by Stuart Weir
This is the third piece from Stuart Weir’s series on the 2023 European Team Championships.
Hannah Nuttall takes second in the 5,000 meters
I wonder if Hannah Nuttall felt under pressure to win a medal at the European Team Championships. It is just that she needed to keep up a family tradition. Her father, John Nuttall, had done so, as had her mother, Alison Wyeth. There may be certain expectations when you are the child of an Olympian and a double Olympian.
A qualified nutritionist, she graduated from the University of New Mexico and then completed a master’s degree at Loughborough. 2023 was a good year for Hannah, qualifying for the European Indoors and running a personal best time of 8:46.30 for fifth place and now the European team’s selection.
She ran an excellent race at the European Teams, taking second place in the 5000m in 15:29.49 behind Nadia Battocletti of Italy.
She told me afterward: “The race went really well, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from it as I’ve only raced one 5000m before. I just wanted to put myself in the front group and give myself the best opportunity to move up if I felt good. And I did that with about two laps to go. I am really proud that I actually went for it because sometimes I hang back for a bit too long and let a gap grow, but I didn’t do that today, so I am really happy. The pace felt comfortable, but I didn’t feel as comfortable as I normally do at that pace as the heat did take it out of me a little bit”.
Given that her previous selection for GB was at 3000 and that this was only her second ever 5K, I wondered what she saw as her best distance. “I think eventually it will be the 5k because of how quickly I have taken to it. Hopefully, I can keep getting better from here. I am hoping to potentially get the qualifying time for the Worlds, but I know I’m quite a long way off that at the moment, but we will see”.
