Interviews with four young runners from the town who are among the best in country for their age.

Eleanor Baker

The 20-year-old from Barugh Green is working towards the marathon at the next Olympics and hopes to burst onto the international scene next year.

She is in her final year as a history and politics student at the University of Sheffield while working part-time in a scaffolding yard.

She said: “The main goal is to run the Olympic marathon in LA in 2028.

“I will be building up to the Valencia Marathon at end of year and try to get near to qualifying time for the Olympics. I can’t wait until my body is fully developed and I can grow into the distance. In 2025, I am hoping I start to do that. I will finish uni in the summer then fully commit to my sport.

“It’s more than a hobby to me, it consumes me and I love it.”

Eleanor has had great success in 2024, winning the York 10k as well as the Barnsley 10k and the Great Manchester Run Half Marathon while establishing herself as one of the best British long distance runners for her age group.

“I am really pleased with what I managed to achieve this year. It’s definitely been my most successful year.

“I have set PBs in all the distances I do which shows improvement. There is a lot of scope to work with going into the New Year. I have had a few injuries but we have found out why I was getting them so I have a better understanding going into next year.

“My highlight was winning the Manchester Half Marathon. It’s not even the fact that I had won it but I came back from a stress fracture a few weeks before and trained really really hard and proved a lot to myself.

“The Barnsley 10k was really nice as well. I have signed up for that race in 2025. It’s great to run where you live and see familiar faces running with you because you don’t get that when you go to races around the country.”

Eleanor has a busy schedule for 2025. She said: “I have signed up to do the Dewsbury 10k at the start of February. I came second last year and a few seconds off first. The aim is to win that.

“Then I will go to the Barcelona Half Marathon which will be my first international race. I have an elite start so it will be good to run with Olympians and world class runners.

“I will do the Big Half in London and the Vitality 10k which are high-profile races and might lead to more opportunities. I am dong a lot of 10ks to try to build my speed for the marathon later on in my career. I am also running the Manchester Marathon with my dad Damian which will be fun.”

Graihagh Turner

The 16-year-old from Penistone has had great success in cross country and mountain running and would love to compete in both the summer and winter Olympics in the future.

Graihagh won gold in the under 17 category at the British Inter Counties Fell Running Championships, despite a nasty fall. That qualified her for the World Cup in Spain in which she came 15th.

She also won individual and team gold with the England under 17 mountain running team.

Graihagh said: “I have had ups and downs this year. I have had a few bad races but I’ve done better than in the past few years and I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved.

“The highlights were coming ninth at English schools in the bottom year and running in Spain for England which was amazing and like nothing I have ever done before. My top highlight was winning Home International Fell Championship in Ireland.

“Next year I would like to get onto the schools international cross country team, which will be hard, and get into the World Cup team again.

“Probably my biggest goal is the Mountain Running World Championship next year. That is under 20 and I’m only 16 so it will be really hard.”

The Penistone Grammar School pupil has been running for eight years.

She said: “I hated sports at first but then, at a sports day, we did a cross county run and I didn’t do that badly.

“For my birthday, I asked for running gear, and joined Penistone Footpath Runners. During lockdown, I was training on my own and got a lot faster.

“I would love to be a professional and go to the Olympics. At the moment I prefer middle distance races, like 1500m, but I will probably be more suited to long distance as I get older and I think that will be where I end up.

“Cross country running is coming into the Winter Olympics in 2030 so that could be a goal as well. It would be great to be one of the first to compete in that.

“It will be hard. It’s hard to imagine getting to that level at the moment but I will just take it a year at a time, and try to keep improving.”

Vanessa Ndambakuwa

The 16-year-old from Grimethorpe has had a sensational 2024.

She won the English Championship for her age group over 200m with a personal best of 24.04.

That came weeks after she took silver in the English Schools Championships over the same distance.

She also won the 300m title at the UK School Games.

Vanessa’s success – which shot her up the national rankings – came just slightly too late in the year for her to qualify for the Great Britain under 18s squad at the European Championships.

But she is hoping to make her international debut in 2025 while she would love to compete in the World Championships and Olympics in the future.

Vanessa said: “I couldn’t be any happier with the way my season this year has gone. I went from being 13th in the UK to being first.

“For me, 2025 is about maintaining my consistency from the beginning of the season all the way to the end.

“I would also like to be able to make more of a name for myself through achieving bigger things such as breaking championship records, which I know is going to be a very difficult challenge but I am willing to try.

“My ultimate goal is to be the best 200m female British sprinter and then go on to break records and be the world’s best.

“I aspire to also make an appearance in the 2028 Olympics and many more Olympics.

“I want to be able to perform to a high standard against the most talented athletes in the world.

“One day I will want to be the athlete everyone recognises and aspires to be and be the one for the younger generation to look up to just like I look up to many talented female athletes.”

Vanessa is a year 11 pupil at Holy Trinity School and runs for Barnsley Athletics Club.

Maya Schofield

The Royston girl won a national title this year and is hoping to compete for Great Britain in the Olympics in eight years time.

Maya took the under 15 800m title at the English Athletics Championships in Birmingham with a personal best of 2-11.4.

She took 14 seconds off her previous PB which she set weeks earlier when taking bronze at the English Schools Championships.

Maya also helped England win a team gold medal at the Schools Cross Country Internationals and has won the 800m Yorkshire title for the past three seasons.

She is 15 next month so will step up to the under 17 age group in 2025.

Maya said: “Leading up to 2024 I had a very successful cross-country season and this continued into 2024 which resulted in me being selected to represent England at the SIAB schools cross country in Dublin.

“This set me up going into the track and field season.

“My highlight of the 2024 season was becoming the national 800m champion whilst setting a PB.

“My goals for the future are to keep improving and hopefully represent Great Britain in the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane.”