by Stuart Weir
Jemma Reekie (December 2024)
It is hard to sum up Jemma Reekie’s 2024. That she failed to make the Olympic 800m final was a massive disappointment, but overall, there were several high points after her first year working with a new coach, Jon Bigg. The year started well with a silver medal in the World Indoors at Glasgow behind Tsige Duguma. Being from Scotland, Glasgow had extra significance for her. “Glasgow is great. I love indoors, and I have had so much fun indoors and in Glasgow. I was so happy to go to Glasgow”, she recalls. “As a Scottish athlete, I could have felt a lot of pressure going to Glasgow because it was Glasgow, and I really wanted to get a medal, but I just had so much fun at that championship, and to walk away with the medal was great. We made such an epic weekend of it, and initially, when I walked off the track, it felt like I had lost the gold. But the athlete who won showed her class by getting an Olympic medal in Paris. Overall, I’m thrilled to have gone to Glasgow and got a medal”.
It was a busy summer, running seven Diamond Leagues and getting on the podium six times, including a win in Stockholm, of which she said: “It was good to run a 1:57 from the front. It is a good way to start the season and run consistent 1:57s and know that there is a bit more in there”. The other Diamond League highlight was London. It was an epic “British Championship” race with Keely Hodgkinson first, Jemma second, and Georgia Bell third – all three running PBs. Jemma said of her 1:55.61 PR: “I had COVID a couple of weeks ago, so I missed a bit of time, so I just wanted to have a solid run out here today. I knew if I was chasing after Keely, I’d run fast. I was pleased with my position”. After running a PR for fourth in the Tokyo Olympics, Jemma contracted Glandular Fever (mononucleosis) and struggled to regain her best form. She had waited three years to set a new PR and was delighted.
The consistency of a win, three-second places, two-thirds, and a fourth in Diamond leagues was pleasing, showing she was ready to win: “Yeah, that’s how it feels to me. Yeah, I want to win every race, but coming in the top three is practice getting into those medal positions, and I’m pleased with where I was this year in those races. The races are still crazily good, and I think I performed well in most races this year – just not the big one”. Her comments simultaneously show her satisfaction with the consistency and her frustration that the one blip was the Olympics.
She develops that frustration: “It’s easy to look at one thing, and it’s also like we’re humans; we have a bad day. And if that bad day falls on the big day, that’s what you’re looked at for. Obviously, there’s a lot of upset after Paris, but when we walked away from it, we looked at the season, and it’s like, right, well: ‘Take Paris out there like you’ve got. I’ve done really well throughout the whole season. For the first time in years, that’s a big step forward. And so it’s just like you got to look at the positives, but I know everyone on the outside that just looks at the big one”.
She had also run in the European Championships, a month before the Olympics, coming fifth at 1500 but just half a second from a medal. She decided to run 1500 as the 800 involved three rounds on consecutive days – “I just thought it was too much for me to do at that time with the training that I was trying to do. But I also wanted a championship experience before Paris, so I thought I could do the 1500 there. I was close to a medal and was gutted not to walk away from Rome with a medal, but I was learning about the 15”.
phJemma Reekie leads, Georgia Bell on her side, Roma 2024 EAC 1,500m final, photo by European Athletics
There are two indoor championships for European athletes in 2025, a European and a World, but Jemma is not putting any pressure on herself. With the outdoor World Championships in September, being in shape to compete for indoor medals in February/March may not be very sensible. She explains: “I’m not 100% sure. And I don’t think I will do both indoor championships if I do any like. I will see how I am closer to the time and how training is going. We’ve been doing loads of winter work, so I need to sharpen up for those 800s and see how I’m doing. My main focus is on the outdoors. I focused a lot on Glasgow last year with it being Glasgow. This time, I’m like, ‘Right, I’ve got my indoor medal. Now, I just really want to do well at outdoor championships, and it’s such a long year, with the World Champs being in September. So I’m taking the pressure off indoors and want an outdoor medal. And that’s all I can think about. So if it happens, great.
