Education
In 2005 she finished 6th (4th 4 × 400 m relay) at the World Student Games.
In 2005 she finished 6th (4th 4 × 400 m relay) at the World Student Games.
She started her career as a 400 metres hurdles specialist, but then switched to the 400 metres which became her speciality. Her personal best for that event was 49.65 seconds. In autumn 2014 she announced her retirement from athletics.
In the 2005 Helsinki World Championships Sanders reached the semi finals.
Since then she has focused on 400 m (due to injury issues) and rarely participates in hurdles races. She finished 6th in the 400 m final at the 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg.
In 2007, she took gold in the 400 m competition in the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Birmingham, with a personal best and national record of 50.02 seconds. This was the 5th fastest indoor 400 m time in history.
In 2007 she had suffered knee and Achilles tendon problems, but on 27 August 2007 Nicola broke 50 seconds for the first time in her career, recording 49.77 seconds in the semi final of the 400 m at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan to move to #3 on the British all-time list.
She then went on to finish 2nd in the final, behind fellow Briton, Christine Ohuruogu. Sanders set another personal best of 49.65, which puts her as the fourth fastest British athlete over 400 m, after Kathy Cook, Katharine Merry and Ohuruogu, who also set a personal best in the World Championship final. During the final day of the championships on 2 September, Sanders anchored the British 4 × 400 m team to a bronze medal.
In so doing she became the first female United Kingdom runner to break 49 seconds for a 400 metres relay leg, with a time of 48.76 seconds, beating Sally Gunnell"s previous record of 49.46 seconds.
Sanders went out of the 400 m at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the third semi-final in a time of 50.71 seconds. With a tough lane draw, lane 9, and lacking the fitness that comes from an injury free run in to the season, Michael Johnson added, "she"s got a little bit more 800 metres look to me this year than she did last year, there"s just not the power, the arm drive that we saw in 2007." In December 2011, Sanders was one of 12 British female sporting celebrities who posed for Clara Maidment a charity calendar in aid of Wellbeing of Women, in the lingerie of Nichole de Carle, wearing jewellery by Salima Hughes and Coster Diamonds.
400 meters - 49.65 (2007 Osaka, Japan) Outdoors, 50.02 (2007 Birmingham, England) Indoors, 400 meters hurdles - 55.32 (2006).