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You are in: Special Events: 2001: World Athletics |
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Friday, 10 August, 2001, 07:07 GMT 08:07 UK
A painful lesson for Malcolm
BBC Sport's Steve Cram looks at what Britain's Christian Malcolm can learn from his run in the 200m final at Edmonton.
Christian Malcolm will be hugely disappointed after that 200m final. He knew that this was his big chance, his big day, and that a World Championship medal was a very real possibility. I'm not sure he was ever going to beat the Olympic champion Kostas Kederis, but Christian was convinced he could get right up there. It was a very open race and he had a good lane draw, but he needed to run his own race - and that was very, very difficult.
That's natural. Your style goes, your shoulders tighten and your speed drops.
He ran a good bend - not as good as in his semi-final, but enough to put him up there - but when you get into the final 60m and you're neck-and-neck with six other men, you tense up. We saw exactly the same thing happen to Marion Jones in the women's 100m final. Here, Christian looked cool on the blocks - he's a cool customer most of the time - but you can bet that inside the nerves were clanging. So what can Christian take away from this? When he wakes up on Friday, he won't be able to think of anything positive. That might be the same on the day after, the week after and even longer. He has now finished fifth in two consecutive big finals - the Olympic 200m last summer being the other - and that will hurt. But he shouldn't be too hard on himself. He needs to think about how close he came to a medal, how close he was to winning. That might sound strange, but to be so close to the silver is enormously encouraging.
He knows that he has the talent to succeed at the very highest level. What he needs to throw into the mix is experience. Experience tells you that you need to hold something back for the final, that your best run shouldn't come in the semi. Some people have wondered if he might have been too tired after running four rounds in the 100m and the same in the 200m, all within the space of six days. I don't think so. He's doubled up at every championship he's been to. The 100m was great for him. You saw how his confidence grew as the rounds went by and his times kept dropping. It sharpened him up. We might not have seen the fine performances that came in the 200m if he hadn't taken on the earlier sprint. A final thought, quite literally. Christian has made two of them, at the very highest level, at the age of 22. We'll see him on the podium soon, you can be sure.
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10 Aug 01 | World Athletics
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