CROSS PURPOSE
Andrew Butchart tells Euan Crumley why learning his craft off-road laid a foundation which is taking him right to the top of his sport
PICTURES: MARK SHEARMAN
Andy Butchart leads the pack in Milton Keynes last year
Mark Shearman
ANDREW BUTCHART has now contested an Olympic 5000m final, going toe to toe with some of the finest athletes on the planet and finishing an impressive sixth. He has taken great strides forward this year and achieved much for one so young.
Yet it says much for the place that cross-country running holds within athletics’ heart that, to his coach Derek Easton, the two Scottish National cross-country wins which Butchart has to his name deserve just as much reverence as anything he did in reaching Rio.
You won’t hear the 24-year-old -old complaining when he’s prescribed a diet of mud and hills as part of his training, either.
Andrew Butchart: international cross-country experience has served him well
He acknowledges how important that grinding his way over the slopes and through the slime has been in his development.
It was an appearance in the World Cross Country Championships that Butchart credits with helping him “buck up my ideas” in terms of how far he still had to come. And winning that Scottish National title for a second time back in February brings a large grin as he recalls breaking the tape in Falkirk.
“To win the Scottish Nationals – my coach thinks of it like it’s the Olympic Games of the sport. It was the peak of my athletics career in my coach’s opinion!” says Butchart. “So when I won it it meant a lot to me and definitely helped me bring forward a positive attitude to the track season.
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