Rhona Auckland has been promoted to the Great Britain senior women’s team for next month’s Bupa Edinburgh international cross-country meeting at Holyrood Park.
The decision to award the 20-year-old Banchory-Stonehaven AC runner her first senior representative honour comes less than a week after the Torphins athlete finished seventh in the under-23 age group race in the European championships in Belgrade, helping the British squad win team gold.
Auckland will now line-up as part of a 12-strong senior side in the Edinburgh match on January 11 in which the Britons will compete against the US and a European select over a 6km course.
She is coached by Aberdeen couple Ken and Joyce Hogg and Ken said: “We were just coming down to earth a bit after Rhona’s great performance in Belgrade and now this comes along. It’s just amazing. She is very excited about it and is really looking forward to competing in Edinburgh.”
Auckland has had little time to celebrate her European success or this latest international call-up as she is in the middle of exams at Edinburgh University, where she is in the third year of studying towards a degree in medical sciences.
She plans to take part in the Banchory Boxing Day fun run before finalising her preparations for Edinburgh.
Two other Scots are included in the women’s GB team.
Olympic marathon runner Freya Ross (Edinburgh AC) has been selected despite being beaten into second position by Morag MacLarty (Central AC) in last weekend’s East of Scotland championships in Dundee.
Former world junior 1,500metres champion Steph Twell (Aldershot, Farnham and District) is also in the line-up.
The Great Britain men’s team includes Andrew Butchart (Central AC), who set a course record in this year’s ConocoPhillips 5km at Balmoral Castle and who now earns his first senior call-up.
Butchart is joined in the team by fellow Scot Callum Hawkins (Kilbarchan AAC) who is promoted from the under-23 side.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele will make his sixth appearance at the Edinburgh meeting when he competes in the men’s 4km race.
The former world and Olympic champion scored three successive victories at the event from 2006 and is hoping to add to that tally when he returns to Scotland in the new year.