by Stuart Weir
Hannah England – a new role
Hannah England sometimes jokes “the worst I ever did in the world championship is finish fourth!” Second in 2011 in Deagu in the 1500m behind Jenny Simpson and fourth two years later in Moscow. Add to that 4th and 5th in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi 2011. She was a semi-finalist in the 2012 Olympics in London, having lost much of that season to injury. Hannah still looks back with a lot of positivity to 2012. “Yes, getting injured in 2012 was a disaster in the moment. For three months it was awful, but again trying to make the very best of the situation, I still had a PB two weeks after the Games and I still got to go to a home Olympics and I know loads of people that didn’t qualify although they worked just as hard as I did and didn’t even go”.
Asked about her memories of her time as an elite athlete she talks about fun on training camps, going to Font Romeu In the Pyrenees 15-20 times, friendships developed on training runs etc rather than that world championship silver medal, her NCAA (indoor and outdoor) titles or her three British championship wins.
Married to Luke Gunn, a former international athlete, who now coaches several Elite British athletes, She always planned to stay involved in the sport: “I probably would have gone into coaching if I had not gone into media. I still feel there are not enough female coaches. I don’t know if I’m particularly well suited to coaching, but I think if that had been an option to stay in the sport, I would have done that. So I try and make up for that by mentoring. I still want to try and give back to the athletes that are in my community, in my area. And I was also quite interested in sports governance like it was quite interesting in that side of it because we had our Athlete Commission and I was quite invigorated by trying to effect change”. She served as chair of the UKA Athletes Commission and Vice President of UK Athletics.
The move to media all started when established commentator, Steve Cram asked her to work with him at the Euro Cross when she was still competing. “That was the very first thing I did and I think, yeah, I really enjoyed but I was still competing. So I was like, ‘I’m not at the Euro Cross so of course it makes sense to go and go and commentate instead if I’m not competing’. Then I kind of forgot about it for another year. And then the next year The Euro Cross came round and I’d retired and European Athletics asked me to do it. Then the pandemic disrupted things”.
She describes her approach in the early days as “if there’s any way I can get to athletics for free, then I’ll grab it with both hands. That was was my mantra in 2019. I was like if anyone was going to pay my flight there, put me in a hotel, I’m gone”. When she found that people wanted to pay her to go to commentate and that she could actually make a job out of it, it got better and better!
She says that she feels fortunate with the timing. While she knows women in the industry who talk a lot about having to fight to get themselves work, she arrived at a time when there was a desire for more female voices. “That I hit my career at a really good point. I have felt very welcomed and encouraged”. I have known Hannah for 15 years and she is always a little understated. The major reason she has been successful as a commentator is because she is very, very good at it.
Hannah comes across as very satisfied with her life balancing her career, with being a mother and contributing experience and wisdom to some of the athletes her husband coaches. That came across when I asked her where she would like to be in 5 years: “I think still doing what I’m doing. I am very, very lucky that I managed to get to work at the biggest events in our sport – World Champs, Diamond Leagues, European Championships. I’m really lucky that I do have the pick of what I want to do. I now I need to work hard to stay in that conversation and remain someone that people want to hire to commentate. So I think it’d be, sort of intimidating that I am game for anything. I don’t feel like I’ve got much more to aim for. And to balance that alongside having a daughter and help my husband as he does his coaching. I think we’re pretty much at capacity and it’s a great deal of fun. And I think, particularly with Luke coaching some really high level athletes. I want to leave space for that as well. I’m an annoying perfectionist. It helps, but it can be annoying sometimes”.
In part 2 Hannah talks about how commentary works and what the challenges are.
Hannah, with Richard Newman and Katie Smith, has just launched Podium Athletic Podcast.
Podium Athletics – Podcast – Apple Podcasts
