Cam’s off to Berlin
CAMERON CHALMERS is off to the European Championships with the biggest Great Britain squad ever named for a major track and field event in the modern era.
The island 400m record-holder and bronze medallist from the recent National Championships and trials, is named in the 4x400m relay squad for the championships, which run from 6 to 12 August.
The men’s squad also includes all four medallists from the finals of the World Championships in 2017 – Matthew Hudson-Smith, Martyn Rooney, Dwayne Cowan and Rabah Yousif.
And while Rooney has won an extra special berth in the individual 400 under the ruling that allows reigning champions to compete, form would indicate he is nowadays an inferior runner to the Sarnian who should make the cut for the final four.
Chalmers not only beat Rooney at the trials, but he has twice run circa the 45.5 mark this season while Rooney has not broken 46 and is nowhere near his PB form of years gone by.
British Athletics performance director Neil Black said the team is ‘our largest for over 100 years’, adding: ‘these European Championships are an important marker on the road to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and we expect to be competing for medals at every turn.’
For Chalmers, currently ranked fourth in the UK over one lap, the Euros will be the biggest fully senior track and field meeting of his career, having been selected for the World Champs last year only to withdraw.
Previously, his GB recognition was at U23 and junior level.
The Bath-based runner was part of the gold-medal 4x400 squad the European U23 Championships in Poland a year ago.
He was named GB captain in Bydgoszcz and was trusted with the decisive anchor leg in the final where having being handed with a narrow lead over Poland, the Guernsey star held off a fierce challenge from Dariusz Kowaluk before then opening up a bigger lead in the closing stages. His individual split was a brilliant 45.12sec., the best of any of the 32 runners on show in the event.
He was subsequently selected for the senior squad at the World Championships in London, only to injure himself in a holding camp in Paris and withdraw.
In 2016 he also featured in the 4x400 at the IAAF World Junior Championships, also in Bydgoszcz.
He has yet to disappoint in representative relays, although he had to withdraw from action just minutes before taking to the track with the GB squad at the recent World Cup in London.
The Guernseyman has not run a 400 since the trials almost a month ago, his 15th race of a busy year which started with preparation races for the Commonwealths in Gold Coast.
