As recently as the beginning of this year Hannah Taylor never came anywhere near winning a medal at national level – but now the talented Ellon teenager has three golds in her collection.
The 16-year-old, who represents Aberdeen AAC, earned her first title in January when winning the 800m at the Scottish Schools indoor championships.
It was an impressive performance which produced a personal best time of 2min 16.62sec.
Taylor followed that up with another fine victory in the Scottish under-17’s indoor 800m earlier this month.
It was a tense tactical race in which less than one second separated the top three finishers, but Taylor emerged at the head of the pack to win in 2:19.91.
Last weekend she returned to Glasgow’s Emirates Arena for her biggest test so far by stepping up an age group to tackle the 1500m at the Scottish under-20 championships.
And once again Taylor proved to be uncatchable as she stormed to victory in another personal best time of 4:38.83.That’s the fourth fastest ever recorded indoors by an Aberdeen woman of any age.
She said: “That was a hard race. I tried to stay with the two front runners before sprinting as fast as I could.
“I moved into the lead with maybe less than 400m to go but I thought someone would come past me at the finish. I really didn’t expect to win, but I’m very happy as I took nine secs off my previous best.”
Rapid development in last six months
Taylor’s triple gold success shows just how much she has developed over the past six months.
And it all comes down to her dedication to training, travelling into Aberdeen two or three times a week throughout the winter months
She said: “Last summer at the Scottish under-17 championships at Grangemouth I didn’t even make the final of the 800m and I finished eighth in the 1500m.
“I think I’ve improved because I keep going to training and I try my best in every session. I run four or five times a week, but only three of these are hard runs.
“I train at Aberdeen Sports Village twice a week and I do a cross country session at Balgownie at weekends when there aren’t any races.”
Taylor, who has been inspired by the achievements of Scottish Olympian Laura Muir, first became involved in athletics as an 11 year-old and soon found she enjoyed running longer distances.
She said: “I joined Ellon AAC and mainly did sprints to begin with. But I took part in my first parkrun 5k when I was 13 and really enjoyed doing it regularly and trying to improve my time.
“I joined Aberdeen AAC at the beginning of last year and it has been one of the best decisions I’ve made.
“I was in Aaron Odentz’s training group at the start but after a few months I moved up to Nichola Crawford’s group. It has been really good for me.”
Taylor goes for gold again at Falkirk
Taylor has another medal winning opportunity this weekend when she competes in the Scottish cross country championships under-17’s race at Falkirk.
She said: “I enjoy cross country running but this will be the first time I’ve taken part in the national championships so I’m excited about it. It’s a 6.2k race which is quite long, but I don’t mind.
“I also have the Scottish Schools cross country championships to look forward to at Hopetoun House in March.”
Taylor leads north-east 1500m clean sweep at Scottish under-20 indoor championships
Aberdeen AAC’s Hannah Taylor led north east athletes to a clean sweep of the 1500m podium positions in Scottish under-20 indoor championships.
The Ellon athlete clocked a personal best 4min 38.83secs to strike gold while
Aberdeen’s Caitlin Purcell (Edinburgh University) took silver in 4:40.99 and Aberdeenshire’s Millie McClelland-Brooks (Glasgow School of Sport) earned bronze in 4:42.46.
And Hannah’s younger sister Emily added to the family medal collection by picking up bronze in the under-13 championship 1500m with a time of 5:24.81. That’s about 60secs quicker than Hannah managed at the same age.
Luc MacLeod (Banchory Stonehaven AC) was second in the under-13 boys’ 60m hurdles (9.43) and long jump (5.21)
Aberdeen AAC’s Alex Henthorn came home with two bronze medals when clocking a personal best of 8.66 in the 60m and 2:29.70 in the 800.
