After reconsidering his decision to retire and giving up despite repeated injuries, Guy Learmont is using his Montpellier base to give himself one last shot, writes Mark Woods.
The long road to what Guy Learmont hopes will culminate in a run to redemption next summer began not in his native Scotland but across the ocean in France.
Nor has it been the case on the Mediterranean’s sunny south coast, where he has lived and trained for the past 16 months. Instead, it began in a remote area that still forms an integral part of his adopted nation, Gallic in design but very different in outlook.
Guadeloupe, in the center of the Caribbean, is almost 7,000 kilometers and an eight-hour flight from Paris with a tailwind. The family of Learmont’s girlfriend, Olympic 800m finalist Renelle Lamotte, hails from this remote but idyllic group of islands.
In the wake of a track campaign where both had to navigate the choppy waters of injuries, they took a long flight last fall to regroup and start again heading into 2026.
“It’s a beautiful part of the world,” said the 33-year-old four-time British champion over 800m. “But it became a bit of a training camp. It just started with two weeks of easy running and then slowly progressed to harder stuff. So I came back to Montpellier in much better shape than I was in 2024. And this time I didn’t get hurt.
Two-time sixth-placed at the European Indoor Championships, Learmont had loudly signaled his intention to retire from athletics when all his pursuit of finally making his Olympic debut at Paris 2024 was cut short.
She took a long break to cheer when her partner finished fifth at her home games. There was freedom to relax and unwind, but also to think deeply about whether this was really the finish line. “I felt that three months was a good time for me to not think about making rash decisions, but I knew I had to make a change after that.
“When talking with my family, they said: “Come back home.” I was saying: “No, I can’t do that. I can’t run through the streets again. If I’m going to do it, I have to get a clean slate with everything: a whole new life, new training, a new formation.”
Go one more time. Parting ways with his Australian-based coach Justin Rinaldi, Learmont moved to join Lamott at Montpellier, where he turned to his mentor. Bruno Gajer is an engineer reboot. Romance has blossomed.
“It was a bit of a gamble because we hadn’t been together that long and we’d recently gone from dating to moving in together,” she laughs. “But it was the best move of my life.”
However, there was a contrasting reaction from his body. Injury: Then another one. And repeat. More misery than he could handle, or deserved.
“Right before the season I had a hamstring tear,” Learmont said. “Shortly after arriving, I tore my calf in the first few weeks of training, then had an achilles problem in the same leg that turned into tendinopathy.”
A structural weakness just didn’t stop him from training. “It just burned for months. I struggled to walk at times.” Autumn turned to winter, and he was still kicking his heels. At six weeks, there was a relapse, then a nerve problem that pinched him from his quad to his hamstring.
Gajer, formerly Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s trainer, kept her patient while she rehabbed. With the World Championships in Tokyo on the horizon and the qualifying deadline looming, there was an urgency to get back on track.
Bruno said. “I know you haven’t run in a long time, but we’ve got to get you somewhere,” Learmont recalled. “It was a lot of cross training. I kept myself as fit as possible. Bruno said: “We’re running out of time if you want a season.” So we took a bit of a risk. It was very difficult for the first three or four weeks when I really struggled with training.
“I just held on a bit and when things started to tighten I tore my hamstring, a seven centimeter tear. And it really was summer.”
Again, the tendency was to call it quits, move on, and walk away.
Lamotte also struggled but made it to Japan. However, he arrived without the race sharpness to progress beyond the semi-finals. Learmont crammed in a few races to reactivate his top 10 power. The two then retreated into the sunlight to lick their wounds and take stock.
Now that the knocks are off, Learmont goes again. For which he is more confident in calling the last year. The aim is to open on home soil at this month’s EAP meeting in Glasgow and then assess whether the World Indoor Championships in Torun in March is a viable target.
Signs, cautiously, feel positive so far. “We’ve changed the training a lot,” he says. “Bruno made some big changes throughout the week. I’m in a good place. And that’s how we’re able to move it forward.”
Few will begrudge him a recent victory at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. To take the applause and bow with grace. Even now, his competitive streak is too strong to simply aim to show up.
“I would also like to return to the British team,” he emphasizes. “I don’t want to just get a national uniform or anything. I want to fight for every team.”
The journey to the beginning had shocking bumps and turns that left Learmont dizzy. All he asks for is a clean sprint down the home straight. “I’ve really been through everything, all the emotions, all the highs and lows,” she adds. “I’m completely at peace with everything, everything on the track. But there is a lot of unfinished business and I really hope I can achieve something good.”
