Jemma Reekie: “I had to change”

Middle-distance runner talks about the work she is putting in to revolutionise her running style as she looks to keep pace at the sharp end of 800m running

Jemma Reekie has spent the recent past trying to take the brakes off. Since moving from her native Scotland to Brighton to start working with coach Jon Bigg, the world indoor silver medallist has zoned in on changing the very way she runs as she looks to keep pace with the ever advancing standards of women’s 800m running.

Given the work involved in changing from being a heel striker to a more forefoot runner, she looks back on 2024 – a year that brought that world indoor medal in front of a home crowd in Glasgow as well as a Diamond League win in Stockholm and a reassuring and confidence-boosting PB in London – with some satisfaction. There is one glaring exception, however. Only reaching the semi-finals at the Paris Olympics fell some way short of the expectations of an athlete who had only just missed out on a medal at the Tokyo Games three years previously.

“I think we had a lot of positives from 2024 and we learned a lot but it was still hard not achieving what I wanted to achieve,” she says. “Paris was really hard. It was my second Olympics and the second Olympics I went to when a medal would have been a realistic goal. Not even making the final was a really tricky one but it’s something that my whole team and myself have learned from.

“It’s only been a year working with Jon and we’ve got so much to look forward to. I’ve shown physically that I can do what we need to do and more. It’s just like I need more time.”

There have indeed been big signs that the training work is paying off. After a difficult split from long-time mentor Andy Young, Reekie moved south in 2023 and is relishing the chance to revolutionise how she goes about her work.

“Joining Jon has been amazing,” she says. “We do a lot more speed work, a lot more technical work and I’ve changed my running technique. I used to heel strike and, looking at the way I used to run, it’s crazy how much heel strikes are basically putting on the brakes for the whole race. We’ve changed that to now running on the front of my foot most of the time. It’s still far from perfect, but if I wanted to be able to compete with the girls that are running crazily fast then I had to change that running technique because it was just slowing me down and you can only get so much faster with…