b. Walter Menzies Campbell, Glasgow, 22 May 1941; d. London, 26 September 2025. Olympic sprinter and politician who won 10 individual Scottish titles.

Glasgow born Walter Menzies Campbell, affectionately known to all as “Ming” throughout the athletic world, has excelled, like so many other top-class athletes, not only on the athletics track, but in his life and career in general. His achievements at sprinting during his university days, at the bar as an advocate and Queens Counsel and as a member of parliament in the House of Commons, were all of the highest quality. Whilst a law student at Glasgow University, Campbell initially concentrated on the quarter mile distance, only later developing into an outstanding sprinter over the shorter 100 and 220 yards and their metric equivalents. 

At the age of twenty, he won the first of four successive national 440 yards titles, recording 49.0 seconds in 1961, the first year that the Scottish national championships became open to athletes throughout the world, 78 years after their inauguration as a closed championship open only to Scottish athletes. The following year he retained his title, equalling the national record of 48.0. In 1963 and 1964 the tall, rangy Scot had triple sprint successes in the Scottish Championships, winning the 100, 220 and 440 titles with memorable displays of strength and speed. Only four Scottish sprinters had achieved this triple win before – Alf Downer on 3 successive occasions between 1893 to 1895, William Welsh in 1900, Wyndham Halswelle in 1906, and Eric Liddell in 1924 and 1925. Campbell became the first in almost 40 years to win the treble with times of 10.1, 21.8 and 48.4, receiving his gold medals from the 1900 winner, Dr William Welsh. He was awarded the Coronation Cup as the outstanding Scottish athlete of the year, sharing the award in 1963 with Fergus Murray and with Jim Alder in 1964. Aiming for a third successive treble in 1965, he won the 100 and 220 double, but was forced by injury to withdraw from the 440 final at the end of the meeting, thus missing out on equalling Alf Downer's fabulous achievement of three successive trebles. His amazing sprinting consistency over the three distances resulted in a total of 17 Scottish sprint titles, ten individual and seven relay titles, in just four years’ competition.

Campbell also won two AAA titles over 220, equalling the championship record of 21.1 in both the semi and final races in 1964 and then, after finishing runner-up in both 1965 and 1966, won his second title in 1967 in 21.4. Ming competed three times in the World Student Games in 1961, 1963 and 1967, winning medals on all three of his appearances, including the 200 metres silver at Tokyo in 1967 with his run of 21.2 behind Tommy Smith (USA), 20.7, who went on to win the Olympic gold medal at Mexico City the following year. His versatility over the 3 sprint distances allowed him to complete a strenuous championship with a total of 3 medals, adding another silver medal in the 4x400 relay and a bronze in the 4x100. He had previously won a gold medal in 1963 as a member of the winning 4x400 team and a bronze in his first competition in the 1961 4x400. He represented Britain in the 1964 Olympic Games at Tokyo where he recorded 21.33 when winning his 200 metres first round heat, but did not progress past the second round. His numerous successes, natural air of authority and easy acceptance by both athletes and officials alike, resulted in him being named as captain of the British men's team for 1965 and 1966. Prior to the Tokyo Olympics, he recorded 20.9 over 200 metres at London’s White City to make him the first Scot to better 21 seconds for the event, 40 years after Eric Liddell had become the first Scot to better 22 seconds when running 21.8 at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. He also captained Scotland's team in the 1966 Commonwealth Games at Jamaica where, in the tropical heat and humidity of Kingston, he reached the quarter final of the 100 yards (10.0) and semi-final of the 220 (21.2). After graduating in law from Glasgow University, he spent 1967 in post-graduate studies at Stanford University, USA.

There, in the athletics hotbed of California, he blossomed out over the short sprint distances, taking advantage of top-class competition and hot, sunny weather to twice record 10.2 for 100 metres. This was a UK record which lasted for seven years and as a Scottish record for eleven years until bettered by Allan Wells (10.15) in 1978. In ideal conditions, he first ran his record 10.2 at San Jose on 20th May and repeated it at Modesto a week later, with another Scottish record of 20.8 for 220 yards following at Sacramento on 10th June 1967. Three times inside seven days in the month of May he ran a Scottish record of 9.5 for 100 yards in California in a magnificent display of sustained speed. Campbell showed excellent competitive toughness when finishing 5th in 20.9 in the 220 final of the American Championships, after 4 qualifying rounds against the strongest field of sprinters assembled outside the Olympic Games. He competed in both sprints for the British Commonwealth in their match against the USA at Los Angeles before returning home to Scotland, and was known as “the fastest white man on the planet”. After being one of Britain's top sprinters over a period of years, these performances in 1967 raised Campbell to the very fringes of world-class sprinting.

He gave up athletics in 1968 to concentrate on his developing successful law career and his pursuit of a political career in Parliament. He set fourteen Scottish records over seven separate distances during a seven year period of competition, including 75 yards - 7.5 (1965); 100 yards - 9.5 (1967); 150 yards - 14.3 (1964); 220 yards - 20.8 (1967); 300 yards - 30.5 (1966); 440 yards – 48.0 (1962) and over the metric distances 100 metres - 10.2 (1967) and 200 metres - 20.7 (1967).

Campbell became a Queens Counsel in 1982, was elected as member of parliament for the North East Fife constituency in 1987 and has been elected to parliament ever since as a leading member of the Liberal Democrat party. He was the  parliamentary spokesman on sport, defence and foreign affairs, been honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was knighted in the 2003 New Year Honours list, before being elected as the leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2006. He has condemned the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport and was an outspoken critic of British participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. He has also been an advocate of open athletics, condemning the “shamateurism” in amateur athletics and was Honorary President of the Scottish AAA and the subsequent Scottish Athletic Federation and Scottish Athletics Ltd from 1990.  In 2015 he was awarded a life peerage, taking the title Baron Campbell of Pittenweem.