Action Woman awards countdown: Jo Pavey

November 28, 2024

The countdown to the BT Sport Action Woman Awards has started so if you haven’t voted yet then here’s the case for Jo Pavey written by Sue Mott for BT Sport.

Gavin Pavey was having trouble believing his eyes one day last summer. He was among the crowd at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, balancing his four-year-old son Jacob on his knee, as his (famously) 40-year-old wife was surging round the track to the soundtrack of patriotic roaring and a thrilling 5,000 metre race came down to the wire. He knew there was no realistic chance she could possibly get a medal. Except, suddenly, there was.

“I’m sitting there thinking there’s not much chance of Jo winning a medal. It would be a miracle if she did,” he said.

“But later on when the leading group broke away at the front, she was still with them. I’m thinking: ‘She must be feeling quite good if she can keep up the pace with three Kenyans.’ She just wouldn’t give up. And then I was just shouting and screaming and it was all a bit of a blur.”

With good cause. Jo Pavey made history in 2014, becoming the oldest woman to claim medals at two major Championships. A mother of two at the age of 40, she won bronze in Glasgow, a whisker shy of the silver, and then went on to win gold in the 10,000m a mere ten days later at the European Championships in Zurich. She out-fought a Frenchwoman 16 years her junior and 20 seconds faster this season. It sealed for Pavey the most wonderful summer of sport of her life, at an age when many athletes are long retired.

Read the full article and watch the video here

Sue Mott, BT Sport
Sportsister, The Women’s Sports Magazine

Jo Pavey is a nominee for the BT Sport Action Woman of the Year Award. To see the rest of the nominees and vote for your winner visit btsport.com/actionwoman. Find out who wins when Clare Balding presents the award in a special hour long show on Tuesday 10th December at 19:30 on BT Sport 1

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Action Woman awards countdown: Jo Pavey

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