St Mary’s EPC Associate Wins Silver at World Championships

Former Endurance Performance Associate (EPC) at St Mary’s University, Jake Wightman, has won a Sliver medal in the Men’s 1500m at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.

Jake won Gold in the same event at the World Championships in 2022, but has struggled with injury in the intervening years and had to pull out of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The finals in Tokyo saw Jake narrowly miss first place again, coming just two hundredths of a second behind the champion with a time of 3:34.12.

Jake train regularly trained at St Mary’s from 2017 and was supposed by the EPC while he was based in nearby Teddington.

Speaking on his podium finish EPC Coordinator and Performance Coach Craig Winrow said, “I’m absolutely delighted for Jake to come away with another World medal having had a difficult few years. Our current EPC athletes will certainly be inspired by this performance.”

The Endurance Performance Centre (EPC) is an internationally renowned running programme at St Mary’s University, with one of the best training setups in the world. The EPC and its coaches provide an endurance performance environment that supports, challenges, and develops elite runners.

In other international sporting success, St Mary’s currently has four alumnae competing for England at the Women’s Rugby World Cup also being hosted in England. The team placed top of their group in the initial stage of the competition, and will now face France in the semi-finals having beat Scotland 40-8 in the quarters.

World Player of the year Ellie Kildunne scored in the opening match against USA, whilst Jess Breach scored a hattrick of tries against Samoa. Abi Burton, who recently spoke to the BBC about her recovery from encephalitis to feature at Paris 2024, also featured in the second match against Samoa as a full back. Rosie Galligan has played for both Harlequins and Saracens, and made her international debut in 2019 during the Six Nations.