By Owen Morgan
Last Saturday Joe Brier travelled to the South West of England to watch his girlfriend compete in a National Athletics League fixture at Yate and District Athletics Club.
The Swansea Harrier wasn’t competing because he was due to travel to Estonia three days later to compete in the European Under-23 Championships where he was one of the favourites for a medal in the 400m.
But a trackside phone call from former Wales and Great Britain sprinter Tim Benjamin turned Brier’s immediate plans on their head.
Instead of travelling to Tallinn, the 22-year-old would be heading to Tokyo next Thursday with the GB Olympic team as a travelling reserve.
“I was all ready to go,” Brier told Dai Sport. “I was meant to fly on Tuesday to Tallinn, but I pulled out on Saturday night after the phone call. So it was a very quick turn around and I fly to Tokyo a week today.”
“I’m really excited. It was a bit unexpected when I got the phone call but it was a relief really because it’s something that’s been in the back of my head for the past year, that I could potentially make it to the games.
“Now, it’s actually happening and I’ve secured my spot on the plane to go. I’m really happy.”
Next stop 🇯🇵 TOKYO OLYMPICS 🇯🇵
Grateful for all the opportunities coming my way this year🙌 had to withdraw from Euro u23s @tallinn_2021 but best of luck to everyone out there👊🇬🇧#400m #4x400m #trackandfield #athlete https://t.co/XwvqqIRr6l
— Joe Brier (@joebrier99) July 7, 2021
Brier, who had enjoyed an outstanding start to his season, thought his hopes of making the 4×400 relay team had gone after a disappointing performance at the recent Muller British Athletics Championships and Olympic trials last month.
After unexpectedly failing to qualify for the 400m final in Manchester, Brier was not in the GB team originally announced on June 29.
But then came the call from Benjamin, head of long sprints and relays with British Athletics, although Brier wasn’t immediately able to shout his exciting news from the rooftops.
“Tim Benjamin rang me and I was actually down on an athletics track in Yate watching my girlfriend run in the 400 metres,” said Brier.
“I couldn’t really react, it was really hard because it had to be kept quiet for the time being while everything was confirmed on their side.
“I told my parents and a few of my friends, but yeah, it was difficult, I just wanted to tell everyone!
“My parents were really happy for me. They knew I’d been working towards it. They knew I was disappointed I didn’t run well at the trials but said ‘well you can still go Estonia and potentially win at the European Under-23 championships’.
“But now I’m in the team for Tokyo I’m not allowed to go to go to the Under-23 championships. So yeah, they were really happy for me, they knew how tough a year it had been. They were itching to tell all their friends and everyone else at work.”
Brier was finally able to announce his selection to the wider world in a remarkably under-stated tweet on Wednesday.
The fluent Welsh speaker will go to Tokyo as a travelling reserve for the 4x400m relay team. “It’s an extra space that they’ve created,” he explains.
“If somebody unfortunately does get injured, tests positive for COVID, gets ill, or something, then I’ll get put in the team. Anything can happen at the moment, you never know.”
Recent events involving the English cricket team and the British and Irish Lions rugby union touring party suggest it is a sensible and necessary precaution.
England’s one day cricket squad had to be completely replaced for the match against Pakistan in Cardiff on Thursday after a COVID outbreak within the camp.
The previous day, the Lions had to make eight last minute changes to their squad for the match against C Cell Sharks in South Africa after two positive COVID tests.
Brier admits to some slight initial mixed feelings regarding his late call up meaning he misses the Under-23 championships.
“There’s always going be a bit of a disappointment,” he said. “I love running at my own age group championships. I think I was ranked something like third in Europe going into it and the top three are all very close.
“I’d beaten a few of them before this season in head to heads and stuff. So I had a lot of confidence going into Tallinn. I was in great shape and everything.
“But then I got the phone call and it was like ‘you can’t turn down going to an Olympics! You’d be stupid to’! So I jumped at the chance and I’m really happy.
“I’d love to race at the European Under-23 Championships. But at the end of the day, every athlete’s, ambition is to go to an Olympics. So I feel I can’t be turning these opportunities down.”
Although Brier says the initial news has pretty much sunk in, his excitement at the enormity of his call-up will increase further in the run up to the games which begin on July 23.
“I’m really looking forward to it, but I feel like as soon as I actually get to Heathrow next Thursday, and I’m on the plane there, that’s when it will really click in.
“And I’ll probably have an extra buzz when I get to Tokyo amongst all these world class athletes, there’ll be world champions, Olympic champions, world record holders all there as well.
“These are people I’ve looked up to my whole career. So yeah, I think it’ll be a different story when I actually get to Tokyo.”
Jake Heyward . . . The Cardiff Kid Who Needed To Head West To Fulfill His Tokyo Dream In The Far East https://t.co/xs7aQoD3yS
— Dai Sport (@Dai_Sport_) July 4, 2021
And there’s plenty to get excited about before he joins fellow Welsh athlete – 1500m runner Jake Heyward – on the plane to Japan.
“I’m racing in the Gateshead Diamond League meeting on Tuesday night. I’ve got a 400 metres there.
“There’s going be some fantastic athletes there, people I’ve raced and people I’ve looked up to in my career. So it’s going to be good fun to be involved in that. It’s all very exciting.
“Because I was a late selection, I wasn’t able to go to the kitting out process and everything in Birmingham. So my kit’s all coming tomorrow – I’m pretty excited about that. I can’t wait to see that come through!
“All the relay training and stuff will get done when we get out there because we’re in a holding camp for around two weeks. So that will be a chance to get some really good training and good relay practice with the other members of the team.”
Brier has made huge progress in recent seasons, something that was predicted by his coach Matt Elias when he spoke to Dai Sport after watching Brier win at a Welsh Athletics International match in Swansea back in 2018.
Former Wales and Great Britain star Elias said of the then 19-year-old Brier, who had recently started at Cardiff Metropolitan University: “He’s come to Cardiff and applied himself so well.
“But it’s more the maturity I’ve started to see in him as a person. He’s starting to take athletics a little bit more seriously.
“It’s doing all the little things, all the mobility that he needed to do, foam rollering, recovery work, all the stuff that aren’t the fun things to do but they are the things that actually make a difference.
“To have seen the change in him and the level of professionalism he’s starting to bring to what he does now, it’s really exciting to see as a coach.
“There’s no doubt that he has the physical ability to run 400m, he’s shown that this year. He’s actually a really exciting prospect because I think he’s only just starting to scratch the surface of what he’s capable of.”
So it has proved. Since that summer, Brier has improved his PB from 47.31 to 45.84, clocked in Belgium earlier this year. He has also earned a number of GB vests, winning 4x400m silver at the European Indoor Championships and 4×400 bronze at the World Under-20 Championships.
Brier acknowledges his attitude to the sport has evolved. “Over the past few years I’ve knuckled down and really thought about it and concentrated on training and stuff. I think up until 2018-2019, I was doing the sport just for the social side really.
“Then I realised I could actually go somewhere with it if I really knuckled down. That’s it really, I just became very consistent with my training and my recovery and everything. And it’s really taken off since that.”
It certainly has with Brier becoming the latest sporting success story to emerge onto the global sporting stage from his former school Ysgol Gymraeg Ystalyfera Bro Dur this summer.
Fellow former pupils Rubin Colwill and Ben Davies were part of the Wales football squad which reached the last 16 of Euro 2020.
While Brier’s sister Hannah is also a Great Britain athletics international who has represented Wales at the Commonwealth Games in 2014 as a 16-year-old.
Brier said: “They must be doing something right, producing Rubin, who is very young, going to the Euros.
“Ben has been involved in the Wales and Swans team for . . . well, I think I was 11 and I was watching him playing for the Swans. So it’s, fantastic. The school also produced my sister who went to the Commonwealth Games.”
And Brier’s exploits have started hitting the headlines in the wider community in his home town of Neath.
He is delighted to be the source of some good news.”It feels like the news has been very negative over the past year.
“You go on Facebook and Neath Voice and groups like that and it’s been very negative about all COVID issues.
“But now the people in Neath are very excited that they’ve got two of us going to Olympics because there’s me in the athletics and Dan Jervis in swimming as well.
“So yeah, you go on those groups now and people are actually saying positive things and looking forward to a great summer of sport, hopefully.”