Emily Williams produced perhaps her best ever 1500m performance to date with a magnificent run to finish 5th in the 15 strong field in the Women’s A Race at the opening BMC Grand Prix in Manchester. Emily ran a superb time of 4:20.88, just half a second off her 2017 PB, to sit top of the UK rankings for both U17 & U20 Women and secure the U18 European Championships qualification mark of 4:26 for the championships being held this summer in Hungary.
In a high quality field, full of seniors, International athletes & the UK 1500m No1 ranked U17 athlete in 2017, Ella McNiven, Emily produced a stunning performance in only her second race of the season to show real intent at the start of the season. Sitting in on the early pace in the mid pack, Williams looked comfortable splitting at 800m in 2:20, and the Bell in 3:12 and produced a fantastic final lap of 68 seconds to power her way past a number of athletes over the last 150m, including her rival McNiven, to show she will be a force to be reckoned with this season over the longer distance. Emily was originally placed in the ‘B’ race, and was moved at the request of her coach to the ‘A’ race to ensure she had a great chance to secure the qualification mark and the result fully justified the decision.
Emily Williams secures European U18 Qualification & moves to UK No1
Coach Shane Smith was delighted with her performance “Emily has come out of the blocks this season firing on all cylinders; to produce a performance of this quality so early in the season is remarkable, and to secure the European U18 Championships qualifying standard, her main target this summer, is fantastic”. He added “Emily is still undecided on which event she prefers so we now switch attention to the 800m with two High Quality races over the next 2 weeks where she will be looking for the European U18 Qualification time for this event which is 2:09.”
Emily was also buzzing from the performance and is now looking forward to competing over the shorter 800m distance at the prestigious Loughborough International & a week later at her favourite track at Watford for the second BMC GP of the season.
Fantastic running Emily!