Australian 400m athletics champion Steven Solomon set to race world champ Greg Nixon at Australian grand prix
• by: Mike Hurst
• From:The Daily Telegraph
• December 24, 201112:00AM
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Little preparation: Steven Solomon. Picture: Athletics Australia Source: The Daily Telegraph
STEVEN SOLOMON, the Sydney schoolboy who won the national Open 400m championship early this year, said yesterday he would probably take on visiting US world champion Greg Nixon in the Australian grand prix without any previous race preparation this summer.
“I’ll tee-up some trials in training and probably step straight into the grand prix,” Solomon told The Daily Telegraph yesterday after Athletics Australia announced they will import Nixon, a former world indoor champion and a member of America’s gold medal winning 4x400m relay at the outdoor world championships in Daegu, South Korea, in September.
The dramatic entry from training to international racing is far from ideal, but Solomon was injured at the Combined Associated Schools carnival in October although he managed to win the 200m in 21.25sec after tearing a hamstring muscle with 100m to go.
That time remains one of the fastest nationally although under coach Fira Dvoskina he is concentrating on the 400m.
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“I really should have stopped but the adrenalin masked the pain,” Solomon admitted.
Solomon’s national title winning time of 45.58sec is the fastest 400m mark by an Australian since April 2010 but he ran it before the London Olympic qualifying period started.
The automatic selection time for the men’s 400m is 45.30sec (A-qualifier) and the B-standard (45.90) which is often used as a guide to selection for a 4x400m relay.
No Australian currently has the A-standard although several appear to have the qualities needed to achieve it, none more so than Solomon who shocked the likes of Sean Wroe, John Steffensen and Ben Offereins among others in topping the rankings and taking the national title last season.
“It’s definitely exciting that Greg Nixon is going to race here,” Solomon said. “Heading toward an Olympic year when it’s all about times to qualify for London, having an athlete of such ability to compete against will greatly aid both myself and the other athletes to reach those selection standards.
“I’m pretty much at the end of my (injury) rehabilitation with (Australian team physiotherapist) Brent Kirkbride guiding sessions but I’ll soon be able to return to (normal) sprint training.
“I intend to run all the grand prix (meets), although it’s yet to be determined whether I will be medically exempted from the 4x400m relay race in Brisbane” (January 14, when an Australian side will attempt to shore up a place in the London field with a second Olympic relay qualifying time).
Nixon, who these days is coached by the great Quincy Watts – 1992 Olympic 400m champion and 1993 world 400m champion – will compete at the grand prix in Perth on February 11 and Sydney on February 18.
Sydney has a nine-lane circular track but if even one more foreign 400m runner is invited into the field, which seems more than likely, then there would not be enough lanes to cater even for the eighth NSW-based 400m runners who harbour at least Olympic 4x400m relay ambitions.
And then there are the likes of Wroe and Offereins and several others from interstate who will demand a lane at Homebush.
The quality 400m sprinters from NSW include Joel Milburn (Beijing Olympic semi-finalist, 2009 world championship relay bronze medallist), Steven Solomon (national titleholder), John Steffensen (2007 world championship finalist, 2009 world championship relay medallist), Clinton Hill (Olympic relay silver medallist on a comeback), Kevin Moore (2010 Commonwealth Games relay gold medallist), 46-second runners Paul Cummings and Matt Lynch as well as highly ranked 200m sprinter James Grimm moving out to 400m.
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