POZZI ENDS HIS AGONY WITH A DIP FOR GOLD
IT WASN’T so long ago that Andrew Pozzi considered jacking it all in and entering the world of finance. Last night, as he discussed the worth of his World Indoor Championships gold medal, he was plotting his path to an Olympic podium.
It’s quite the turnaround for a hurdler who is among Britain’s most talented but also most unlucky athletes.
His injuries have been so extreme that he is unsure if he has had five or six operations to correct his foot problems, but finally his career feels as though it is in rude health.
The 2017 season marked a change in his fortunes with a European indoor gold medal. This global title at last validates former world champion Colin Jackson’s claim six years ago that Pozzi could rule the hurdles world.
True to everything else in his career, the 25-year- old’s big win was achieved the hard way. In the final, he clattered the second hurdle and was trailing America’s Jarret Eaton off the last. But with a Jackson-style dip, he snatched the gold on the line, crossing in 7.46sec, 0.01sec ahead of Eaton.
It was Britain’s sixth of seven medals in these championships — Shelayna Oskan-Clarke took 800m bronze earlier in the evening and the women’s 4x400m relay team did likewise — but it was perhaps the best received, given Pozzi grew up just down the road in Stratford-upon-Avon.
He said: ‘I can’t even begin to describe the feeling. I’m absolutely over the moon. To win my first global is one thing but to do it in Birmingham is so much better.’
Because of the injuries he had endured, Pozzi said that his victory ‘is sweeter in every way’. The scale of his difficulties are summed up in a statistic showing that across the 2013, 2014 and 2015 seasons, he contested only 16 races.
Pozzi said: ‘It’s something I don’t shy away from and I take great strength from the fact that I’ve been in such a low place at times in my career. When I decided I was going to stick it out and come back, it was with the intention of going to the top. I take so much strength from that.
‘I absolutely considered quitting. There have been several times where it would have been easier to go and do something else. I was looking at financial services.
‘But I’ve felt ever since 2012 that I have what it takes to be a world champion and Olympic champion. That’s what kept me going and I fought through it.’
Earlier, Oskan-Clarke surged to her medal after chasing down Ethiopia’s Habitam Alemu with 50 metres to go. Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba was too strong, winning in 1min 58.31sec, the fastest time in the world this year, ahead of the American Ajee Wilson.
The farce of disqualifications in Birmingham — more than 20 across the track events — ultimately benefited the 4x400m team of Meghan Beesley, Hannah Williams, Amy Allcock and Zoey Clarke. They finished fourth but were promoted to third when Jamaica were disqualified. Thereafter confusion reigned as Britain were themselves disqualified for obstruction, only to then win an appeal and secure the bronze.
Elsewhere, Ruth Jebet, the Olympic 3,000m steeplechase champion from Kenya, has reportedly failed a drugs test for the blood booster EPO. The world governing body’s athletics integrity unit is yet to confirm the development.