Eilidh Child leaned on a barrier at trackside in the Grade Stade de Marrakech with a blue and orange Europe team vest on her back and a smile of satisfaction on her face.

The Pitreavie athlete had just ended her long, demanding season on the global high of a second-placed finish in the women's 400m hurdles in the IAAF Continental Cup.

In doing so, the one-time Scottish schools' swimming champion netted $15,000 in prize money and banked the kudos of becoming only the fourth Scottish athlete to claim a top-three finish in the 37-year history of the Continental Cup and its predecessor, the World Cup - following in the footsteps of Allan Wells (first in the 100m and second in the 200m in 1981), Tom McKean (first in the 800m in 1989) and Yvonne Murray (first in the 3,000m in 1989 and 1994).

The big question to be answered as Child prepared to pack away her racing spikes for the winter was whether she and her European team-mate Lynsey Sharp would be competing in the blue of Scotland at the World Championships in Beijing next year or in the red, white and blue of Great Britain. "Lynsey and I have been chatting about it," said Child. "Yeah, it's a strange one. Hopefully, if it's a 'yes' vote, it won't have too many implications on us, because there would obviously be changes in the next few years.

"But, you know, Scotland or Britain … I'm proud to represent either. I'm just going to leave it up to the hands of god to see what happens.

"I've got a vote. I train down in Bath part time. I will vote but I'm not saying what I'll be voting."

Sharp, who finished her season as a race-weary fifth in the 800m, also on Saturday night, has already nailed her colours to the union mast. "I was quite vocal during the week in saying that I would stay with Britain," said the Edinburgh AC athlete. "I've grown up doing major championships with British teams. I think we do have the best of both worlds at the moment - being able to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games and Great Britain at the Olympics, World Championships and European Championships.

"But all of my support, my funding and my physiotherapy and everything - well, almost all of it - is through British Athletics.

"I've got a set-up that's working and if I walked away from it I'd have to start again. I train with Rana Reider's group in Loughborough and pretty much the whole training group is out here with the Europe team. There's such a good vibe in the group and I just don't want to walk away from that."

Being based at the British Athletics High Performance Institute in the English East Midlands has worked wonders for Sharp in a breakthrough season in which she has claimed Commonwealth silver in a Scottish vest and European silver in a Great Britain singlet. Her 21st race of the extended summer was just the one too far as she dug deep to finish fifth in 2min 00.80sec, 2.59sec behind the victorious Eunice Sum, the Commonwealth champion from Kenya.

The 24-year-old law graduate had been due to have end of season surgery to repair the hole left by two Achilles operations last winter but revealed: "I went to see the specialist last week and he said that he doesn't want to operate on it. It has healed over itself and he says I've got to give it a month and if it stays closed then I won't need surgery."

Child was only 0.03sec outside her season's best as she finished runner up to Commonwealth and world champion Kaliese Spencer in 54.42sec. "It's my second fastest time of the season, so I'm really happy I had that in me," she said. "It gives me something to work on for next year."

There was one British winner on the opening night in Marrakech, European champion James Dasaolu sneaking victory in the 100m in 10.03sec. Last night the US-born Tiffany Porter shaved 0.03sec off Jessica Ennis-Hill's British 100m hurdles record with a 12.51sec clocking as runner up to American Dawn Harper Nelson, who prevailed in a championship record 12.47sec.

There was also a rousing finish by Jo Pavey to claim third in the 5000m, behind Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia and Joyce Chepkirui of Kenya. Pavey was co-captain of the European team with pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie and the six points she earned helped her squad to lift the trophy, finishing clear winners with 447.5 points, ahead of the Americas (390), Africa (339) and Asia-Pacific (257.5).

"It's a great way to end a great season," said Pavey, whose next engagement will be the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow on October 4.