SCOTTISH athletics aficionados have whispered in conspiratorial tones for a while now about the talents of a 17-year-old sprinter called Alisha Rees, but the teenager may have blown her cover at the Scottish Senior Indoor Championships at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow on Saturday.
This powerfully-built prodigy from Banchory, Aberdeenshire, ended the day with two national titles to her name, the 60 metres and 200m. She ran a PB of 7.51secs to land the former and won the latter in a time which shaved 200ths of a second from Linsey MacDonald’s under-20 record, which had stood for fully 35 years.
Having brought a silver and a bronze medal back from the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in 2015, Rees is now just 0.27s away from reaching the Commonwealth Games proper on Australia’s Gold Coast next April. She turns 19 the day after the closing ceremony and don’t bet against it being a dual celebration.
With a name like Rees, it may be no surprise to find that the Banchory Academy pupil has some Welsh blood coursing through her veins. Her father hails from Llanelli, but Rees is as Scottish as they come.
“People say I’ve got an English accent and a Welsh last name, but I do it all for Scotland,” Rees said. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
Athletics appears to be her true calling, but the Welsh like their rugby and one look at the broad-shouldered Rees in action provokes the thought that perhaps, had things gone differently, she might be gearing up for the women’s Six Nations right now. In fact, the teenager does have form for thundering down the wing – but on the football field rather than the rugby pitch.
With echoes of Scottish women’s football star Kim Little, also brought up in Aberdeenshire at Mintlaw, Rees put in some of the hard yards when playing among the boys in her school football team.
“I’ve always wanted to do rugby and I’ve always thought I’d be quite good at it,” said Rees. “But I played football when I was younger and when I was 13, 14, I considered it as my main sport. I liked being part of a team. But I was quite shy back then, so while I really enjoyed it, I never saw myself becoming good at it.
“Becca Flaherty was in my team and she’s now at Liverpool Ladies. I was doing athletics at the same time, so I wasn’t sure which to go for. But I love athletics and I love competing every weekend.”
Rees, who also won silver at the European Youth Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia, last year, hopes to thrive in the slipstream of British sprint stars such as Dina Asher-Smith and Desiree Henry, even if some already see her potential to move up to 400m.
“I feel like I’ve grown more confident in the last year,” Rees said. “When I was younger, I was always so nervous, but now I’ve have big international medals at age group championships, I’ve increased my confidence and I think ‘I can do this, I am up there with anyone else in Europe’. I don’t know about the world, but I am up there now. It’s a confidence booster and being confident in myself has a positive effect on my performance.”
Rees once again has high hopes for the European Junior Championships as she looks to add further success in 2017.
“They are my main target this year,” she added. “Hopefully I get a medal in the individual race but I also want to get into the British team for the relay and see if we can get in the medals there. I’ll focus on the 200m. The qualifying standard is out and it’s 20.8, but last year I ran 20.57, so it’s definitely within my range.”
Another young Scot making waves on Saturday was Heather Paton, the 20-year-old 60m hurdler whose time of 8.37secs was a new Scottish native record.
Jemma Reekie, the training partner of Laura Muir, set another Scottish junior record as she finished second behind Mhairi Hendry in the 800m, while Olivia Vareille, the daughter of former footballer Jerome Vareille, was another impressive young winner on the day.
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