Gillick looks on bright side after final frustration
This was his first final at a major outdoor championships and he said it beat everything that came before including his two European indoor titles.
The gold and silver medals were always going to be decided between the Olympic champion, LaShawn Merritt, and his fellow American, Jeremy Wariner, who was bidding for three world titles in a row.
Gillick had set the bronze medal as his target and, for a brief moment up the back straight, he was in the mix having overtaken Renny Quow (Trinidad) coming off the bend.
Quow, who has been fourth twice at world championships and fourth again behind Wariner in the Athens Olympics, came home strongly to snatch the bronze medal with Tabarie Henry (The Virgin Islands) ahead of Chris Brown (Bahamas) who was fourth in last year’s Olympics who had David Gillick breathing down his neck in sixth.
Up front, Merritt claimed his first world title in 44.06 secs from Wariner, 44.60. Quow crossed the line in 45.02 while Gillick’s time was 45.53.
“It was a championship final and it was just about beating people – not running fast times,” Gillick said afterwards.
“I am a little bit disappointed to be honest. I don’t know whether I went out too quick – Quow always goes out quite slow and comes home like a train so I knew I would be up on him.
“I felt good. With about 100m to go – coming off the bend – I was thinking I’d make good ground. But I tied up a fraction. It is my third race in four days and this is the world championships and all that.
“I can hold my head up high. It’s been a fantastic week – probably the best week of my athletic career.It surpasses everything I have done in the indoors.”
“My runs all season have been very consistent. I was quite relaxed today. I was just in good form. My form is good throughout the summer, but you look at the championships and you see how many consistent people haven’t done anything and that’s the thing about the championships. It’s about being able to do something when it really matters and thankfully I have been able to do that and run to form and get into a final.
“I probably put these guys on a pedestal before and kind of looked up at them and now I can safely say I am looking down at some of them which is great.
“It is just confidence, I know I can push forward from this – I know this will give me confidence to say to myself ‘Right Gillo, you can go to a major championships and perform.’ It would have been great to get a bronze medal, let’s be honest, it would have been fantastic. But I have done all right. It’s been a great week.”
Meanwhile, Jamie Costin and Colin Griffin both failed to finish yesterday’s 50k walk at the world championships in Berlin.
Sergey Kirdyapkin (Russia) dominated the race to reclaim the title he won four years ago in Helsinki, as several of the other pre-race favourites struggled to finish in conditions that were not terribly difficult after some thunder and a heavy downpour cleared the humidity that existed over previous days.
“Since Friday I was getting migraine headaches,” Griffin said. “I had a kind of numbness on my left side. I had the same problem a couple of months ago and it just came back at the weekend.
“I was OK up to 30k and I had no problem with the judges – I had a clear board – but I got sick at 34 kilometres. It happened twice in the one kilometre and when that happens you just get depleted and it’s a long way home.
“I could feel my legs were empty at that point and the race only really starts around 35k.”
