Gillick savours his golden moment

WITH less than 46 seconds of sheer magic Ireland’s David Gillick not only defended his European indoor 400m title at the NIA in Birmingham on Saturday.

In the process he brought the might of German and British 400m running to its knees, ran the fifth fastest indoor time by a European and posted his Olympic qualifying standard for Beijing.

Breaking the national record for a second time in just four races this season, he finished in a world class 45.52 secs.

The statistics could go on and on — he became the first athlete to retain the title since D’uaine Ladejo of Great Britain in 1996/96 and only the second man in history to do so — but by far the most important thing for the athlete himself was the fact that the win offered him another bite at the cherry.

For the hundreds of Irish fans in the sell-out crowd it was not just a moment of historic importance, it was a moment to savour — the tension at the start, the battle for inside when the athletes broke lanes and then the rush for victory down the finishing straight.

Gillick had given himself every chance of victory by winning Friday evening’s semi-final — the prime lane 5 was the reward for that — and he now had Robert Tobin of Great Britain in the less favoured lane 3 with the other gold medal favourite, Bastian Swillims of Germany, firmly in his sights in lane 6.

Recalled Gillick: “The way the race unfolded — I had gone through that scenario with my coach — if I wasn’t first at the break the chances were that Swillims was going to go through in the lead.

“Now I just had to sit in behind him, try to get as close as possible to him down the back straight, sit on him into the bend and then kick like mad coming off the bend and that’s what I did.

“Coming off the bend I really, really kicked off it and I think the first metre into the straight I gained maybe an inch on him.

“Then I got that feeling I was catching him, catching him, catching him.

‘‘In the last 20 metres I knew I was going to get him but I was fighting right to the line.

‘‘As I was getting closer and closer I was getting more and more motivated to go by him but I was more trying to hold my form.

“I had watched his semi-final on Friday — we were standing on the side of the track.

‘‘I watched him run 46.92 and he looked comfortable. I looked at him and went ‘he looks good’.

‘‘I knew there and then I was going to have to raise my game to beat him.

‘‘He is a good athlete, he is strong and is a big lad as well.”

Swillims, who went to within one hundredth of a second of Gillick’s old Irish record in the semi-finals, just smiled in admiration as the Irishman pushed his way past while, back

behind, Robert Tobin, crashed over the line a well beaten third.

For Gillick, who emerged from obscurity to claim the title two years earlier in Madrid, he had given himself a second opportunity to capitalise on a major championship win for, on his own admission, had done precious little since winning the first.

For Irish athletics, it was another gold medal.