Emily Young Wins a Bronze Medal at the World Aquathlon Championships 2021

The event consisted of a 1km open water swim followed by a 5km run. Following this, Emily qualified to represent Great Britain at the European Standard Distance Triathlon Championships in 2022. Having received her medal and her place in next year's Triathlon Championships, Emily said: 

"My first international medal! A lot of hard work over 3 years has gotten me to this point."

'I generally train 12-18 hours a week depending on the time of year, split between swim, bike run and strength/conditioning. Might seem like a lot to some alongside a PhD, but I’ve just figured out a healthy balance between work and fun that I enjoy and that helps me to be more productive during work hours. I’ve eased off the training hours a little bit now to write my thesis but bring on the European Triathlon Champs next year."

During the second year of her PhD, Emily began trying her hand at triathlon having ran a few marathons in the past and eager for a new challenge.

"I had previously ran a couple of marathons and was looking for a new challenge (ideally one that didn’t involve having to run a marathon). Only snag was I didn’t own a road bike and I couldn’t swim more than 50m front crawl in one go. Thankfully I had my own personal swim coach/boyfriend and joined a triathlon club that helped get me towards my first race. I quickly got hooked and fast forward a couple of years and I managed to qualify to represent GBR at the World Aquathlon Championships 2021 and the European Standard Distance Championships 2022."

Having originally been cancelled twice due to COVID, Emily was on holiday when she received the news the race would be rescheduled and commencing in just 6 weeks. Scrambling to get her flights booked and training around the demands of her PhD, Emily set her sights on the competition. 

"I booked flights and adjusted my training to focus on the faster efforts that would be required for a 1km open water swim followed by a 5km run. The build-up to the race was incredibly nerve-wracking with us having to wait until 5:45pm for the start. But as soon as it started, that all subsided and I just focussed on getting to the finish line. My swim was fairly mid-pack, which in itself was an incredibly achievement considering I really was a terrible swimmer just a few years before. On the run, I just seemed to be overtaking everyone and that put me in the bronze medal position (WHAT?!). I got to stand on a podium and everything.'

'This was my first international medal so I'm obviously still bragging about it."

Emily is based at UCL's GOS Institute of Child Health where she is researching Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune disorder affecting the joints. Current treatments risk serious infection while some patients respond poorly. The aim is to develop a targeted gene therapy that modulates RA disease without life-threatening immunosuppression.