by Stuart Weir
Jenny Selman speaking with the press, photo by Stuart Weir
Jenny Selman speaking with the press, photo by Stuart Weir
Louise Shanahan, photo by Stuart Weir
This is the second article that Stuart Weir wrote on the DNA meet that he visited in Glasgow, Scotland. It is about his favorite event, the 800 meters.
DNA Athletics – women’s 800
The most interesting race of the day was the women’s 800. It was an exciting race between two athletes who each have a fascinating back story. The bare facts are that Jenny Selman (Scotland) won the race in 2:04.73 from Louise Shanahan (Ireland) who finished in 2:04.82.
Jenny Selman is 30 and according to the Scottish Athletics magazine, “works for Edinburgh Leisure and is responsible for securing external funding required to run a programme of projects that use the power of sport and physical activity to support people who are affected by health conditions disability etc”.She was selected for the Scotland team for one of the relays.As there was an 800 race in the pre-event programme, she decided to enter as it was about 3 hours before the relay.
The day before the DNA event, Laura Muir, who was to represent Scotland in the match 800m race, withdrew with injury. Jenny was asked to run the 800m rather than the relay. However, having committed to run the race in the pre-event program, she decided to stick with that and so found herself running two 800m races within an hour. In the pre-event race, she ran 2:00.72 to secure the qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games and the World Indoors.
She told me afterwards: “It’s been a brilliant afternoon. I was really happy to get a big PB in the invitation race and then I came back about an hour later, not knowing how I would feel as my legs were rather tired. I was really happy to be able to tuck in [in the main race] and then work hard over the last 150 meters to get the win.
“I never do this in training [run two 800s in an hour], it was a very unusual situation for me. I was only supposed to run the relay at the end of the program but with Laura Muir dropping out I could move up to the 800m which was a lot earlier in the programme. I really wasn’t sure how it would work and I am really happy to get it done and still be in one piece. I’m really chuffed with the time in the second race as I was expecting it to be a lot slower”.
Finishing in second place was Louise Shanahan, who ran the 800m in the Tokyo Olympics. She said afterwards: “It was a pretty good race but I didn’t quite have the speed to hold off Jenny who is in great form at the moment”.
Two fun facts about Louise: she is studying for a PhD degree in Quantum physics at Cambridge University. Her father was an Irish national champion in 1500 meters making them the first father and daughter to become national champions in Ireland in that event.
I asked her how she balances her life and she replied: “I consider myself a full time Ph.D. student and a full-time athlete. I am in my third year of a Ph.D. at Cambridge and on top of that I do all the training”. And since you asked, her research is in bio-medical quantum physics and involves: “putting very small diamonds inside cancer cells to measure the cancer”.
You go to a track-meet and you finish up discussing Quantum Physics.
European Athletics have video of the finish of the race, check it out!
https://twitter.com/i/status/
