Great Edinburgh Cross relay win gives Gemma Kersey welcome confidence boost

The 22-year-old teamed up with 800m specialist James Bowness to win the inaugural 2x1km international relay for England beating teams from Great Britain, the Home Nations, the USA and Europe.

Kersey, who says her confidence was knocked after failing to make the Great Britain under-23 team for the European Cross-Country Championships at the back end of November, revealed the win has given her a timely confidence boost.

“It was a really nice feeling,” said Kersey. “I didn’t realise how big the event was until I got there and for us to win was really exciting.

“It was nice to get the media attention and to be doing well at a huge event like that. Being around top athletes just makes you even more determined to succeed and makes you feel really good about yourself.”

The weekend was something of a whirlwind for Kersey.

She only found out she had been selected for the England team last Wednesday morning, three days before the race itself, and wasn’t even sure that she would be allowed to run.

“I didn’t know if Eamonn (Martin, Kersey’s coach) would let me run. I was in a week of heavy mileage and it was a long way to go just for a one kilometre relay race.

“But we had a chat and Eamonn thought it would lift my spirits after the European Cross-Country trials and he was right!”

The last-minute nature of Kersey’s call-up extended to race day.

“I didn’t actually meet my partner, James, until a couple of minutes before the race and I honestly didn’t expect it to go as well as it did.

“I’ve been in training for eight kilometre races so I was expecting a bit of a shock racing over one kilometre. But it felt good. I felt really easy and just sat in with the pack and tried to push on with 200m to go.”

Kersey handed over to Bowness in third place, finishing just a second behind Scotland’s middle-distance international Laura Muir and the American team.

It gave Bowness the perfect platform to sit in and then pounce in the closing stages to give the duo a famous victory.

“It was just a really nice feeling,” she said. “It felt like 2012 (Kersey’s most successful year to date) again.

“I was down for a bit after the trials but I had a good talk with Eamonn and planned the next stage of the season. There are a lot of things to aim for and, in my head, it’s like a clean slate.”

Among those things Kersey is aiming for is a high-placed finish at the British Universities Cross-Country Championships in Brighton at the end of the month and a good run at the British Indoor Championships over 3,000m.

Away from running, she is also in the middle of a busy period at university. Kersey is studying fashion at Middlesex University and is in the final six months of her degree which means she is currently working on her final collection.

Perhaps unsurprisingly that collection is based on sportswear.

“It’s a busy time and it’s hard balancing it all at times but I’m not far off now. Sports fashion is something I want to go into eventually but I want to concentrate on my running next year. For a long time I’ve been balancing running with other things and it would be nice to see what I could do when the focus is just running.”

Kersey says she has also been boosted by the form of her training partner Adam Hickey who was racing for Great Britain in the main event at the Great Edinburgh Cross, the men’s international that saw the British team take on USA and Europe.

The Southend AC athlete has had a fine winter, finishing ninth at the European Cross-Country Championships and backed that up with a 12th-placed finish in Edinburgh.

It continued his annual improvement at the event after his 15th place last year and Kersey said seeing Hickey’s career move on an upward curve has been an inspiration to her.

“It was good to be able to be up there and watch Adam,” she said. “When someone is running well in the group it does rub off on the others.

“It was a great weekend all in all and has made me feel so much more confident compared to a few days ago.”