FROM BUSHY PARK PARKRUN TO OLYMPIC BRONZE MEDAL
Team GB’s Olympic bronze medallist in the 1500 metres Georgia Bell helped rekindle her love of competing and racing by taking part in Bushy Park’s massively popular Saturday morning parkrun, it was revealed today.
This was the Report Run from 19th March 2022 showing Georgia’s time for the 5km 9am run in Bushy Park as 16.14 minutes. She was one of 1112 runners on a beautiful blue-sky morning.
| Judy M. NUTTING | 00:30:31 | VW80-84 | 91.75% |
| Georgia BELL | 00:16:14 | SW25-29 | 91.17% |
| Mike ANDERSON | 00:19:23 | VM65-69 | 86.50% |
| Polly ADAMS | 00:21:07 | VW55-59 | 85.71% |
| Gina GALBRAITH | 00:18:36 | VW45-49 | 85.39% |
Three years ago, Georgia watched the Tokyo Olympics as a retired athlete aged 27, but was later beset by injuries.
As she watched Team GB’s Alex Bell and Katie Snowden, athletes she knew and had competed with her passion was rekindled.
A few months later Bell turned up with over 1000 other runners for the 5km Parkrun in Bushy Park which relit the fire in her and her determination to run at the top level again.
In one interview she said: “When I got back into running the goal wasn’t to try to make the Olympics. That would have been absolutely bonkers. It was just going back to something that I really loved.”
As she came to the final bend in last night’s final she was lagging in fourth place but found a last burst to beat the Ethiopian Diribe Welteji to unexpectedly win the bronze medal in a record breaking time of 3min 52.61sec – a new British record and a 10-second improvement to her personal best of 4:03.
In a post race interview she said; “When I saw them coming through, 59.6, I was like: ‘Oh,’” said Bell. “I knew it was going to be painful. I just thought: ‘I know I can finish strong.’ So I zoned out after that first lap and tried to sit in the train and not overthink it.”
As a teenager, she was among the best 800m runners in the country, with a personal best of 2min 3sec. However, after repeatedly getting injured while at the University of California, Berkeley, she decided to quit the sport.
“I had a lot of stress fractures,” she said. “I was in California for two years and I’d say probably about a year of that I was in a boot. I was just never track fit. Always had a good cross-country season or did cross-country and then was always injured both indoor and outdoor.”
But during lockdown, Bell started doing long cycle rides and occasional runs without problems. By November 2022 she was confident enough to get back in touch with her old coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, who guided Keely Hodgkinson to her gold medal.
It was only in March this year that she ran for Great Britain for the first time, finishing fourth at the world indoor championships in Glasgow. Until May, she had to fit in her training around her full time job as a cyber security expert but took a sabbatical to compete in the Olympics.
