by Stuart WeirThis is Stuart Weir’s fourth piece on the Rome Golden Gala, held on June 6, 2025. Stuart Weir is the senior writer for Europe for RunBlogRun. Stuart Weir has written for RBR since 2015, and will be attending Oslo DL, Stockholm DL and Paris DL. We thank him for his features and observations.
Brits in Rome
It has been a busy year so far for Amy Hunt – including 4 Diamond Leagues, Finalist in the European and World Indoors, Gold for Britain in the World Relays. She has run in Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, USA and China. She has run 60m, 100m and 200m and relays and we’re only in early June.
She came second in the 200 in the Golden Gala in her adopted home last weekend – she trains in northern Italy- behind Anania Battle who has won three in a row (DL 200s). Hunt finished fast, overtaking Ta Lou Smith. That Hunt was disappointed with second place is an indication of how far she has come. She commented: “I really thought I could get her (Battle) today. Coming here, we have been training so well, but my warm up was just a mess – we were finding so many issues. I did not even think I was going to make the start line, so to come second in that race, I am really happy, because I managed to stay strong in the end. It just shows me how much determination I have got in me. Sometimes you just have to pretend that it is all in your head and just kind of carry on and to be professional sometimes. I live in Italy in Padova so for me, this is kind of my home Diamond League. It is nice to come and show up in front of the Italian fans because they give me a lot of love. We have no idea what is coming up next and we are waiting for a few things to be confirmed. We go back and see how my body is feeling. We just need to be smart and peak when it matters”.
Elliott Giles was seventh in a fast 1500 in which ten of sixteen athletes ran PRs. Elliot’s time was 3:31.13. Lina Nielsen ran another solid 400h finishing fourth in 54.66. It is great to see Lina running regularly in high class races and holding her own after her struggles with injury and illness. She also ran in the European Indoors, picking up 2 relay medals.
Other British athletes involved were Charlie Dobson fourth in 400m in 44.64. There were two British athletes in the women’s 1,500m Katie Snowden eleventh in 4:02.02, and Revee Walcott-Nolan, European Indoor bronze medalist, 4:02.28. In the 5,000m, Megan Keith, 15:16.91, in 17th.
