COMING up for 16 years ago, I was sitting in the press box at Epsom watching the 2001 Derby, and feeling very good about it.

I have told this story before, but for a very good reason I must tell it again. Alongside me was the doyen of British sportswriters, Hugh McIlvanney, and before the race we chatted about his brother Willie who I knew through his associations with my late brother Stevie and the newspaper I then worked for. I also recall helping Hugh fix his laptop which was a first and a last for me as I am notoriously death to the workings of anything electronic, mechanical or plain inanimate.

Hugh had strong connections to the Ballydoyle stable of trainer Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore stud owned by John Magnier, and despite the credentials of the 2,000 Guineas winner Golan, Hugh was putting his money on O’Brien’s big hope Galileo, the mount of master jockey Mick Kinane. I took the hint and got the money down.

As the race started, it was clear that the Barry Hills-trained Mr Combustible was going to make a decent pace in order to assist the stable’s big hope Perfect Sunday. It was to no avail because as they came round Tattenham Corner in first and second place, Kinane had Galileo in perfect position and over two furlongs out he let the colt go.

In a matter of strides, Galileo pounced and simply flew past the Hills pair. I heard Hugh let out a sound and I rendered it onomatopoeically as ‘whoosh’, and ever since then when I see a similar explosion of pace from a horse I call it a ‘whoosh’ moment.

The fact is that I have rarely seen a whoosh from the horses I have backed over the years, and I have very rarely seen it from a human athlete, and certainly not a female Scottish athlete.

At the weekend I saw three extraordinary whooshes, all of them by a brilliant young woman runner of whom all Scotland should be proud.

In Saturday’s 1500m European Indoor Championship race, after a pedestrian first lap, Laura Muir just whooshed right by the entire field to go to the front. It was lovely to watch, because she didn’t look to have expended an ounce of effort.

Only Poland’s Sofia Ennaoui and Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen could stay with her and when the latter moved up with 300m left, this time the whoosh was magnificently decisive and gold was hers in a heartbeat. I swear I let out a roar of exultation in front of the telly, as I have not seen the like from a Scottish runner since the heyday of Ian Stewart.

If that was electrifying, what she did on Sunday was truly shocking. To destroy a class field of athletes in the 3,000m in the fashion that she did, whooshing past Turkey’s Yasemin Can – the European outdoor 5,000m and 10,000m champion, no less – with a lap and a half to go and seemingly accelerating all the way to the line, was just utterly wonderful to watch.

At long last we have a world class woman middle distance runner, and anyone who wonders how she can propel that tiny 5ft 3in frame at such speeds and with such stamina needs only to review the footage of her encounter with the jobsworth official who tried to stop her lap of honour after her first major gold medal. I could see two words on Laura’s face – “Aye, right” and she confirmed afterwards that nothing was going to stop her having that lap.

“I had to fight for that didn’t I?” she explained. “They said: ‘We don’t have time.’ I thought it’s my first medal. I’m not going to lose out on my lap of honour.

“I couldn’t really believe what she was saying. But I thought: ‘At the end of the day, she won’t be able to catch me.’”

That is the determination which makes champions. With two championship records set – the 1500m record had stood for 32 years – there was probably no one in the arena who could have caught Laura, a pocket rocket who every pundit has said will now go on to the highest stages, starting with the World Athletics Championships in London in August.

We then have the 2018 Commonwealth Championships – was Glasgow really so long ago? – in the Gold Coast, Australia, and barring accidents or injuries she is surely set to bring back at least one gold from there.

She will hopefully be joined by our other Scottish medallists from Belgrade, Eilish McColgan and Eilidh Doyle. Did you notice that if Scotland was independent and competing in the European Indoors, our individual tally of two golds and a silver – leaving out Eilidh as she was in a relay team - would have put us fourth equal in the medal table along with France and miles ahead of Spain and Italy? Just a thought… Scottish Athletics’ performance director Roger Harkins said yesterday that this country’s track and field competitors could soon be bringing us “unprecedented” success. With 15 athletes at last year’s Olympics and 6 at the Paralympics, Harkins knows that there is talent out there and it will only take the likes of Chris O’Hare, Steph Twell, Andy Butchart and Callum Hawkins to reach their potential for Scotland to have a team of world beaters, led by the woman who this morning returns to her veterinary studies in Glasgow.

Little Miss Whoosh is just starting – let’s hope and pray she stays healthy and brings home plenty more medals.