Ashley’s a golden girl on 10k bow

FORMER Elswick and Morpeth athlete Ashley Gibson made her 10k debut and made it a gold medal-winning one.

Now based in Kent and competing for Tonbridge AC, Gibson joined 10,000 others on the start line for the Age UK Leeds Abbey Dash which incorporated the English Championships.

While predominantly a track specialist, Gibson is no stranger to contesting endurance events.

She finished 17th in the National Cross-Country Championships in Nottingham and 18th in the Inter-Counties Cross-Country Championships in Loughborough representing the North East Counties earlier in the year, both events over a testing 8k terrain.

In Leeds, Gibson had many notable seasoned 10k athletes chasing her home as she crossed the finish line in 158th place overall as the top 14 men dipped under 30 minutes.

While the race was billed as the English Championships, the first two women home were ineligible for medals as victory went to Scotland’s Olympian Elish McColgan while Northern Ireland’s Emma Mitchell was second across the line.

McGolgan finished in 77th place in 32min 06secs, erasing former Blaydon athlete Jill Boltz’s (nee Hunter) figures from the record books by 10 seconds which had stood since 1990.

Gibson was third woman home in a time of 33:32 with Rebecca Robinson (Kendal) finishing fifth (33:49) to receive the English Championship silver medal.