Ala’s medal ‘Finnish’ to a brilliant season
AFTER taking sixth in the 400m hurdles final, Alastair Chalmers concluded his world juniors in Finland, with a brilliant medal moment in the 4x400m relay.
Chalmers starred alongside fellow GB athletes Alex Haydock-Wilson, Joseph Brier and Alex Knibbs in the final of the IAAF World U20 Championships one-lap relay, contributing vitally to the team’s shared bronze and fast combined time of 3min. 5.64sec.
Medal honours came down to fine margins, with very little separating the Brits from second-placed USA as the Italians won in 3-04.05.
This all followed the Jamaican favourites’ disqualification in the heats.
GB’s Haydock-Wilson passed an early lead to Brier after the then-leading USA team dropped the baton on the changeover, and leg three runner Chalmers held second place behind Italian hurdles rival Alessandro Sibilio into the final change as the USA continued to play catch-up.
It was only in the final straight where USA anchorman Howard Fields strode past GB hurdler Knibbs to snatch their silver, as Eduardo Scotti brought it home for Italy. Regardless, the Sarnian was elated to end his fruitful season with a world junior medal on top of his stellar hurdles campaign.
‘It’s an absolute dream come true, all of us believed we could get this medal – it didn’t matter what colour, it was [to] come out and try our best and look what we’ve done, we’ve come up bronze medallists at the world championships,’ he said.
Chalmers now plans to end his racing season immediately and enjoy some vital late summer downtime in anticipation of a new chapter working under expert coach James Hillier at the University of Bath from September.
Older brother Cam, also coached by Hillier, was due to race at Great Britain senior level on Sunday night in the inaugural Athletics World Cup at the London Stadium, but an unfortunate late injury left the Brits unable to field a team as the USA took the honours in 2-59.78.
