Bosworth tells of relief at Olympics delay after being laid low by Covid

Team GB racewalker Tom Bosworth believes it will take winning an Olympic medal in Tokyo to surpass his experience of the last Games in Rio.

And the 31-year-old is grateful that the global showpiece was delayed by a year due to the pandemic after catching the virus left him feeling like he’d been “run over by a bus - twice”.

“There was no way I would have been competing last summer if they went ahead, it would have been gutting,” said Bosworth, who had set British records over 5km and 10km before falling ill last year.

“It opened my eyes very early on to this, that this wasn’t just the flu, which is what we were hearing at that point. In March last year, we knew nothing about it.

“I’m glad those Games were cancelled because it did take that pressure off really rushing back because I could have probably done myself more damage.”

Bosworth came out in 2015 and is currently the only openly gay male athlete on the British athletics team.

And having proposed to his boyfriend Harry on Copacabana beach after finishing sixth in the 20km walk in Rio, it is no surprise that Tokyo will be a hard act to follow.

“Even if the Games had been totally normal, for me personally, bar winning a medal there’s not much more that can top Rio,” Bosworth said. “It was the best 10 weeks of my life and I loved it.”

Bosworth is one of seven athletes named in the Great Britain team for Tokyo, joining Chris Thompson, Ben Connor, Callum Hawkins, Stephanie Davis, Jess Piasecki and Steph Twell.

Davis only ran her first marathon in September 2018 but the part-time athlete set a new personal best of two hours, 27 minutes and 16 seconds in winning the trials.

The 30-year-old from Glasgow said: “I can’t quite believe it’s my name on that list and I’m still waiting for it to really, really sink in.”