St Mary's EPACC Athlete Achieves Olympic Qualifying Time and Sets New Personal Best

Athlete in the Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Beth Potter has achieved an Olympic qualifying time, whilst setting a new personal best (PB) in the 10,000m. Beth achieved a time of 32:03.45 at the Stanford Invitational competition in California, USA, finishing third in the race. This result puts her inside the GB qualifying time for the Olympics of 32:15, and also beat her previous PB of 32:33.36, set at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Speaking to Scottish Athletics, Beth said “‘It is a big relief to post that time. Now I can enjoy the rest of the season and not worry about chasing the qualifying time. I am now heading for Flagstaff in Arizona to train and have another 5,000m race at Stanford before the London 10,000m event.” Director of Sport St Mary’s Andrew Reid-Smith Said, “This was a confident and outstanding run from Beth, she's been working hard with her coach Mick Woods to produce this kind of performance and it provides a great start to an exciting season ahead” St Mary’s has a proud history of sending athletes to compete at the Olympics, including Olympians Mo Farah, Moe Sbihi, Steph Twell, and Andrew Osagie amongst others. The University also played a large role in London 2012, acting as base to ten teams, with nine athletes winning medals.