Poppy Tank Is Going To The Commonwealth Games In Shoes From eBay

Poppy Tank is about to represent England in the 10,000m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. She is also, by necessity, one of the sport’s great bargain hunters.

“I’m self-funded so every spare bit of cash I have I’m spending it on training camps, buying shoes, buying kit, paying for races and accommodation,” the 28-year-old from Plymouth told BBC Radio Devon, as reported by BBC Sport. “I have to be very savvy with my shoes. I buy them often off eBay on discount. So I’m very, very good at finding ways of saving money.”

With race-day shoes now routinely costing $250 or more, and no central funding behind her, the maths is unforgiving. Tank is hoping the Glasgow call-up helps her attract sponsorship. Until then, she is part of the large majority of elite runners the sport does not pay.

A PhD And A 12-Mile Morning

Tank earned her stripes on the cross country circuit, helping Great Britain to team gold at the 2023 European Cross Country Championships and silver a year later, and won the British 3,000m steeplechase title in 2023. But she had never been to a major track championships until England called this summer.

She has fit all of it around a PhD at the University of Birmingham, researching ways to recycle medical implants. A heavy day can mean a 12-mile session before lunch and an hour and a half in the gym in the afternoon, wrapped around lab work.

“A lot of my work involves physical research, so I have to go into the lab and prepare samples, cut up samples and analyse samples and meet with my supervisor,” she said. “My supervisor is incredibly supportive of my running… but ultimately I still have to go and do the studying.”

The Form Of Her Life

The timing of the call-up is no accident. Tank broke her personal best to finish second at the British Championships in mid-May, then lowered it again last month with 32:04.36 in the Netherlands.

She goes to Glasgow ranked in the second half of the field, and entirely unbothered by it. “I think that I’m really good at being competitive in races, I’m a good racer, I’m very good with tactical races and championship racing,” she said. “A lot of championship races go out slower and they sort of wind up towards the end and I really enjoy that. My goal would be to just go and better that, and if you come away with a PB as well, that’s always really nice.”

The hours, the lab, the second-hand shoes: she says the selection makes sense of all of it. “It is so much hard work, I couldn’t even begin to detail how many hours has gone into this,” she said. “When things like this happen where you get selected for your goals, it really, really makes it so worth it.”