First lacing up her racing shoes at a local primary school cross country competition, Kelsey Stewart was surprised to find herself in second place as she crossed the finish line, despite being one of the youngest in the race.
Off the back of that race, Kelsey began training with her school’s cross-country team and competing in races across Scotland. A few years later, just before her 11th birthday, she was invited to go along to Banchory Stonehaven Athletics Club.
Since then, Kelsey has pulled on the Scotland and GB vests numerous times and has recently returned from captaining the Scotland squad at the Loughborough International.
We sat down with Kelsey to chat about her journey from primary school cross-country races to competing on the international stage.
The making of
It was during those primary school cross country years, when she found herself battling with the boys week on week, that Kelsey realised she could really take her running to a higher level.
“When I started competing on the track as an U13 I ran an 800m time that put me 5th in the UK so I guess I realised pretty early on that this was something I was good at,” she explained.
“I worked really hard throughout my teens in the 200m and 800m but really came into my own when I started racing in the 400m.”
Competing on the world stage
At U17s, she was medalling at UK level and got her first senior Scotland call-up amidst her Higher exams. U20 & U23 Scotland and GB call-ups followed and in 2017, after a golden season, Kelsey received the call to tell her she had been named in Team Scotland’s 2018 Commonwealth Games squad.
“Making the Commonwealth Games was a huge life goal for me, so I was obviously over the moon to receive that call."
“It was such an incredible experience to be a youngster catapulted into that environment.
“It taught me so much about major championships and all the 
preparation that goes into competing at the very top of your game.
“It has definitely made me more resilient as an athlete too. Being part of an event like that makes you realise that the end goal is so worth all the hours and work you put in.”
When Kelsey returned from the Gold Coast she didn’t slot back into training and competition as she’d hoped. Picking up an injury in 2019, her season was very limited and on top of that, a move to Cardiff for her master’s degree meant a disruption to her training.
“I was still training hard at that point, but things just weren’t coming together in competition,” she explained.
New endeavours
It was around that time that one of Kelsey’s friends sent her the link to a talent ID process for female skeleton racers to work towards the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
“I think the message was something along the lines of ‘you’d be nuts enough to do this’ and it turns out I was."
Seeing no harm in throwing her name in the mix, Kelsey made it through several tough selection processes where 250 applicants were whittled down to just 6 – Kelsey included. She then moved her life to Bath to train full-time and spent a month training intensively on the Norwegian Olympic ice track.
“I had so much fun during that time, and it was great to find love for a new sport,” Kelsey told us.
Unfortunately for Kelsey, her journey was cut short when the final team of four was selected due to mobility issues in her back. She said:
“I’ve never had a particularly mobile back, so we found that I was more of a concussion risk so ultimately had to be dropped.
“I was obviously gutted at the time as I’d done really well up until that point, but I’ve taken so much away from that experience.
“It was really reassuring to see how much progress I had been able to make in such a short space of time and in a sport I knew very little about.”
Back on track
Returning to athletics was not in Kelsey’s original game plan, however, a dinner with her former coach, Ryan Oswald, and training partner, Zoey Clark was enough to change her mind.
“That night, Ryan told me that I had unfinished business and convinced me to come back to the track and give it one more try,” Kelsey recalled.
After missing a chunk of last season due to a rupture in her plantar fascia sustained whilst warm weather training, Kelsey is now back training and competing in the sport she loves.
“Athletics has been such a big part of my life and I have felt such a loss in the times that I have been unable to compete.
"Your training group becomes your second family and I would have missed that too much if I didn't come back."
Now working full-time as a PE teacher, Kelsey says that her life has changed a lot in the past few years and that starting her first full season back in several years has felt like a new experience.
“I’m a very different athlete to what I once was. It very much feels like I’m relearning my event with a different skill set."
When asked what she is working towards, Kelsey tells us that she hopes to pull on many more Scotland vests and be back on the podium at Scottish Championships soon.
