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Lancashire's new hotpot   Athletics Weekly 07-03-01
LANCASHIRE'S latest running sensation Vicky Gill can't stop pinching herself to see if she's dreaming writes Keith Bradshaw. In just over two months of serious competition, the 20-year-old Chorley Harrier has got better with every race, moving from an unknown raw talent to a call-up by the Great Britain selectors. She made her international debut in Japan earlier this month in the women's Ekiden Road Relay.  And she's been running less than a year. As a schoolgirl in Chorley, Gill was a sprinter, but hung up her spikes for several years before taking to the roads at St Andrew's University where she is currently studying medicine and training with a group at Fife AC.                                     
As an 'unknown' last May, she clocked 61 minutes in the Chorley Harriers' 10-mile road race. She joined the local club and her progress has gone from strength to strength. This winter, in her first cross country season, she dominated the Lancashire Championships and then took some impressive scalps to clinch a bronze medal at the Northern Championships. At the Inter-Counties Championships in Nottingham - her first venture into the national limelight - she impressed  with a gutsy run for ninth overall. That run almost brought selection for the World Cross Country Championships, but instead brought her the Ekiden call-up. Clearly a special talent, Gill has hinted she might tackle the track this Summer and could even target the Commonwealth Games 2002 in Manchester. At the Ekiden Relays she ran a storming third leg, clocking 19:42 for 6km. "This was my first GB trip so I was really nervous," she said.
"The race was over quickly because I was feeling good and a great crowd was cheering us on."

'Spectator' makes team   Athletics Weekly 21-02-01
ELLEN LEGGATE and her husband Dan jumped the gun when they booked tickets to go to Dublin to watch next month's World Cross Country Championships, writes Jason Henderson.
Ellen did not consider for one moment that she might be good enough to earn a place in the British team at the Reebok Inter-Counties Championships and World Trials in Nottingham on February 10.
But the 23-year-old from Cirencester came fifth in the women's 8km trial race, earned a place in the GB team - and consequently won a 'free trip' to the World Championships. She now has an air ticket she's trying to get rid of.
Dan, who finished 35th in the men's 12km race at the Inter-Counties, will still use his ticket, of course.  But Ellen (formerly O'Hare, she married Dan last September) will now be obliged to travel and stay stay with a British team that includes one of the gold medal favourites Paula Radcliffe.
"Over the Christmas holidays we decided Dublin would be a nice place to go," Leggate said.  "We've wanted to go there for ages and thought we could combine it by watching the World Cross Country Championships.
'And now I've made the team, which was a complete surprise. I was expecting to place in the top 30, not fifth. The week before I'd placed ninth in the British Universities' Championships in Manchester and wanted to make up for that run."
Leggate studied chemistry at Oxford University, but is now working towards a PhD in biochemistry at Cambridge University. Explaining her studies in layman's terms, she said: "I try and get nasty bacteria to do things for me."
This fits in well with her training too.  "The experiments I set-up usually  run for around two hours, when I do my training," she said.