Lee nets Commonwealth call-up

Lee Emanuel has been selected to run for England at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow

The 29-year-old from St Leonards has been chosen to represent England in the 1,500m at the prestigious event, which will take place in Glasgow from July 23-August 3.

He said: “It’s a real honour to be selected to represent England at my second Commonwealth Games. My whole season has been built around the Games so it’s great to get the call-up. It’s rare to know you are in a team this early so it gives me lots of time to focus on the race.”

Emanuel is one of three men’s 1,500m runners chosen by England, along with Brighton-based Charlie Grice and Richard Peters.

They are all part of a 129-strong team which also includes double Olympic champion Mo Farah and Olympic long jump gold medallist Greg Rutherford.

Emanuel did represent England at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi when he ran the 5,000m. He was only a reserve on that occasion, though, and therefore didn’t have the opportunity to prepare quite as well as he will be doing this year, plus he will be running his preferred event in Scotland.

Emanuel is currently training at altitude in New Mexico, and will be heading home in early July to do a few races and get ready for the Games.

The former ARK William Parker Academy pupil heads into the outdoor season hoping to reproduce the sort of form he showed indoors during the winter.

Emanuel represented Great Britain at the IAAF World Indoor Championships 2014 in Poland during March after winning the British Indoor Championships in Sheffield and clocking the season’s fastest time in the world for the mile in New York.

“After the World Indoors I took a down week of training to recharge the batteries and then trained through the second half of March and the whole of April,” Emanuel continued.

“I raced three times during late April and May over here in the States to prove my fitness for selection for the Commonwealths. I ran a time of 3.40.6 which is far from my best, but was good enough to rank me in the top three English times of the season.

“I suffered from some bad Asthma symptoms due to allergies here in Albuquerque so I struggled to run at my best in my final meet and did not finish the race, but have been fully healthy for the last three weeks and have been training really well and hard under my coach Joe Franklin.

“I am using this month as a build-up month so training hard and not racing to hopefully maximise my chances at the Games.”