I am so grateful to the Jack Bloor Fund for supporting me through this competition. The fund is deeply appreciated for providing the funding to help young athletes like myself continue to develop and compete at a high level! Thank you!
The World University Championships 2026 were held in Vila Real, Portugal, at the end of July. I was selected to compete for Great Britain within a team of 6 women and 6 men. The competition programme consisted of a Knockout Sprint, Individual Sprint, Mixed Sprint Relay and Middle Race.
The team arrived two days before the competition started to help us get used to the terrain and the heat, which played a big part in the competitions. However, luckily I had spent some time racing and training in the heat before this, so I was used to racing and dealing with these conditions, which make a big impact on your performance.
The first race was the Knockout, which consisted of a qualifier in the morning where 36 athletes qualify to the final rounds in the afternoon. I was really happy with this race, placing 3rd in heat C out of 3 heats, so that secured me a place in the quarter-final. However, my race in the afternoon did not go to plan, with a small navigational error meaning I moved from a qualifying position to 5/6 in the heat, and with a huge hill climb up to the finish, I couldn’t close the gap to 3rd place to qualify, so unfortunately I was knocked out. However, the next day in the Mixed Sprint Relay, I ran 1st leg for GB1 and came back in the front pack, putting the team in a great position for the rest of the relay, so I was really happy with that. We finished 7th as a team.
Next was the Individual Sprint, after a rest day in between to recharge the batteries. This was an incredibly technically demanding sprint race, with many barriers in the terrain to increase the difficulty. At the beginning of the race, I made some small mistakes but then really improved throughout the second half, meaning my final result was 18th, which I was slightly disappointed with, but there were definitely a lot of positives to take.
Finally, there was the Middle Race, where I unfortunately suffered heat exhaustion in 32-degree temperatures and could not continue my race from about halfway through. Stopping was the sensible decision, and I am now recovered. I was just gutted I couldn’t give it my all.
I have a lot of mixed feelings leaving the competition, as I definitely felt that I had more to give throughout the sprint season, but there were so many positives to take.
