The 800m runner talks about big life changes, recovering from injuries and finally being able to step into the Olympic spotlight at such a young age.
At 5ft 10in, Phoebe Gill cuts an impressive figure as she walks into a small cafe in Edinburgh. The 18-year-old Olympic semifinalist orders a coffee while the woman behind the counter ignores the accolades that have sometimes weighed heavily on the teenager’s shoulders.
Taking a seat, Gil momentarily blends in with his university surroundings, but he is no ordinary student. As the 2026 outdoor season approaches, this young athlete, a national age group record holder with a lifetime of experience already gained, will once again negotiate the world of track and field and the conflicting feelings of nervousness and excitement that come with it.
“My main fear at the moment is the unknown and where I am fitness-wise,” he says. “I just want to do one race to show where I am and what we have to do.”
Gill’s already rich career to date has been well documented. In 2022 he won the English Schools 800m title and backed it up with victory and a then personal best of 2:03.34 at the SIAB Schools International. The 2023 English Schools 800m title followed, and later in the summer, gold at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago. He ended his season by lowering his personal best to 2:01.50 at the British Milers Club meeting in Watford.
His profile grew exponentially in 2024 when he set a European under-18 record of 1:57.86 to win the inaugural Irish Milers’ Met in Belfast, backed it up with victory at the British Championships (1:58.66) and was deservedly selected to represent Team Great Britain at the Paris Olympics; semi-final.
The St Albans athlete has run just once since then, 53.65 400m at the London Indoor Games at Lee Valley in January last year. He also suffered two back-to-back stress fractures, sat his A-level exams and moved to the Scottish capital in September 2025 as the first major signing for Edinburgh University’s ambitious World Endurance Project, led by the 1988 Olympic 3000m runner who previously won a bronze medal as coach of the 3000m. Oregon Track Club Elite.
After so long, albeit one that has gone hand in hand with a positive shift north of the border, Gill now has a solid winter of training behind him. Having made a conscious decision to skip the indoor season, he looks at summer with a fresh perspective.
“I definitely feel like a new athlete,” she says. “I think being injured teaches you a lot about your body and how you can respond to challenges. It really got me into psychology and talking to people about how I was feeling because I hadn’t really been traumatized before.
“Unless you’re an athlete, I don’t think you really understand how devastating it is to go through an injury and have something that you love taken away from you. It just completely disrupts how you live your life.
The varsity setup has benefited Gill beyond Rowland’s coaching experience and the support of his training group. Stepping onto the Olympic stage at age 17 and suffering a subsequent stress fracture (“It was a lot,” she says of the injury) took their toll, but working with a sports psychologist helped her process those extreme experiences and mentally prepare her to return to racing.
“It’s funny because I was actually talking to my sports psychologist about this the other day, about how I don’t really feel like I’m properly stressed after the whole trip to Paris,” he says. “I went from such a high level in the sport after a few months of not running at all, and that change in balance in my life was such a strange change and something I hadn’t really experienced before.
“It also came in the same year as I had my A-levels, so I never quite worked it out. It wasn’t until I got to university and finally realized that I think things were really starting to hit me. I was able to talk to a sports psychologist here and just go through the journey and the emotions and take it all in because it’s been a lot in that place and trying to get back in that place. For a 17-year-old to go through that time, I think I’m just starting to realize that.”
Gill’s return to fitness has brought its own challenges. There’s a desire to play it safe, a complete contradiction to the inner voice that urged him to train harder and harder as he built toward Paris and then into the indoor season. “I probably trained a bit too much…I was hammering every session,” he admits.
Naturally, he fears it will happen again. “Now I just want to protect myself and be ready for the summer season. I just want to get back racing, but I want to do it right and not risk anything in the process.”
He has learned so much and continues to do so. On the track and in the gym, along with Rowland, who also works closely with his physical therapist and strength and conditioning team, he’s committed to making himself biomechanically strong for longevity in the sport, not short-term gains. There’s more exercise, more focus on running and threshold runs (heart rate zones and perceived force velocity on the eyeballs), and two weight sessions per week.
A former swimmer, Gill also incorporates pool training into her double-threshold days, while her running continues to gradually increase. The next step is acceleration. “I can’t wait,” she laughs. “I really want to start because I haven’t done speed in so long.”
He’s derailed in the process of switching his degree from sports science to biomedical sciences, a smart decision driven by the need to separate sports from academics. As summer approaches, competition programs begin to take shape. The Commonwealth Games at the end of July was initially the target and he spoke at length with Rowland and club coach Deborah Stier about whether or not it should remain a focus for the World Under-20 Championships in early August.
Steer knows him better than anyone. She started coaching Gill when she was 10, they went through the Olympic journey together, and she is, says the athlete. “The reason I love this sport.” Along with Rowland’s ambitions, the coaching duo has developed a positive working relationship with Communications dedicated to managing Gill’s talent and maximizing his potential.
Regardless, the reality is that in a summer with the Commonwealth Games (Glasgow), the U20 World Championships (Oregon) and the European Championships (Birmingham) all in one month, he can’t do it all.
“Obviously it would be amazing to go to the Commonwealth Games, especially in Glasgow, but I’ve never been to an age group championship so we’re really leaning towards the world under-20s and just trying to get a medal there,” says Gill.
He remembers Olympic 800-meter champion Keely Hodgkinson’s advice when he was 16. “He said to stick to the age groups and I think I’m just starting to understand how important that is. Obviously now I’ve been to the Olympics, but you have so much experience going into these age group events. I think the only international race that I’ve done since the Olympics and you, I did before the actual Olympics. I was so grateful for the experience of going to Paris because if I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t have anything.
Paris, of course, turned things around, and when the time comes again, she’ll do so as “a second version of Phoebe Gill,” a young athlete who has rebuilt herself physically and mentally in pursuit of long-term success in the sport.
First up is his first altitude training camp at Font Romeu. He then hopes to ease back into racing, admitting that while the 2024 media attention was “somewhat good”, it also brought pressure.
“I feel like I’m going back to running as an underdog, which was obviously taken away from me after I ran 1:57,” he says. “I was in the spotlight a little bit, but now there is less pressure, I put less pressure on myself and I can enjoy racing again.
“I’m really grateful that it all happened because I now have experiences that most 17-year-olds don’t have and I feel like it’s given me a bit of maturity. I now know what to expect at the senior level championships, so I can just take a step back and focus on the age group champions and use what I’ve learned.
“I’m definitely nervous about racing again, I think about it all the time, but it just shows how passionate I am about the sport and how much I care about running, it means a lot to me and it’s given me a lot in life.
“Otherwise, I’m still only 18 and I want to be in the long game, so if this year doesn’t match what I produced at 17, then I won’t mind too much because I’ve got another decade or more in me hopefully. There will be other opportunities, but this year I have to come back, see what I can produce and try to stay healthy.”
