Ex-hockey player Axford excited by GB athletics debut

Kate Axford, who is from Bedford, has improved her 5000m lifetime best by nearly half a minute in 2024

European Cross Country Championships

Coverage: Watch live across Red Button, iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app from 07:55 GMT on Sunday, 8 December.

"My mum played lacrosse and my dad played rugby," says Kate Axford, one of three siblings who have made a name for themselves in hockey.

But the 25-year-old will make her Great Britain debut in athletics at the European Cross Country Championships in Turkey on Sunday, having switched sports as recently as last year because of injury.

She has set a significant personal best over every distance that she has raced this year, including 1500m, 3,000m and 5,000m on the track and 5km on the road.

"I started playing hockey from about the age of 14," she told BBC Three Counties Radio.

"It kind of snowballed from there and I just kept cracking on with it and really enjoyed it.

"I did do a bit of athletics at school, a bit of cross country. I can't say I was always the first one to want to actually go and do it, but I kind of fell into that."

Axford was then contracted to GB Hockey and was part of international squads all the way up from under-16 to senior level.

"I felt like that was always going to be my journey in sport and the direction that I wanted to take things," she said.

"Unfortunately, I suffered a few pretty bad injuries, which meant that I needed to find another sport that would allow me to just start enjoying it again and not be injured all the time."

Kate Axford trained with the GB Hockey senior team, while her sister Maddie and brother Charlie both have international caps at age group level

'Everything went crazy from there'

Axford was left frustrated by a hip tear, which limited her ability to deal with the sharp force of movement and changes of direction that are second nature in hockey.

A handful of track races as a teenager left her with one obvious place to turn.

"I started running at the beginning of 2023, just going for runs, nothing serious," she recalled.

"I entered a couple of 5k local races and everything kind of went a bit crazy from there."

Axford took victory in her first 5,000m track race last April and she has since improved her best time by nearly half a minute to 15 minutes 19.40 seconds.

A stunning last-lap kick powered her to 3,000m bronze at her first UK Indoor Athletics Championships in February this year, before victory at last month's European cross country trial in Liverpool.

There are parallels between Axford and Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Bell, who made a major breakthrough after five years away from the track.

But Bell was an English Schools champion aged 14, who reunited with her esteemed former coach Trevor Painter in order to fulfil her potential in Paris.

"I probably didn't have those same connections," said Axford, who reached out to current club Belgrave Harriers.

"I know Georgia. It's been really exciting just seeing her journey, her story really shows that you can come from anywhere.

"Just to see women from Great Britain doing so well, it has definitely inspired a lot of people and female runners to just go for it and not put limits on ourselves."

A brilliant finish saw Kate Axford win a medal at her first national indoor championships in Birmingham

A golden running generation

Axford is used to the camaraderie of team sport, but thinks there is a misconception that athletics is always a lonely, individual pursuit.

"We have a team of six women who are going out to compete [at the European Cross Country Championships in Antalya]," she said.

"There is a team result at the end of it as well, that is something that I really enjoy about the sport and something I wasn't expecting.

"Everyone is very supportive, everyone wants to see you succeed."

Yet women's middle-distance running is experiencing a golden era in the UK, with Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson joined by Jemma Reekie and Bell in a rare British one-two-three at the top of the distance's world performance lists.

Further international selections for Axford will not come easy, but for now the pressure is off as she dips her toe in the muddy fields of cross country.

"It is definitely going to be a bit of learning as well as enjoying the moment," she said.

"It is just a real opportunity for me to see how I line up against some of the best in Europe."

Axford will then chase qualifying times for the European Indoor Championships in March, with the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles a long-term hope, just as it was in her previous sport.

"I was lucky to have been coached by [2016 Olympic hockey champion and former GB captain] Alex Danson when I played hockey," she said.

"She is an incredible person and someone I look up to a lot. Her values and integrity, you can take into any sport."

Mica Moore, Kadeena Cox and Shaunagh Brown are three British women who have transferred their athletics skills into another sport

Multi-talented British women

Reaching elite level in two sports is not altogether uncommon, but Axford is in a small group of British women who have excelled in both athletics and another discipline.

Most notable of all is Kadeena Cox, who has won five Paralympic gold medals across athletics and cycling since 2016.

Shaunagh Brown represented England at the Commonwealth Games as a hammer thrower a decade ago, before reaching the Rugby World Cup final in 2021.

Also competing at Glasgow 2014 was Mica Moore, then a sprinter, who four years later achieved the best ever result by a British women's bobsleigh team at a Winter Olympics.

Former UK 100m record holder Montell Douglas has competed in the same two sports as Moore, and became the first woman to represent Team GB at both the Summer and Winter Olympics in 2022.

Axford's combination of sports is unusual at international level, though 1964 Olympic long jump finalist Alix Jamieson also played hockey for Scotland.