Gillick expects fast track to surprise

THE ‘very fast’ track in Osaka where the world championship medals will be decided the week after next will throw up some surprises, according to Ireland’s double European indoor 400m champion, David Gillick.

“Apparently it is appointed in such a way that the wind helps the athletes the whole way around the 400m,” he said. “I am looking forward to racing on it.”

The Nagai stadium where the championships take place, went though extensive renovation in advance of the IAAF’s biennial showpiece and the track and runways were resurfaced.

In the past there have been “soft” surfaces which were suitable for long and middle distance runners and “hard” surfaces that suited the sprinters.

The fast track is more likely to induce injuries because it is quite hard but this will not be the case at the Nagai stadium where for the first time, by using new technology, it was possible to install a fast track with injury prevention characteristics.

While the middle distance runners are expected to benefit significantly from the innovative surface its potential for fast times — if not world records — has already been highlighted by the reigning world and Olympic 400m champion, Jeremy Wariner, who ran 400m in 44.02 secs despite easing up in the final stages of the race at the Osaka World Athletics Tour meeting there in May.

As the Irish team settled in at their holding camp in Matsue City David Gillick said he cannot wait to get to Osaka. “It is the chance of a lifetime,” he said. “I have been training in England for the past nine months focusing on Osaka.

“You want to be up there with the big boys and I feel I am ready for it now. I have put in a good year this year.”

Apart from his new national record for 400m he has been running consistently fast times over shorter distances in training.

“Now I have to convert those on to the track,” he said. “I have to run those times to get through the rounds and get to the final.

“The world championships are more competitive than the European indoors and you will have better athletes there.

“I think that this year I took most satisfaction out of my first run of the year in Glasgow. I know conditions were terrible but I was racing against the strongest field I was ever in. In the end I only finished seventh but I took a lot of confidence from the fact that I was right up there with them for 350m.

“I learned that you have to get out there and take the race by the scruff of the neck. That’s the only way to do it. A week later I ran a pb and a national record in Geneva.

“Things may not have gone from strength to strength since then but I know and my coach knows where I am at right now and we are not too worried.

“I went back into training after Heusden and ran really well — pb’s over 300m and 350m — and I took a lot of confidence out of that as well.”

Derval O’Rourke joined the Irish team at their camp yesterday while Eileen O’Keeffe, after winning the silver medal in the hammer throw at the World Student Games on Friday, flew directly to Japan on Monday and they will be joined by their coach, Jim Kilty, next Monday.