MIKE DICKSON
IF your ambition is to be the world’s best middle- distance runner then there could hardly be a more promising place to start than Oxford’s Iffley Road track, scene of the historic first four-minute mile.
So hopefully portents were at work when Hannah England joined the city’s Athletic Club at 13 and when, two years later, she first came across the man who made it so famous, Roger Bannister.
Neither could have known then that Hannah would go on to become the silver medallist at the 2011 World Athletics Championships, which would establish her as a genuine prospect for gold in her home country’s Olympics this summer.
‘I was training there on my own and he just ambled onto the track for a chat,’ she recalls.
‘ He’s a very nice man, very interested in what modern athletes are doing and the scientific side because he is a doctor.
‘I’ve done a lot of training there over the years and you feel the history.
‘I look at the flag on the church (St John the Evangelist) and think of how he knew it was going to be a good day to run when he saw it drop as the wind died.’
England heads a group that includes Lisa Dobriskey and Stephanie Twell, which makes the 1500 metres probably the host nation’s strongest women’s track event.
She earned that status after a remarkable run in Daegu when, having entered as eleventh fastest in the world, she came off the bend in seventh place and sprinted past the field on the outside to finish two paces behind American Jenny Barringer Simpson.
The Brits are trying to emulate Dame Kelly Holmes, and while Bannister is an inspiration it is Holmes who is a key figure as a mentor for Hannah, starting back in the days when Kelly had just retired after winning double gold in Athens.
‘I find her someone who is a real motivator and thinker,’ says England. ‘ We went on a training camp with her at Melbourne in 2006 and were staying at quite a nice hotel, but she took all the luxuries away from our rooms.
‘She had the TVS, everything, removed so we were just left with a towel and a bar of soap. She even took our suitcases away for a bit.
‘She wanted to show us what it is like when things might go wrong and you’ve lost your luggage and you just have to fend for yourself with what’s left in your rucksack.
‘That taught me a lot, it was a way of hardening us up.
‘I still see or speak to her at least twice a month.’
England, 25, doesn’t lack ambition or intelligence, which is hardly surprising given her academic background.
Hannah’s father Peter is a professor and head of Geology at Oxford University. He is a world authority on plate tectonics and the family had a spell living in San Francisco and Los Angeles where seismic activity is such an important subject.
England herself has a 2: 1 in Albert Hill Won gold in the 800m and 1500m at Antwerp in 1920. Douglas Lowe Was the 800m champion at the Olympics in 1924 and 1928. Roger Bannister In 1954 he became the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Seb Coe Claimed 1500m gold and 800m silver at both Moscow 1980 and LA 1984. Steve Ovett Won 800m gold and 1500m bronze at Moscow. Steve Cram Won 1500m silver behind Coe in LA and World Championship gold in Helsinki, 1983. Biochemistry from Birmingham University, although she was never your ordinary student.
She adds: ‘I wasn’t interested in doing the normal things like getting drunk because I always wanted to see how far I could take my running.
‘I don’t call that making sacrifices, I call them choices.
‘I’m doing a Further Maths A-level at the moment, basically because it’s another thing to have and it takes your mind off the training. Kelly Holmes Like Albert Hill, she memorably won double gold in the 800m and 1500m at Athens 2004 after bronze in Sydney. Another thing I love is knitting.’ England’s has been a gradual rise towards the top of her sport rather than anything spectacular.
‘My 2010 was OK but not that great and I was very fired up for 2011. I felt I was wasting my talent a bit so I trained even harder and started working with a sports psychologist.
‘ In Korea I was just pleased to have