Kelly Sotherton has slammed online trolls for their body-shaming abuse of Eilish McColgan and urged the athletics community to come together in support of the Commonwealth champion.

The 10,000m European record holder was recently the subject of grim online comments about her body after posting a video of her London Marathon training on .

Some questioned whether McColgan had an eating disorder, which led to the long distance star labelling those commenters ‘a bunch of clowns’, while her coach and mother Liz described them as ‘demeaning and abusive’.

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Sotherton was appalled by the comments and has called for anyone making them to think about the wider impact it can have on those involved.

"It's terrible that people feel the need to comment on something like that," she said. "If you have an opinion, you have an opinion but why share something so negative. They would never say that to someone's face.

"What I would say to those people is how would you feel if it was you or your child or family member. Maybe put the shoe on the other foot. We need to think about how we can support people like Eilish who go through this."

Sotherton, who was retrospectively awarded her third Olympic bronze medal in 2017 following the retrospective ban of Russia's Tatyana Chernova, has been consistently vocal about supporting other athletes through tough periods of their careers and was proud to see how McColgan dealt with the comments in her own way.

"It's about navigating that space well," she said. "Eilish didn't necessarily grow up with social media but has come into it. The generation now are growing up now and using it but they shouldn't have to fight their own corner.

"There is probably a lot more positivity in her comments from fans giving her what she needs but you tend to only focus on the bad stuff.

"In my day, we just had to deal with the abuse in the paper, on radio or broadcast opinions, and we thought that was bad but we didn't have to fight millions of people with an opinion on social media."

Sotherton was speaking to mark 500 days to go until the European Athletics Championships at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium in 2026.

McColgan has fond memories of the venue, having won 10,000m gold and 5,000m silver representing at the 2022 . She will be in a British vest next summer and is looking forward to returning to the scene of a career high point.

"Competing at the Alexander Stadium during the was such a memorable experience for me," McColgan said.

"The atmosphere was incredible and having the home crowd behind us made it even more special.

"For the GB & NI team, having that level of support again for the European Championships will be amazing as it’ll give everyone an extra boost to perform at their best."

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