ he says.
Gourley spent the final few weeks before Paris training at altitude in St. Moritz. In an environment that’s so training-focused, what does he do to relax? ‘There's a swimming pool nearby that has these kiddies slides,’ he says. ‘That's what I'm going to do next. I'm gonna be a big kid and go with a few friends.’
It’s an unconventional way to unwind, but then again, there are no rules when it comes to 1500m running.
Will he defy convention in his approach to securing an Olympic medal in Paris? We can't wait to see what the Glaswegian has up his sleeve.
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