Pozzi eyes gold to make up for lost time
Injury-plagued hurdler faces Glasgow test before quest for glory in world indoors, writes Sam Dean
With the injuries that have dogged his career finally consigned to the past, now is the time for Andrew Pozzi to look forward. There is potential that needs realising and a medal cabinet that needs filling for a hurdler who has, at times, appeared burdened with talent and misfortune in equal measure.
“I have been quite slow to start picking up medals,” he says. “I have been a senior for the best part of six years, but for obvious reasons I have not really won too many medals yet.”
Pozzi does not wish to dwell on the physical difficulties he has overcome, even if they remain a central part of his story. There was the hamstring injury that ruined his London 2012 Olympic Games, and persistent foot problems that curtailed his development in the years that followed.
Now, though, at the age of 25, he hopes to build on the gold medal he won at last year’s European Indoor Championships in Belgrade. This is not to say he has been entirely free of injuries – there have been “niggles” this indoor season – but he is fit enough to be targeting a gold at the World Indoor Championhips that start in Birmingham on Thursday.
“Winning the European indoors last year was the first big step and I want to follow on by upgrading that to a world indoor medal,” he says. “Last year I did it in the most pressurised circumstances. I was, I think it’s fair to say, the outstanding favourite and I had the three fastest times in the world last year. I was going there with heavy expectations to win.”
Those niggles have taken away some of the momentum this year, but victory in the 60 metres hurdles at last week’s British Indoor Championships, achieved despite a dreadful start, put him “back on track”. “It was probably one of the most enjoyable races I can remember,” he says. “I actually really enjoyed chasing. I was very conscious straightaway that I was significantly behind.”
Not that it was needed, but there is an added motivation for the hurdler as he returns to Birmingham for the world indoors, as it was here that he first watched an athletics event as a spectator. “I grew up not far down the road in Stratford-upon-Avon,” says Pozzi, who will be representing England at the Commonwealth Games in April. “And I have been competing in Birmingham since I was probably about 12 or 13 years old.”
Triumph there, it seems, would be just the next step towards making the most of the ability Pozzi showed in becoming the UK’s fastest-ever junior hurdler in 2011. And today’s Muller Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow will provide a measure of where he is at, in terms of fitness and raw speed, ahead of the main event. The most threatening competition will be provided by US indoor champion Jarret Eaton and 2012 Olympic champion Aries Merritt.
“Glasgow is very important,” Pozzi says. “Whenever you go into championships it is consistency that wins medals. It is not necessarily the person with the fastest time, it’s who turns up around championship time against the best competition and wins the race. Equally, I am yet to run a world-class competitive time, unlike some of the guys who will be in Glasgow. With that being said, I have obviously shown I am in really great shape.”
The 60m hurdles will be one of the showpiece events of an afternoon that is likely to be dominated by sprinters. Perhaps most eagerly anticipated is the women’s 60m event, in which Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith will face Dafne Schippers, the two-time world 200m champion, and double world silver medallist Marie-Josee Ta Lou. Also in the field will be Elaine Thompson, the Jamaican sprinter who won gold in the both the 100m and 200m at the Rio Olympics.
The event could be the most thrilling of the day. Schippers started the year with a false start in Gent, but has since claimed the Dutch 60m title, while Thompson recorded a fearsome time of 7.18sec in Kingston last month.
In the men’s 60m, British indoor champion CJ Ujah will face two other members of the 4x100m relay team, Adam Gemili and Nethaneel MitchellBlake, that claimed a gold medal so dramatically at last year’s World Championships.
The Glasgow meet will provide the British trio with one final chance to prepare for the challenge of facing American Christian Coleman, who has been installed as the overwhelming favourite for the world indoors 60m title after breaking the event’s 20-year world record this month. Greg Rutherford will continue his return to full fitness by challenging China’s Shi Yuhao and world bronze medallist Huang Changzou in the long jump.