Record run by Bain
TEENAGER Chris Bain is certainly ‘going places’ over his favoured 800m after running the fastest time by a Guernseyman in a decade.
On a fruitful Wednesday when 400m ace Cam Chalmers officially earned his Great Britain vest for European Team Championships relay duty, the rising 16-year-old put the date in the record books with a storming run over double that distance.
Bain, pictured, ran a significant personal best of 1min. 54.83sec. for sixth in a classy race at the Welsh U20 International.
This means that he has now removed three seconds from the U17 mark previously set by Tom Druce, whose 2009 results make him the next most recent Sarnian to have gone sub 1-55.
Notably, Bain’s run had been a slight negative split – unfavourable time-wise – and this has further enhanced his hopes for the coming England U17 Championships.
He had settled in comfortably behind the lead pack and maintained a remarkably even pace through the lap marker, just under 58sec. at the bell.
The leaders began to streak away from there but Bain, rallying hard into the home straight, made a key overtake and surged into 10th in the annual U17 rankings.
England’s Oliver Carvell, ranked seventh among Britain’s outstanding U20 depth, won in 1-51.23 from a five-man sprint.
‘Going into the race, I knew it was a stacked field, but I knew that if I could get into the mix then I had a great opportunity for a fast time,’ said Bain.
‘It was great to see that the training had paid off in a high pressure environment, which bodes well for “Nationals” in late August.’
Meanwhile, recent European U23s double silver-medallist Chalmers is bound for Bydgoszcz in Poland – the site of his relay triumph in 2017 – to carry the baton at senior level.
He joins fellow U23 Lee Thompson as well as Martyn Rooney and Rabah Yousif in British Athletics’ featured four of the 4x400m squad, with youngsters Ethan Brown and Alex Knibbs also selected.
Fifty-four British athletes are in the line-up for an event running 9-11 August.
