Dr. Laura Muir took home the silver Olympic medal for the women’s 1,500-meter event at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Great Britain recently took home top honors by claiming the bragging rights of boasting with the world’s fastest veterinarian on the planet –well, at least for the next three years anyway!
Breaking Records
Laura not only ran her way into second place on the sports world’s most decorated stage, but she also managed to smash her own British record and Personal Best (PB). Her winning time of 3:54:50 secured her the silver behind defending champion from Kenya, Faith Kipyegon.
Athletic Accomplishments
In 2013 Dr. Muir won the gold medal in the women’s 1500 meters at the World Championships in Moscow. She also won silver in 2012 for her time of 4 minutes and 3 seconds.
Laura Muir is an English athlete competing primarily over 1500 meters’ distance. Her best time for the 1500m is 4:03 seconds at Paris 2009 and London 2017 where she was also runner up to Conseslus Kipruto. For the 5000 meters, she has achieved a personal best of 15:22.33 in Paris in2015.
She is a European champion in the 1500 meters and also won a silver medal in the 5000 meters at the 2012 Olympics. She won silver medals in both the 1500 m and 3000 m at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, respectively, coming fourth in this event at both games. She was Olympic team captain for Great Britain at these games. Her 3000 m personal best of 8:33.61 from the 2012 Olympic Games is the current British and European record.
She won a bronze medal in the 1500 m at the 2015 World Championships.
Laura Muir was named Athlete of the Month for February 2017 by running magazine Running Times. She was also named ‘MOTM’ in December 2016 by Athletics Weekly Magazine and ‘Female Athlete of the Year’ by The Guardian in June 2016.
Laura Muir was awarded the 2017 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, a prestigious award given to an inspiring and accomplished individual who has overcome major challenges during their career.
Laura Muir was also awarded ‘European Athlete of the Year’ at the 2017 IAAF Golden Tracks Awards, held in Monte Carlo. She was on top of all nominees with 44% of the votes. Since 2012, Laura Muir has been crowned World Champion twice, European Champion once and Commonwealth Champion once.
Laura Muir’s achievements in 2017 have included two gold medals at the 2017 World Championships and a Gold medal at the European Championships as well as two silver medals at the Commonwealth Games. These results are a culmination of her lifelong enthusiasm for athletics. Despite her early success, Laura chose to step away from competition for a year after winning the Commonwealth Games Gold Medal in Glasgow 2014.
Prior to her 2017 return to competition, Laura Muir had made the decision to move to Portland, Oregon, and train under Alberto Salazar alongside the Nike Oregon Project. When asked about her new coach, Laura said “Alberto Salazar is a great coach; his athletes all have strength and speed and I want those qualities.”
Within the first month of training, Laura was able to break Dame Kelly Holmes British 1500m record with a time of 3:57.95 at the Birmingham Grand Prix on March 18, 2017. She went on to run two seconds faster with a time of 3:57.39 at the Doha Diamond League meeting on May 6, 2017.
Laura Muir was also awarded the prestigious honor of being named BBC Scottish Sports Personality of the Year in December 2017.
Laura Muir was recognized as one of three Women in Running Powerhouses in December 2017 by The Independent and Running Times Magazines. Laura Muir, Laura Weightman, and Lucy Hall were chosen due to the diversity of their running careers in 2017. In addition to her athletic accomplishments, Laura Muir was also honored with the Queen’s New Year Honours list in January 2018. She was awarded an MBE for services to athletics.
Laura Muir was recently announced as one of six female athletes competing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Athletics after competing at the 2017 Worlds in London and taking home a bronze medal.
Veterinary Career
Dr. Muir is a proud alumna of the University of Glasgow. This down-to-earth veterinarian is very accomplished for an individual who is only 26 years of age. During her tenure as a veterinary student, she initially had no aspirations to become an athlete at first–much less an Olympian at that!
She joined the University of Glasgow in 2011 and decided to take up running for fun. Her coach then saw athletic potential in her and persuaded her to consider getting more serious about her running.
She worked extremely hard towards her veterinary degree, whilst pursuing her running career. Her passion for running got stronger and she proceeded up the ranks too! After obtaining her degree in 2018, she was forced to make a very difficult decision between running or practicing full time.
It was a hard choice to make, but Dr. Muir realized that an athlete’s time is short-lived and pursued this passion further. So for now, Laura Muir will run like an animal instead
Congratulations Team Great Britain and well done to Laura for taking one for the team for veterinarians worldwide!
We look forward to seeing what the future holds for Dr. Muir.
