The laser focus of Sam Tanner
Sam Tanner has already played the scene out in his head.
It’s August 6, and he’s just finished the 1500m final at the Paris Olympics. Next, he finds wife Melissa and his family in the Stade de France crowd.
“I envision this moment,” he said. “Just giving them a big hug and stuff. Hopefully we have achieved the goals we wanted to. Whether that be an Olympic medal or New Zealand record.”
Tanner couldn’t be much further from Paris as he describes the scene. He’s sitting at a table outside Christchurch’s Riverside Market on the eve of today’s International Track Meet (ITM) in the Garden City.
The 23-year-old will compete in the 800m at Ngā Puna Wai, one of just a couple more races on home soil this season.
Everything Tanner is doing is aimed at peaking on August 6, ensuring he gives himself every chance to achieve his goals when the time comes to play out his vision for real.
“I said to my wife the other day, it feels like every single decision I make, every minute of every day, is either a gold-medal moment or not making the Olympic final. That is stressful, and nobody puts more pressure on me than myself.
“That’s the hard part [of being an athlete]. I could just care less and then it would be easy. ’Cause then you are like ‘good enough’. But I don’t want to be just good enough. I want to be the best.”
Tanner competed at the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and failed to get out of the heats (3min 43.22sec), before finishing sixth in a memorable 3min 31.34sec at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Having improved his personal-best to 3min 31.24sec in Poland last year, Tanner expects to be in good enough shape to stop the clock in 3min 27sec by the time he gets to Paris.
Pointing to podium times at recent world championships and the 2021 Olympics, which Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen won in 3min 28.32, Tanner said he would need to run sub 3min 30sec to medal.
“It’s going to take 3.29 to get a medal. So it’s going to be a double-whammy. I’m going to have a real good day that day, August 6,’’ he said.
That time would also make him the fastest Kiwi in history over 1500m, knocking double Olympic medallist Nick Willis (3min 29.66sec in 2015) off his perch.
As far as Tanner is concerned, taking down his mentor and becoming the national 1500m record holder is “a little bit overdue”. The same goes for New Zealand great Sir John Walker’s long-standing mile record, which has stood since he clocked 3min 49.08sec in Oslo in 1982.
“It would be nice to take John Walker’s record while he is still alive. I said that to him at the start of last year. And I know Nick would be stoked for me to break his.”
Based in Tauranga and coached by Craig Kirkwood, who also coaches triathlete Hayden Wilde, Tanner undergoes a loaded training block with 100-plus-mile weeks, which has resulted in him never being fitter than he currently is.
After Tanner defends his national title, he’ll spend a couple more months training in New Zealand, before heading overseas at the end of May for the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, in the United States.
He’ll return home for most of June, before he and Wilde base themselves in Soldeu, a village in Andorra, 1700m above sea level in the Pyrenees mountains.
Soldeu is where Tanner, who has been utilising an altitude tent for the past six weeks, will complete his Olympic preparations.
Given the importance of tactics in the 1500m event, Tanner’s preparation won’t solely be physical. “Going through all my races, what I have done in the past, look at my positioning, where did I make a mistake and making sure I learn from that.’’
As to what Tanner wants to showcase today over two laps, nothing less than improving his personal-best (1min 48.35sec) or winning against a field including classy Japanese runner Kentaro Usuda and Australian Luke Boyes would satisfy him. “It’s going to hurt – let’s go.’’
“Nobody puts more pressure on me than myself.’’ Sam Tanner