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Dai Greene . . . Still Overcoming Hurdles And Determined To Clear More On His Way To Tokyo

Any athlete in need of motivation right now, in the ability to endure, need look no further than Dai Greene. Having hit the heights of becoming world champion in 2011, he’s been sorely tested in the nine years since. But he’s still unwilling the throw in the towel as he told Rob Cole.

He hasn’t got a track to train on, hurdles to jump over, a gym to work-out in or a coach to meet up with, yet still Dai Greene is refusing to give up on his Olympic dream.

It seems as though everything is conspiring against the 2011 world 400m hurdles champion at the moment, and all at a time when he thought he was back on course to race injury free.

Now, he just has to keep it all together for another year following the decision to push Tokyo 2020 back 12 months.

By then, the man who was captain of the British men’s athletics team at the 2012 Games in London, where he finished fourth, will be 35.

Will age catch up on him, or can he keep on going?

“I’ve spoken to people who have retired and most of them have told me that you will know when you don’t want it any more,” says Greene.

“At the moment I enjoy the training, I love the racing and I want to compete.

“I’ve always wanted to be the best possible athlete I can be. That’s what it’s all about and my appetite for the sport is still there.

“I’ve seen a lot of youngsters come along and join and flirt with our training group, but then disappear. Once I start struggling with the training, either mentally or physically, then I will stop.

“It is not so much about my age, but more about what the stop-watch tells me. Whether or not I can get back to the highs of some of my previous successes, who knows, but I don’t feel as though I am a million miles away.”

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At his very best Greene was truly world class. Having been the European Junior and U23 champion, he became the European, Commonwealth and Inter-Continental champion in 2010, lowering his Welsh record to 47.88 sec.

He was the undisputed best in the world in 2011 – winning at the World Championships in South Korea in a time of 48.26 sec. Then, he went even faster in the Diamond League meeting in Paris in 2012, clocking 47.84 sec to go within 2/100ths of a second of Kris Akabusi’s British record.

It has been a long, hard slog since then. Two hernia operations, other injuries and no luck whatsoever.

His funding has dropped to a mere £1,500 a year from Welsh Athletics and now the coronavirus epidemic has robbed him of his only real earning potential while he pursues his Olympic dream.

“I’ve had to spend a lot of my savings accrued during the good times on continuing my career,” he admits.

“Racing was one financial lifeline, but now there are no races there is no chance to earn money on the circuit.

“The other way of making some money was through school visits. I had a few lined-up, but now that has stopped as well and sponsors don’t want to back you if you aren’t fit and healthy.

 

“I’m living on a farm with my partner at the moment, but all the tracks and gyms are closed so training isn’t easy. There are no hurdles and my coach, Benke Blomqvist, is back home in Sweden.

“I’m having to improvise at the moment and wait and see when the season might open up again. I was due to go to Florida for a training camp this month, but that’s off now, too.”

It seems as though anything that could have gone wrong, has gone wrong for the Llanelli athlete. But he refuses to get downhearted and fiercely believes in what he is doing and in what he can still achieve.

“If you go back to the 2012 Olympics, I missed two months in the winter and then had surgery and lost January and February after surgery.

“I lacked a little bit of strength going into the summer, yet I was still able to run a PB that year.

“Having the Olympics put back a year is a bit of a double-edged sword for me. At first, I thought it would be good because it gave me another year of training, but it also means I’ll have to be training for another year and I will be 35 by the time the Games finally come around.

 

 

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“I was always going to keep going until the 2022 Commonwealth Games, so in one way having to wait another 12 months to try to get to Tokyo isn’t too much of a big deal.

“Even so, I would much rather have had the chance sooner, rather than later.

“In the back of my mind is the thought that I will be 35 by then. If you look at the last two Olympic champions, they were both experienced athletes.

“In 2016, Kerron Clement was a month or two short of his 30th birthday, while in 2012 Javier Sanchez took the gold a month short of his 35th birthday.

“I was in really good shape last season and I felt as though I was going to be able to qualify for Tokyo. The standard is 48.9 sec and I was confident of being able to do that in the next couple of months.

“It will take about 48.6 sec to get through the heats and 48.2 sec to reach the final. I have the ability, I just need to find the way to fix a few problems.

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“It isn’t easy training to get back into elite sport after a year or more off. I needed more heavy conditioning work to get my strength back.

“The good thing is I still enjoy doing what I do more than ever.”

As he works towards another year of training – currently on his own – that’s just as well.

 

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