INVERCLYDE Athletic Club’s top junior endurance athlete Jonny Glen has accepted a sports scholarship with the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. 

For the past three years Jonny has won every Scottish national title, from cross country to road and track and 3,000m to 10,000m. 

During this period he has also been a top contender at UK level, securing selection for Team GB to compete at the European and World Cross Country Championships alongside Rio-bound Olympians Callum Hawkins and Andrew Butchart and the world’s top endurance athlete Mo Farah.

Jonny’s performances did not go unnoticed across the Atlantic and an offer of a sports scholarship from the University of New Mexico shortly followed. 

After much personal sacrifice, Jonny decided to take this excellent opportunity and heads Stateside next week. This will be a huge step in the 19-year-old’s athletics development. 

Jonny joined Inverclyde Athletic Club as a 10-year-old where coach Janice Hendrie offered the direction, guidance and basic athletic development to the young athlete. 

Over the years Jonny followed IAC’s development programme and moved under the watchful eye of coach Ian Cameron as a teenager.

Ian then brought in the assistance of Mark Pollard and between them worked on an individual programme which would take Jonny to the top of Scottish endurance junior squad. 

A sacrifice by Jonny to spend more time on training and less on socialising reaped major rewards, winning the National Cross Country title for the first time, and from then the titles rolled in at Scottish level.

A development plan to compete around the UK saw Jonny confirm himself as a major competitor winning UK trial races.

This saw him selected to run the top cross country event in the world the World Cross Country Championship in China.

Jonny has continued to train locally, providing support and guidance to his younger club mates. 

And it was with a heavy heart that his young team-mates gave him a warm send off at Ravenscraig track to send him on his way to America.