Herefordshire athlete helps Great Britain to European gold

HEREFORDSHIRE athlete Clara Evans came away with a team gold medal from the European Athletics Championship.

Evans was born and raised in Hereford and started her love for athletics from the age of eight.

The 30-year-old long-distance runner set a new half-marathon personal best time of one hour, 10 minutes and six seconds despite difficult conditions in Rome.

“The race went really well despite the warm conditions,” said Evans.

“The first part of the race was on cobbles and narrow roads with lots of turns which was difficult because of the large group.

“We then moved onto the lapped section of the course where I dropped off the second group I was running in, so was on my own.

“I worked back up to the group and then ran with them for the rest of the race. I’m happy to come away with ninth place as I was ranked 24th on personal bests going into the event.”

Team Great Britain were led home by Calli Hauger-Thackery who took individual bronze in one hour, eight minutes and 58 seconds.

Abbie Donnelly was the second British runner home finishing 6th in 1:09.57), Evans finished ninth in 1:10.06 and Lauren McNeil 17th in 1:11.26.

“To get the team gold was really special,” added Evans.

“Running with the girls was really great. We are a great team, we’ve run a lot of races together already and we really get along.

“When it was hurting we just kept running for that time and we were doing it for each other out there today.”

Evans is on the reserve list for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer so is preparing just in case she gets called up.

The Hereford runner will then target a marathon at the end of the year.