Last
updated: 05/03/08
The
Bath Bullet
With the Olympic games just five months away The National Student
will be conducting a series of interviews in the build-up to Beijing
with student athletes in the reckoning for a place in the Great Britain
team. Mariam Farookhi gets the ball rolling with sprint star Craig Pickering.
Young
sprinters such as Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Simeon Williamson and Craig
Pickering have exploded onto the athletics scene in the last few years,
and their progress towards one of the most renowned sporting events,
to be hosted by London in 2012 for the first time in 64 years, has already
commenced.
However, when asked about where he sees his role in the Great Britain
squad leading up to Beijing this year, Pickering has set his sights
firmly on competing well in the indoor arena, before turning his thoughts
to the outdoor track. “Well, hopefully I’ll get picked for
the World Indoor Championships and then in the outdoors.
I’m part of the relay team that will defend the Olympic title
and then I’ll try and make the individual final as well.”
Inevitably, with such a successful season in 2007, it is easy to understand
why so much hope is invested in Pickering’s promising career.
Slashing his personal bests during both the indoor and outdoor seasons
last year, he smoothly continued his transition into the senior ranks,
retaining the British Universities 100m title with a time of 10.29s,
before collecting medals at both European and World Championship level.
When he looks back at his performances last year, it must be difficult
not to set targets about where he sees himself in a few months’
or years’ time. “I try not to look too much for times, more
for competitions. I try and win as many competitions as I can.”
In the indoor season last year, Pickering set a new standard for Great
Britain qualification in the European Indoor Trials and went on to clinch
the 60m silver behind Jason Gardner, his former training partner, at
the European Athletics Indoor Championships. He acknowledges the friendly
rivalry with Gardner, winner of an unprecedented four European Indoor
titles and an impressive competitor on the outdoor track. “Jason
was one of three Europeans to run under 10 seconds, so he can obviously
do it at the 100m as well, it’s just overshadowed by his indoor
achievements.”
Pickering beat Gardner several times last year, emphasising his growing
presence in the sport, but does not see this as the major turning point
in his career, despite these comprehensive victories. “It wasn’t
just beating Jason, it was also the times I was running which was the
major step-up for me.”
With Gardner’s recent retirement from athletics, friendly competition
with some of the other younger GB talents has developed. “Yeah,
we’re friends. Me and Simeon (Williamson) have been competing
together for a few years and we know each other very well. Ryan Scott
is also one of my competitors. I train with him all the time and get
on really well with him so there’s no nasty rivalry really.”
Pickering is based in Bath, whilst studying for a Sports and Exercise
Science degree at the university.
He admits, “It is quite hard to fit in all the work and everything
but I’ve split my final year, which I’m in now, so I’ve
got my dissertation next year and all my modules this year which makes
it a bit more manageable.” This allows him to focus a lot more
time and energy into his intense training schedule, which consists of
“three days in the gym and three days on the track, and each training
session lasts between three and four hours each day.”
Now, in the middle of the indoor season, “We’re not doing
so much work and just trying to stay sharp - that’s the main thing
at the moment.” Once the outdoor season begins, and thoughts turn
to the slightly longer 100m sprint, the training will remain almost
the same. “We do a bit more stamina work for the 100m, but you
still have to have a reasonable amount for 60m because you’ve
usually got quite a few rounds. But with the 60m, we work a lot more
on the start than we do for the 100m, so that’s the main difference.”
Although other successful GB athletes have based themselves in Loughborough,
notably longer-distance runners such as Paula Radcliffe, Pickering chose
to train at Bath. “There are no sprint coaches at Loughborough,
but the coach in Bath (Malcolm Arnold) used to coach Colin Jackson and
Jason Gardner so I thought it would be good to go to someone with a
good track record.”
In fact, Arnold has achieved worldwide success in the past with many
athletes, among them Jackson, in his role as a UK athletics Senior Performance
Coach.
Although he collected a silver medal and recorded a new personal best
of 10.14 seconds in the 100m at the European Under 23 Championships
last year, Pickering feels his greatest sporting achievement to date
is the bronze medal he won as part of the 4x100m relay team at the 2007
World Championships in Osaka. “That’s a World Championship
so that’s good, and I’ve got an individual medal from the
European Indoor Championships, but I reckon the relay medal from the
World Championships just shades that.”
Alongside Christian Malcolm, Marlon Devonish and Mark Lewis-Francis,
Pickering ran the second leg to help the squad better the time set by
the 2004 Olympic gold medal winning team and run the third fastest 4x100m
relay time in British history.
Despite recently being described as the ‘saviour of UK athletics’,
Pickering has so far not felt the weight of expectation too much to
bear. “I don’t feel it at all. I’m quite separate
from it and, to be fair, I think it’s necessary, because if we
were American we wouldn’t be that good running these times at
all. Just because we’re British, we get more media coverage really.
If I was in America running my times, no one would really take any notice
of it.”
But in the past, there has been a selection of young British talent
that has failed to live up to its promise at the top level. Sprinters
such as Mark Lewis-Francis and Christian Malcolm showed brilliance at
a World Junior Championship level, but Pickering puts it down to bad
luck that these athletes have not performed as well at the senior stage.
“Christian Malcolm has been injured constantly for the last five
or six years, so obviously there’s that aspect. Mark I know has
been suffering with some injuries recently, so I’m sure that contributes
to it.”
In the past, there has been mention of the race issue, and of Pickering
becoming one of the first white sprinters to break the 10 seconds barrier.
“I think it’s been made into a big issue. Recently, my stance
has been that I don’t want to be the first white sprinter to beat
10 seconds because I’m the first white sprinter, I want to break
10 seconds because that’s what I’ve got to do to win medals
at major championships which is more important to me.”
The start of the 2008 indoor season saw Pickering continue in the same
vein of good form as he ended last year. “Things have started
off alright. I opened the year with a good time and I ran well in Germany
as well. They (the 60m World Trials and UK Championships in Sheffield
where Pickering finished fifth behind a victorious Dwain Chambers) didn’t
go that well, but I’ve been very ill. I think I’ll have
a chance to put that right when I run next but I’m not sure when
that will be.” He refused to be drawn into a discussion about
Chambers, but it comes as no surprise that he has been said to comment
that he disagrees with the disgraced athlete’s return to competitive
sprinting.”
Unfortunately, a virus and a hamstring injury have most likely brought
an end to Pickering’s indoor season. But his rehabilitation continues,
and attention moves to the outdoor track. Around the country during
the summer however, thoughts will turn to London 2012 and how well our
young sprinters will perform on the world stage in front of their home
fans. “I think we will have quite a good team. Obviously the others
are doing well at the moment, my generation are all doing really well,
so it looks good for 2012.”
