Northwood Hurdles Academy was a crucial part in my development as a 400m hurdler at a young age, where I learnt the basic skills and training to take into competing at a high level
Jessica Turner has competed internationally, representing GB since 2013 in 400m hurdles, progressing through the age groups from European Juniors to World Juniors to then compete in the U23 European category to now senior level.
She has been BUCS champion 2 years holding the current 400m hurdles record whilst at university and won silver and bronze at the British Championships alongside Britons number one Eilidh Doyle.
Jessica won her first international medal at the U23 Europeans (2017), silver medal and in doing so achieved a personal best time which qualified her to run at the World Championships in London. She then went on representing GB again at the World University Games. Her success that year secured her a place on the Commonwealth Games team staged in Australia, representing England.
She qualified to the 400m hurdles semi-finals in Doha in 2019 – subsequently receiving a bronze medal in the 4x400m relay team
At the 2021 British Athletics Championships in Manchester 25-year-old secured a Stadium record in 54.83s – later securing a 400HW personal best performance of 54.77 at the IFAM outdoor meeting in Oordegem, Belgium during May 2021 Jessica qualified to the semi-finals of the Tokyo Olympic games where sadly, an Achilles injury saw her finish in 7th Position, devastating her dreams of a place in the final.
As a developing athlete at Northwood, the academy provided a springboard for me to experiment across the sprint and long hurdles, armed with new training methods delivered by the coaches, in an environment in which a mixed level of athletes could both socialise and share training experiences with each other.
Many of the athletes I met at the academy, subsequently travelled Europe at competitions attended by me, some of whom still remain close friends to this day
During his time at the Academy Tom Burton reached two u20 400m and three u23 400m hurdle finals finishing both 2nd and 3rd, narrowly missing out on European Selection.
Thereafter he moved on to compete in no less than 8 Senior National Championships finals finishing 2nd in 2014 to qualify for the European Championships in Zurich, where he went on to reach the Semi-finals.
2 years on he again achieved further success reaching the semi-finals of the European championships in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, despite securing the qualifying standard for Rio Olympics he was not selected.