It may seem a bit harsh to refer to Tom Mortimer as a rising star when he has already achieved so much in his running career.

The 22-year-old Stroud and District Athletic Club member has won an England vest and competed for Great Britain at under-23 and under-20 level.

But his long-time coach Chris Brown insists he is indeed still very much a rising star, saying: “He hasn’t been to an Olympic Games yet.”

And such are the high standards that Mortimer has set in recent times that the 5,000 metres at the Olympics in Paris in 2024 are now a very realistic target.

Before that there is the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and Brown, a coach at Stroud AC, believes if he can qualify to run in England’s second city next summer then he has a good chance of realising his Olympic dream in the French capital two years later.

And if that happens the 57-year-old Brown will obviously be a very, very happy man.

“I’d be so proud,” he said. “I’ve just tried to help him along the way but if he got to the Olympics that would be amazing.”

He’s not there yet, of course, and it’s been a long journey just to get to where he is now – a level which sees Mortimer established as one of the best middle distance runners in the country.

It’s taken patience, hard work and dedication allied, of course, to plenty of ability and Brown has been involved with the former Marling School pupil pretty much every step of the way.

“He turned up at the club when he was in year 9 at school,” said Brown, who has been a coach at Stroud AC since the early 2000s.

“He came along by himself, said he wanted to join the club and that he wanted to get into the school’s district cross-country team.

“The race was in six weeks’ times and only the top 16 got picked so it was a tough ask. He’d tried to get in twice before and not managed it.

“I told him that if he came training twice a week with us for six weeks he’d get in.”

And he did. And not only that, he went on to win the district cross-country race as well.

He followed that up by winning the county cross-country and then finishing fourth in the South West after leading for much of the race.

“He was progressively getting better,” said Brown. “He was training three times a week and I took him to the English Nationals for the 3,000 metres when he was in year 11.

“He came last but I thought, ‘That’s a fast time for a boy of his age’.”

He finished in just under nine minutes and after three or four years Brown said he realised he had a runner of “real potential”.

“He was diligent in training but he was also such a nice lad,” said Brown. “He was caring and looked after the younger runners at the club, which meant when he was racing cross-country he always had plenty of vocal support.”

And those supporters had lots to shout about because Mortimer was building up a very impressive CV with plenty of wins on his record.

His potential was obvious and he’d come to the attention of the Great Britain selectors who, in 2017, chose him in their European Championships under-20 team for the 5,000 metres in Grosseto in Tuscany.

A year later he was in Tampere, Finland, in the same team and running the same distance in the World Junior Championships.

“I went out with him for both those races,” said Brown, who watched his protégé clock 14 minutes, 37 seconds in Finland, more than 80 seconds quicker than he ran in Italy.

Despite that, Brown added: “Neither race went well, he was injured both times.”

Mortimer, like so many young sportsmen, has had to contend with injuries, but despite those problems it was clear that 5,000 metres was his optimum distance.

“He doesn’t have the blistering speed to be competitive at the end of 1,500 metres,” said Brown. “He’s still quick and if it is fast from the beginning he is competitive over 1,500m.

“He’s always been good at cross-country but he’s gravitated to 5,000 metres. He’s not interested in 10,000 metres or half-marathons, although he has the potential to do those.”

And as well as 5k, he’s also a standout 3,000 metres runner as he proved earlier this year.

Brown takes up the story. “It was the Diamond League at Gateshead in July,” he said. “He broke Steve Ovett’s 44-year-old Great Britain record for an under-23 runner by three seconds, finishing in seven minutes, 38.

“It was phenomenal and what it shows is that he can run a lot quicker at 5k. I think that was his breakthrough race.”

And what made it all the more impressive was that it came off the back of a disappointing 5,000 metres run in the European Under-23 Championships in Estonia three days earlier.

He came fourth and Brown said: “He was gutted by that result and saw the Diamond League as a chance for redemption.

“He was really fired up and determined to make amends for that poor performance.” 

And he’ll need to keep on producing runs like that if he is to realise his ambitions because there is plenty of competition.

“I don’t think middle distance running in this country has never been as strong as it is now,” said Brown.

“People talk about the 80s and Coe and Ovett but it’s stronger now. Lockdown changed it because everyone could get out and train all the time.

“There are some really strong guys. The days when you can dominate with mediocre runs are over, you’ve got to be on your toes all the time.”

Fortunately, the mental side of the sport is one of Mortimer’s strengths.

“When he gets beaten he doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t dwell on it,” said Brown.

“His attitude is, ‘I must do better’. He won’t let things get him down and if he’s getting beaten, he’ll say, ‘Yes, but I’m getting closer to them’.

“I’ve seen others with Tom Mortimer’s running ability but they didn’t have his mental ability.”

Mortimer is based at Loughborough these days after spending four years at the town’s university.

He is, essentially, a full-time athlete and despite now living more than 100 miles away from where he was brought up, he has not forgotten his roots.

“He’s a very proud Stroud runner, he wears the Stroud vest when he can,” said Brown, who has lived in Stroud pretty much all his life.

Brown is not as hands-on with Mortimer these days for obvious reasons – Chris McGeorge is his lead coach – but he remains very much in contact with him.

“I’m like his second coach,” Brown said. “I’m there for help and advice. We communicate once a week, it might only be by text or email. He’ll contact me if he’s got a problem or some good news.”

Brown remains heavily involved in Stroud AC where he coaches mainly the juniors, with a particular focus on the middle distance runners.

He got involved because his then 10-year-old son Xander joined the club some 16 years ago.

Coaching wasn’t something that was new to him, although he hadn’t been involved in athletics previously.

The one-time Stroud rugby player – he was a prop – set up Minchinhamption Rugby Club’s junior section in 1994.

“We started off with five players and within six years we’d got 300,” said Brown, who also coached the men’s and women’s teams at the club.”

By his own admission Brown, a former Archway School pupil, wasn’t a great athlete himself – “I ran a couple of Stroud half-marathons but I wasn’t particularly competitive,” he said – but he does believe there is a remarkable amount of running talent in and around Stroud.

“There’s something in the Stroud genes,” said Brown. “Historically the town has produced so many good runners.

“We’ve had national champions at under-15, under-17 and under-20. Stroud is too small, it’s too small a population to get these results, it’s not just the coaching, it’s something in the gene pool.”