Some fantastic news from last week as Lizzie Wellsted has been called up to the Great Britain and Northern Ireland senior squad to race over her favorite distance in the European 10,000m Cup, taking place in La Spezia, Italy on Saturday 23 May (this weekend). This is Lizzie’s first senior Great Britain call up after three appearances in the junior ranks at the European Cross Country Championships (winning a team gold medal on each occasion) and a single appearance in the World Athletics Under Twenty Championships on the track.

Nineteen-year-old Lizzie’s call-up comes on the back of her smashing her 10K road PB with a tremendous 32:44 in Valencia in January. The magnitude of this performance is shown by it being the fastest female under-twenty 10K road time of the year by over two minutes and mind bogglingly, the fourth fastest British under-twenty 10K of all-time with only Zola Budd, Steph Twell and Charlotte Purdue recording faster times! (whoever they are!?).

Lizzie raced the Ipswich Twilight 5K at the start of the month and clocked 16:06 which is just eight seconds short of her lifetime PB from last year at Battersea Park. A promising sign that she is coming back to her best after her Winter schedule was disrupted by lingering illness.

Lizzie flies out with the rest of the squad tomorrow, with the race being on Saturday. Lizzie will either be in the women’s A, B or C race which will be finalised on Friday when all entrants are confirmed. The C race starts at 2:50pm, the B race at 4:15pm and the A race at 6:20pm – all UK times. The races will be live streamed on the European Athletics website and the European Athletics YouTube.

Lizzie is extremely grateful and excited for this opportunity, and we are proud and excited at Colchester Harriers that she has been rewarded for her many years of hard work and cannot wait to watch the race.