It’s silver! Emily grabs glory in World Athletics Championships

IT was an extraordinary last night at the World Athletics Championships in London and Frome athlete Emily Diamond was right in the mix of the excitement after winning a silver medal in the 4x400m relay on Sunday.

Emily held off a strong Polish runner in the final leg of the race to take a silver medal behind a formidable American quartet who stormed over the line six seconds ahead of Great Britain.

But despite the six second gap, Emily believes beating the USA is not impossible.

She said, “Catching the Americans is the next step.

“We’re getting so much more confidence and we noticed in the heats that on certain legs we were coming up close to the Americans and we were closing the gap, so we just need to believe in ourselves more.

“Yes, they’re phenomenal athletes and they will be incredibly hard to beat, but we need to believe in ourselves that we’re all great athletes as well.

“We need to have the faith and confidence that we can do this, that we’ll get as close as we can and that one day we might beat them.”

The fantastic foursome – Zoey Clark, Laviai Nielsen, Eilidh Doyle and Emily – won  Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s fifth medal of the games and minutes later,  watched the men’s 4x400m run a brilliant race to win bronze, bringing Great Britain’s medals tally to six.

Speaking after the race, team captain Eilidh Doyle said, “If you look at the team as a whole, we’ve performed really well. I’m super proud of this team.”

Emily’s silver medal comes almost a year after she won bronze in the 4x400m relay at the Rio Olympics.