Eilish McColgan’s 10,000m victory has been named the greatest Commonwealth Games moment of all time
- Andrew Batchelor
- Jul 17
- 1 min read
Eilish McColgan’s 10,000m victory has been named the greatest Commonwealth Games moment of all time.
With just one week to go until the Commonwealth Games return to Glasgow, McColgan’s historic victory was crowned the greatest moment in the history of the Games, beating some of the most iconic performances ever witnessed on the Commonwealth stage.
The Birmingham 2022 triumph finished ahead of Flora Duffy’s historic women’s triathlon victory for Bermuda at Gold Coast 2018 and Usain Bolt anchoring Jamaica to 4x100m relay gold at Glasgow 2014.
When voting closed, McColgan had secured an impressive 1,890 votes, claiming 50% of all votes cast and opening up a comfortable lead over the other shortlisted moments.
Her victory in Birmingham captured the imagination of sporting fans across the Commonwealth as she stormed to gold in the women’s 10,000m, following in the footsteps of her mother, Liz McColgan, who won the same event for Scotland at the 1986 Commonwealth Games.
The emotional scenes between mother and daughter after the race became one of the defining images of Birmingham 2022 and have now officially been recognised by fans as the greatest Commonwealth Games moment ever.
The result comes just days before Glasgow welcomes athletes from across the Commonwealth for the 2026 edition, with McColgan becoming ambassador for the games.
After the result was announced, Eilish acknowledged the support from home by replying, “Dundee always”, while both Eilish and Liz McColgan also shared Dundee Culture’s coverage of the vote on Instagram.
