Lee Emanuel, who won 3000m silver at the European Indoor Championships in Prague, is one of athletics’ running missionaries. The Albuquerque-based Brit tells SPIKES how his American adventure nearly pushed him away from the sport, but ultimately led him to success.

Moving to America was something of an impulsive decision for Lee Emanuel. During the first two years of his undergraduate degree at Sheffield Hallam University, Emanuel wound back his training following teenage years spent running for Hastings Athletics Club.

Yet when he entered his final year, the passionate fan of English football team Aston Villa began to look to life beyond the university campus and devised a plan, and track was to be a big part of it.

“One day I just decided I wanted to try go out to the States,” he says. “I always knew I wanted to train seriously again and was not quite ready to get a full time job. I started training my last year at Hallam with the main aim being to get a scholarship to an American University.”

That aim became reality. Once he was done in Sheffield he upped sticks toAlbuquerque to study for a masters degree in sports administration at theUniversity of New Mexico.

Though he concedes university in America “was not quite as American Pie as I thought it would be”, it was in Albuquerque that Emanuel began to find his groove on the track.

“I found a great coach [Joe Franklin] in one of the best cities in the world to train,” he says. “I was lucky that I came out to a big and friendly track and field team. We hung out a lot and had a lot of fun.

“Classes were later in the afternoon as I was doing a masters so that was nice. We had team practice five mornings a week so I had a good structure for training.

“I had never spent too much time with runners before moving out to Albuquerque so I think that helped me be more diligent and focussed.”

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