We speak to the European under-23 champion whose increased focus on the psychology of sport is producing big results.
In this fast-paced digital world, there’s still a lot to be said for the humble notebook.
World high jump champion and Olympic silver medallist Nicola Olyslagers is particularly well-known for her post-jump ritual which involves noting down technical advice, motivational quotes and personal reflections.
European under-23 400m hurdles champion Emily Newnham has adopted a similar practice. The 21-year-old recorded a personal best and championships record of 54.08 to win gold in Bergen in July. She told AW at the time that her victory was the product of two years of rebuilding – including working with a sports psychologist on techniques to help tackle her nerves and expectations – after an agonising fourth-place finish at the 2023 European Under-20 Championships.
While the process of documenting notes has proved to be effective over the last 12 months, her success, ironically, brought with it a new set of emotions to contend with.
“Everything I wanted to achieve, I achieved, so it was really weird to reach those goals and to think: ‘Oh, I did that!’,” she says. “They were things that I’d thought about for so long and all of a sudden I was ticking them off one by one, so it was really overwhelming to start with.
“During the Europeans I’d written memos in my notebook and when I looked at them they really resonated with me, but when I went to the British Champs two weeks later and reopened the notebook that didn’t happen – the quotes just didn’t give me the same buzz.
“I had a bit of a weird period between the Europeans (under-23s) and Worlds because of that. My training was up and down and I had to reframe my mindset; my goal at the Europeans was to win, but that wasn’t the case with the Worlds. The idea of success was different, so it was working out what success would look like in Tokyo, and what would make me feel successful. In the end I bought a brand new notebook and wrote new memos to support that goal.”
Newnham, who is coached by Nick Dakin, represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the European Athletics Indoor Championships (winning 4x400m silver and mixed 4x400m bronze), World Athletics Relays, European Team Championships (where she won mixed 4x400m bronze), European U23 Championships (winning 4x400m gold in addition to the 400m hurdles individual title) and World Athletics Championships in 2025; not bad for an athlete who was previously apprehensive about standing on a start line. In the process she lowered her personal best from 56.85 to 54.08.
“I think my biggest learning from this year is to have belief in myself and to know how important that is,” she says. “To walk away from this year knowing that I can stand on these start lines, that I deserve to be there and that I can be competitive, that’s a big thing for me. I never imagined a world where I’d be at these events let alone that I could actually be competitive in the future.
“It’s also understanding that the way I feel is completely normal and that thoughts aren’t facts; for example, just because I think something, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen. Knowing that thoughts are fleeting – that I can think something and let it go – that’s had a massive impact.
“I’ve always said that sport is 90 per cent mental and 10 per cent physical, but now I’ve experienced that myself and I can see the results. That’s why I’ve gone so heavy on the psychology. I’m obviously doing everything I can out on the track, but it’s pointless if I don’t believe I should be there.”
Typical training week
Newnham – whose training partners include international team-mate Poppy Malik – is in her final year at Loughborough College studying Sports Coaching. She trains between Loughborough, Birmingham (Alexander Stadium) and Nuneaton.
“A lot of our focus is on the gym right now because we need to build my strength up,” she says of her current training block.
“I really didn’t like the gym before. If you’d told me that I could get all my strength from running I’d have much preferred that, but my strength and conditioning coach Nick Card has absolutely changed my mindset and I enjoy doing the sessions now.”
In addition to scheduled gym days, Newnham does core and bodyweight work (“prehab stuff”) at various points throughout the week.
- Monday: (am) technical session at the Alexander Stadium (indoor track): “We start with hurdle walkovers then progress to anything hurdle-based (e.g., four or five strides and drills),” she explains. “It’s actually my least favourite day of the week – I find it so tedious because I just want to run!”; (pm) gym at Loughborough
- Tuesday: (am) lactic tolerance session – longer reps with shorter recoveries e.g., 300m-3min recovery-300m-10min recovery-300m-3min recovery-300m
- Wednesday: (am) gym
- Thursday: (am) endurance/aerobic session currently on grass in Loughborough e.g., 90sec-90s-75sec-75sec-45sec-45sec off equal recovery
- Friday: (am) gym
- Saturday: (am) endurance/aerobic session or speed/fartlek session (grass) increasing from around 20 minutes total running at the start of the winter to around 35 minutes total running (by end of winter block)
- Sunday: rest day
Favourite session: “In summer it’s always my hurdles session e.g., starts to hurdle five, that’s just a nice session, but in winter it’s anything over 250m-300m. One of my favourites is a tempo-based session like 5 x 300m (off 3mins). Once you get into a rhythm and you’re flowing it just feels nice.”
Least favourite session: “Three-minute surge runs; when I see that on my programme I want to cry! We jog for three minutes and Nick will shout, ‘Pick it up!’. The pick-ups range from 5-20 seconds of sprinting, so it’s just the unknown of how long you’re going to be sprinting for.”
