Lina Nielsen
 Nielsen in 2022 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 March 1996 London, England |
| Home town | London, England |
| Height | 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in) |
| Weight | 60 kg (132 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Track and field |
Event | 400 metres hurdles |
| Club | Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers |
| Achievements and titles | |
| Personal bests |
|
Medal record |
Lina Nielsen (born 13 March 1996) is a British national record-holding sprinter and hurdler.[1]
In August 2022, she revealed she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nine years earlier.[2]
Early life
[edit]Nielsen grew up in Leytonstone, East London with her twin sister Laviai.[3] Her mother is Egyptian-Sudanese and her father is Danish.[4] In 2017, she graduated from Queen Mary University of London with a degree in chemistry.[citation needed]
Athletics career
[edit]Nielsen won the 400 m hurdles at the 2021 European Athletics Team Championships with 55.59. Nielsen has a twin sister, Laviai Nielsen, who is also an international athlete over 400m.[5][6]
At the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Nielsen won a bronze medal as part of the 4×400 metres relay team, which also included her sister Laviai Nielsen.[7]
After becoming the British 400 metres hurdles champion at the 2024 British Athletics Championships, Nielsen was subsequently named in the Great Britain team for the 2024 Summer Olympics[8] where she went out in the semi-finals after hitting a hurdle and falling to the track. Recovering from that setback, Nielsen ran for Great Britain in the heat of the women's 4×400 metre relay, qualifying for the final in second place. Although, like her three fellow heat runners, she did not run the final, the third place finish for the Great Britain team in that final confirmed that Nielsen had won her first Olympic medal, a bronze.[9][10][11]
On 15 February 2025, she broke the British women’s indoor 300m record in a time of 36.53 seconds in Birmingham.[12] At the 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, she was part of the British 4×400 metres relay team which won a silver medal.[13][14] Nielsen retained her 400 metres hurdles title by winning the 2025 UK Athletics Championships.[15]
Athletics achievements
[edit]International competitions
[edit]
Circuit performances
[edit]| Grand Slam Track results[18] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slam | Race group | Event | Pl. | Time | Prize money |
| 2025 Philadelphia Slam | Long hurdles | 400 m hurdles | 6th | 57.14 | US$30,000 |
| 400 m | 1st | 52.60 |
Personal life
[edit]Nielsen is a yoga teacher, having undertaken her teaching training in Rishikesh in the summer of 2019. She is now one of the yoga instructors on the fitness app Fiit.[19]
In August 2022, Nielsen revealed she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis,[2] at the age of 17. She chose to keep her diagnosis private for nine years, but following a relapse two days prior to her World Athletics Championships heats in Oregon she decided to go public with her story.[20]
References
[edit]- ^ "Lina Nielsen". IAAF. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
- ^ a b "Lina Nielsen: British 400m hurdler reveals multiple sclerosis diagnosis before Commonwealths debut". BBC Sport. 3 August 2022. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
- ^ Ben Bloom (25 February 2017). "Laviai and Lina Nielsen driven by twin dream of a medal on British debuts". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
- ^ "Meet Team GB: 5 of our brightest stars set to compete this summer". The Standard. 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
- ^ "Meet the GB twins going for gold in Belgrade". BBC Sport. 2 March 2017. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
- ^ Debbie Black (12 August 2015). "What It's Actually Like To Train With Professional Athletes". Elle. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
- ^ "REEKIE SILVER & RELAY BRONZE AS GB&NI END WITH FOUR WORLD MEDALS IN GLASGOW". British Athletics. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
- ^ "Kerr & Johnson-Thompson head GB Olympics athletics squad". BBC Sport. 5 July 2024. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
- ^ "Olympics rocked by awful scene as hush falls over crowd during athletics: 'Hard to watch'". Yahoo Sport. 7 August 2024. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
- ^ "Women's 4 x 400m Relay - Round 1 - Heat 1/2 results" (PDF). Olympics. 9 August 2024. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 August 2024. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
- ^ "Women's 4 x 400m Relay - Final results" (PDF). Olympics. 10 August 2024. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2024. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
- ^ "Gourley & Nielsen break British records at Keely Klassic". BBC Sport. 15 February 2025. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
- ^ "GB win three silvers on final day of European Indoors". BBC Sport. 9 March 2025. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- ^ "SUPER SILVER MEDALS FOR MILLS, COURTNEY-BRYANT & BRITAIN'S WOMEN'S 4X400M TEAM AS CURTAIN". British Athletics. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- ^ "Lina Nielsen on another British Title Novuna British Athletics Championships 2025 NLTV Athletics". YouTube. 3 August 2025. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
- ^ fell, completed the lap
- ^ Heat result
- ^ "Grand Slam Track Results". Grand Slam Track. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
- ^ "THERE'S ELITE. AND THEN THERE'S LINA NIELSEN". fiit.tv. 3 September 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
- ^ "Lina Nielsen British Athlete Reveals Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis". Sky Sports News. 3 August 2022. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
External links
[edit]
- 1996 births
- Living people
- Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
- British identical twins
- English women sprinters
- British women sprinters
- English people of Egyptian descent
- English people of Sudanese descent
- English people of Danish descent
- British Athletics Championships winners
- Black British sportswomen
- People from Leytonstone
- Athletes from the London Borough of Waltham Forest
- World Athletics Championships medalists
- People with multiple sclerosis
- British disabled sportspeople
- European Games competitors for Great Britain
- Athletes (track and field) at the 2023 European Games
- Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Olympics
- Olympic athletes for Great Britain
- Medalists at the 2024 Summer Olympics
- Olympic bronze medallists for Great Britain
- Olympic bronze medalists in athletics
- 21st-century English sportswomen
- World Athletics Championships athletes for Great Britain