Jenny Meadows

Jennifer Brenda Meadows (born 17 April 1981) is a retired English athlete and current coach. Her main event was the 800 metres although earlier in her career she also competed for Great Britain over the 400 metres. In the 800 m she won a bronze medal at the 2009 World Championships and a silver at the 2010 World Indoor Championships. At the European Athletics Championships, Meadows took silver outdoors in 2010 and gold indoors in 2011. She also had international success as part of the Great Britain women's 4 × 400 metres relay squad.

Meadows was the 2011 Diamond League winner for the women's 800 metres, the first British woman to win the overall Diamond League in her event.

A notable indoor competitor, Meadows won one national title outdoors, but eight indoors, including one title over the shorter 400 metres distance.

Meadows has been noted as one of a number of athletes who were repeatedly denied major international medals by doping competitors in the early 2000's an 2010's, particularly from Russia. Her European title was awarded following the disqualification of the original Russian winner for doping.

Since her retirement from the track, Meadows has moved into commentary and coaching, founding the M11 training group with her husband, Trevor Painter, which includes Olympic, world indoor, European and European indoor champion over 800 metres, Keely Hodgkinson, World Indoor amd European 1500 m and Commonwealth Games 800 m champion Georgia Hunter Bell and European indoor 3000 m champion Sarah Healy. Meadows was joint winner, with Painter, of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach of the Year award in 2024.

Early career In January 1989, seven-year-old Meadows joined Wigan & District Harriers. She was the 800 metres winner at the English Schools Junior (under 15 in this case) Championships in 1995. In 1998, she was third at the AAA Junior Indoor Championships in the 400 metres. She also finished second over the distance at the English Schools Championships.

The 18-year-old represented Great Britain in the women's 4 × 400 metres relay at the 1999 European Athletics Junior Championships in Riga.

Apart from relays at several major events, Meadows represented Great Britain at the 2001 European U23 Championships (400 m), 2002 European Indoor Championships (800 m), home 2003 World Indoor Championships (400 m), and 2003 European U23 Championships (400 m). On 19 August, she took the bronze medal in the World Championship 800 m final in a new lifetime best of 1.57.93, becoming the third-fastest British women of all time at the event.

2010: World Indoor Championship & European Championship silver medals Meadows started the season in great form and on 20 February broke the 7-year British indoor 800 m record, formerly held by Kelly Holmes, with a time of 1:59:11 in Birmingham. She went on to improve her record at the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar on 14 March, where she was awarded the captaincy of the Great Britain team, and claimed the silver medal in 1:58.43.

2011: European indoor champion & Diamond League winner At the Paris European Indoor Championships, she earned two medals, securing the silver medal for the 800 m event and a silver as part of British women's 4 × 400 metres relay. She was a favourite for the title at the European Indoor Championships in Prague but days before the event contracted a heavy cold/flu and was not at her best. She ran the heats and semi-final but was not well enough to contest the final. Meadows described this as a real low of her career after battling back from injury and drugs cheats for a cold/flu to take away her victory this time. She competed throughout the rest of 2015 but was very disheartened by what she had faced the past few years. She was eliminated in the semi-finals at the World Championships Beijing 2015.

Non-competitive career Meadows was head athletics coach for Manchester City Council before becoming a full-time athlete. She has appeared on the BBC's A Question of Sport in Matt Dawson's team on 13 March 2010, and on the BBC's Mastermind in December 2011, in which her specialist subject was Wigan Warriors.

In 2017, she worked as a pacemaker at major events, including IAAF Indoor Permit, IAAF World Challenge and Diamond League meets.

After retirement, Meadows has worked as a UK Athletics coach, athletics commentator and event host. She joined the BBC Sport team covering athletics at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She has worked as a commentator for World Athletics at least since 2019, as of 2022. She was a pundit on the BBC coverage of the 2022 European Athletics Championships.

Since 2019 Meadows has been a Director of Totally Runable Ltd, a company co-founded by Emily Freeman who work with schools using running to build confidence in sport. She is also part of Keely Hodgkinson's coaching team along with her husband Trevor Painter. Meadows and Painter jointly won the 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award.

Statistics International competitions

Circuit wins and titles

800 metres wins. 2011: Shanghai Golden Grand Prix, British Grand Prix, London Grand Prix

National titles British Athletics Championships 800 metres: 2011 British Indoor Athletics Championships 400 metres: 2003 800 metres: 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2015