Updated March 20, 2026
Hannah England is doing a great job announcing at the World Indoors alongside Rob Walker. We thought you might want to learn more about this talented athlete and commentator.
This is part 2 of an interview with Hannah England, written by RunBlogRun Senior Europe Writer Stuart Weir.
Hannah England on commentary
We spoke in Paris as he prepared to do commentary with Chris Dennis. I wondered how they decided which race to describe each; “Generally, we just go to each other. That is the general rule, and if one raises his hand and does not say: “You know I’m desperate to do some racing.” for each race.
For example, the only time Hannah does want to comment is when one of the athletes is being coached by her husband, Luke Gunn, into a run, but equally, she admits she might not be comfortable running that race “because it’s too much of a gamble.” In any case, as he notes, impartiality and lack of bias is an essential part of the job. He, of course, expects success for the British athlete but can’t see it in his comment.
I wondered what the main challenges of interpretation were. Surprisingly, he said, it is easier to interpret from the studio with one monitor, seeing what the viewer sees, sitting in a quiet environment, focusing only on one image, while in the stadium they try to keep the events on the field, describing the race; what’s coming next and they might not get it right, it’s really hard to stay in the moment because you’re trying to think ahead about what’s coming up and then you can easily miss something because you can be looking down at your timeline trying to figure out what’s going on.”
Another issue, he suggests, is that when you make a mistake, move on and not dwell on it and spend the next 5 minutes because of the mistake trying to figure out why it happened and then make three more mistakes thinking about the first one.
I told him that the men’s 100m at the Paris Olympics had finished and the words “Winner Fred Curley” had gone up on the board. Seconds later it read ‘Winner Letsile Tebogo’ and it wasn’t until the third attempt that the correct name ‘Noah Lyles’ appeared. Hannah smiles sympathetically at the commentators in Paris and describes the situation where the commentator relies on the information that flashes on the screen but is very sure that it is wrong. Do you go with what you see and go against the official information and confuse the viewer, or do you go with the screen even though you think it’s wrong?
Another tricky situation is what to do if your associate gets something wrong. Hanna is clear. “You don’t contradict him. Commenting 101 is not to make your co-commenter look stupid, it’s not fair. You know it’s hard work.” Likewise, most athletes will tell you something cryptic to help the viewer understand what happened, but you have to maintain confidence; I know this because I was in the dining room and told myself so and so.”
Sometimes, instead of a commentary box, he interviews athletes as they finish;In: really love the mixed lane and I really enjoyed doing it and I think.
I do remember those scripts. As an athlete, when you’re absolutely exhausted, and especially when things haven’t gone well and you’ve got to work through it. I try to think about different issues. I understand that and I’m trying to be a little more sympathetic.”
Hannah just launched the Podium Athletic Podcast with Richard Newman and Kathy Smith.
Podium Athletics – Podcast – Apple Podcasts
