Emilia Shines With First Place Finish At National Road Relay Championships

East Cheshire Harriers' Emilia Platt has further enhanced her running cv with a first place finish at the National Road Relay Championships in Birmingham.

The 17-year-old, who attends Ashton Sixth Form College, caught the eye with a stunning performance in the Under 17 5km race and crossed the finish line in 18.01.

The former Oldham and Royton Harrier, who trains twice a week, now has her sights firmly set on representing England in the not-too-distant-future.

It was a memorable weekend overall for the club, with the girls’ junior relay team returning to Tameside as national champions.

Emilia, whose step-father Graham recently completed the Manchester Marathon, will now be focused on representing her country when the chance arrives. Speaking to Reporter Sport at a training session, Emilia said: “I first started running when I was in year five at East Cheshire Harriers and then I moved to Oldham and Royton Harriers. I’ve since returned to East Cheshire and my running has progressed from there really.

“I’m hoping to represent England fairly soon. I came fifth in the English Schools’ Cross Country Championships in Kent. If I was a year younger I could have run for England, however because I was too told I couldn’t. This year I’m aiming to represent England at Under 20 level in the cross country.”

Having put on such a strong performance at the event, Emilia was gutted that she wasn’t able to represent her country and don the coveted vest. However, instead of viewing it as a negative, Emilia used the disappointment as a source of fuel to reignite her aims and ambitions. She said: “Working so hard in that race, and then being denied the chance to run for England was hard to take. It wasn’t demotivating as it actually motivated me more to get the vest this season.”

Given her string of achievements over a six year period, Emilia has laid the foundations for a promising future and hopes to one day, if things go as planned, achieve similar feats as former Harrier Georgia-Taylor Brown MBE.

The 28-year-old made the back pages last summer after returning from the Tokyo Olympics with a gold medal in the triathlon mixed relay. Georgia, a former Ashton Sixth Form student, also claimed a silver medal in the women’s triathlon. Her picture hangs proudly in the East Cheshire clubhouse and serves as a reminder of what can be achieved with hard work and determination.

For now, Emilia will return to her standard routine of training twice a week in a bid to become as good as possible. She said: “During the cross country season we do a lot of hill training and now that we’re moving into track season, I’ll do a track session on a Monday, which I don’t actually like but I stick with it. I don’t cross train, I just stick to running and work my absolute hardest in every training sessions to ensure that it pays off when I’m racing at the weekend.

“I love long runs, but my favourite form of training is 1km loops. I’ll set off behind everybody and that provides me with the motivation to catch everybody and finish first - that’s what keeps me going.”

You can watch our video feature with Emilia on our website, www.questmedianetwork.co.uk

Picture by Matt Gush