Personal information | |
---|---|
Born | Epsom, Surrey, England | 15 June 1994
Sport | |
Country | Great Britain |
Sport | Athletics |
Event | 400 metres hurdles |
Club | Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounslow Athletic Club [1] |
Coached by | Marina Armstrong |
Medal record |
Jessie Knight (born 15 June 1994) is an English athlete specialising in the 400 metres hurdles. [2] [3]
Knight became the British champion of the 400 metres hurdles event after winning at the 2020 British Athletics Championships with a time of 55.80 seconds. [4]
In May 2021, she improved on her record at the year's Golden Spike Ostrava with a personal best of 54.74 seconds. [5] She was later named to the British track and field team ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics for the 400 metres hurdles event alongside Meghan Beesley and Jessica Turner. [6] Upon arriving in Tokyo, Knight was one of six British athletes forced to self-isolate after a passenger on her flight had tested positive for COVID-19. [5] At the Olympics, Knight stumbled in her heat race for the 400 metres hurdles event as she approached the track's first bend and crashed into the first hurdle, ending her hopes to medal in the event. Knight hoped to, but did not, race in the women's 4 x 400 metres relay. [7]
After winning the 400 metres hurdles silver medal at the 2024 British Athletics Championships, Knight was subsequently named in the Great Britain team for the 2024 Summer Olympics. [8] She went out in the semi-finals at the Games in Paris. [9]
Knight is a primary school teacher by vocation. In 2017, she gave up athletics in favour of the profession, but returned to the sport a year later. [7]
The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women.
Natalya Nikolayevna Antyukh is a Russian sprinter who specializes in the 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles. She won the bronze medal in the 400 metres and a silver for the 4 × 400 m relay at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
Peirresha Alexandra Shakes-Drayton is a British retired track and field athlete. After specialising in the 400 metres hurdles in the early part of her career, a knee injury at the 2013 World Championships forced Shakes-Drayton to concentrate on the 400 metres on her return to athletics. She is the 2013 European Indoor Champion in the 400 metres and won a 2012 World Indoor Championship gold medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay. She has also won silver and bronze medals in the 4 × 400 m relay at the World Championships.
David "Dai" Greene is a Welsh retired hurdler who specialised in the 400 metres hurdles, competing internationally for both Wales and Great Britain, as well as Europe in the IAAF Intercontinental Cup.
Eilidh Doyle is a retired British track and field athlete. Originally running as Eilidh Child, she specialised in the 400 metres hurdles outdoors, and the 400 metres flat indoors, as well as the 4 x 400 metres relay on both surfaces. She represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and won an Olympic bronze medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. Individually, she is the 2014 European Champion and a three-time Commonwealth silver medalist in the 400 metres hurdles.
Anna Vasylivna Ryzhykova, nee Yaroshchuk is a Ukrainian track and field athlete who specialises in the 400 metres hurdles. At the European Athletics Championships, she won silver medals in 2012 and 2018, and bronze in 2022. Ryzhykova placed fifth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Jack Green is a British sprint athlete who specialises in the 400m distance, along with the hurdles and the 4 × 400 m relay. He competed for the Great Britain team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair racer specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification and TV presenter.
The 400 metres hurdles at the Summer Olympics is the longest hurdling event held at the multi-sport event. The men's 400 m hurdles has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900, with a sole gap at the 1912 Summer Olympics. The women's event was added to the programme over eighty years later, at the 1984 Olympics. It is the most prestigious 400 m hurdles race at elite level.
Sydney Michelle McLaughlin-Levrone is an American hurdler and sprinter who competes in the 400 meters hurdles and is the world record holder in that event. She has won gold in the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, as well as the 2022 World Athletics Championships. She set a world record time of 50.37 seconds at the 2024 Summer Olympics on August 8, 2024, breaking her own old world record of 50.65 seconds. She is the first track athlete to break four world records in the same event; setting four world records during 13 months, she was the first woman to break the 52-second and 51-second barriers in the 400 m hurdles. She won the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships. At all four competitions, she also took gold as part of a women's 4 × 400 m relay team.
Laviai Nielsen is a British sprinter specialising in the 400 metres.
Natalia Kaczmarek is a Polish sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. She is the 2024 European champion as well as the European silver medalist from 2022. She also won the bronze medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics. Kaczmarek earned several global medals as part of 4 x 400 m relays, including gold in the mixed event and silver in the women's event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Femke Bol is a Dutch track and field athlete who competes in hurdling and sprinting. She specialises in the 400 metres hurdles, where she is the 2023 World Champion, and in the 400 metres, where she is the 2024 World Indoor Champion and the short track world record holder. In the 4 × 400 metres relay, she is the 2023 World Champion and the 2024 World Indoor Champion with the Dutch women's team and the 2024 Olympic Champion with the Dutch mixed team.
Anna Cockrell is an American track and field athlete competing in sprinting and hurdling. She is a two-time medalist at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru and won the silver medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in 400 m hurdles event.
Alastair Chalmers is a British track and field hurdler who specialises in the 400 metres hurdles. He won Guernsey's first-ever Commonwealth Games track and field medal when he took bronze at the 2022 edition and he is a five-time British 400m hurdles champion.
Lina Nielsen is a British sprinter, hurdler and yoga instructor.
Nicole Yeargin is a British-American athlete representing Great Britain who specialises in the 400 metres. She won major medals as part of British women's and mixed 4 x 400 m relays, including bronzes at the 2022 World Athletics Championships and 2023 World Athletics Championships. She won two bronze medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics as part of both the British mixed and women's 4 x 400 metres relay teams.
The 2021 British Athletics Championships was the national championships in outdoor track and field for athletes in the United Kingdom, which also served as the main qualifying event for athletics competitors for the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics. In addition, the Championships included a number of parasports events, with a total of 36 competitors in these competitions. On 29 June 2021, UK Athletics announced 65 athletes that would compete for Team GB at the Olympics, taking the total number of British athletics competitors at the Games to 72. In July 2021, four more athletes qualified for the Games based on their World Athletics rankings.
Yemi Mary John is a British track and field athlete. She won the gold medal in the 400 metres at the 2022 World Athletics Under-20 Championships.
Amber Anning is a British sprinter. A double Olympic medalist, she holds the British record for 400 metres, 49.29 seconds, which she took finishing fifth in the women's 400 metres at the 2024 Paris Olympics.