by Stuart Weir
The penultimate event of the three-day British Championships was arguably the highlight of the weekend. The men’s 800m was loaded with several athletes with the world qualifying time. Max Burgin was the favorite and so it proved. Burgin’s race plan was to take the lead and simply run faster than anyone else could! He led to the finish and no one could get to him. Daniel Rowden was a comfortable second without ever threatening Burgin. The effort that Burgin had put into the race was graphically illustrated when he had to interrupt his trackside interview to throw up! Burgin’s time was 1:44.54 with Rowden finishing in 1:45.58,
The comments of the top two – automatically selected – which reflect the complex session for British athletes, were as follows:
Max Burgin: “I am delighted with that race today. Going into today I was the fastest so there was a little bit more of expectation on me to qualify. So I am delighted to have come out and secured the win. The conditions were tough so running from the front isn’t necessarily the best as you feel the wind more. It is quite normal for me to feel sick straight afterward; it is a side effect of the effort but nothing to worry about.
“I have never run in a senior championships so it will be a new experience. I have the world leaders at the moment so I am in a good place. With the Commonwealths and the Europeans, I have plenty of opportunities to get used to championship running with the three rounds and so on”, .
Daniel Rowden: “I’m over the moon, I was disappointed to miss out on the Commonwealth Games but my earlier season form just hadn’t been good enough. So today’s aim was to come here and book a ticket to the Worlds in Eugene, so I’m delighted to have achieved that. I was at the start line knowing full well that I was going to have to battle for every position at the start line. I put myself in positions to win which I did shoot for the win and ended up second, but I have my place at worlds so I’m very pleased that I was brave in that race.
“Training has been going really well. However, racing has been awful so I’m thrilled with second today and be going to worlds. I have a few weeks now where I can sharpen up and we will do the best that we can from there”.
Kyle Langford (1:46.34) was third and Ben Pattison fourth at 1:46.75. The biggest surprise was to see Elliot Giles fade and finish fifth in 1:47:04. The identity of the third GB athlete in Oregon will be decided by the selectors this week
