The British athlete is happy to show his price over one lap on the European Championships
Charlie Dobson is relishing the chance to race over 400m for the primary time at a senior main championships.
The 24-year-old has to this point represented Nice Britain on the worldwide stage in each the 200m and 4x400m however the European Championships in Rome represents an opportunity for him to take his profession to a different degree.
Two years in the past, on the final version in Munich, Dobson completed fourth within the 200m. He was additionally a part of the lads’s 4x400m squad that claimed gold.
Then, on the World Championships in Budapest, the Brit ran the second leg within the relay, with Nice Britain taking bronze.
Now, it’s all about being on the rostrum within the particular person 400m.
Dobson comes into the championships in some type. He ran a private better of 44.46 over the gap in Savona (Might 15), which was much more spectacular given he needed to navigate just a few puddles in his lane.
That is how Charlie Dobson ran an unbelievable 44.46 over 400m in his particular person season opener 🔥
He’s now sixth on the UK all-time listing 🇬🇧
Simply have a look at his response 🤯pic.twitter.com/IkHaTPyaID
— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) Might 15, 2024
“Yeah, I’m very excited,” Dobson says. “It’s going to be my first championships doing the person 400m. It shocked me to run 44.46 [in Savona]. I don’t assume I shocked that many individuals however I did myself!
“To be trustworthy, going into that race, I went in, not blind as such, however I didn’t know what I’d have the ability to do. You get a gauge of how you might be from coaching nevertheless it’s by no means the identical.
“The best way I set the race up was attending to 200m, seeing it go fairly effectively after which push spherical the highest bend. I got here off the bend, carried on and completed lots stronger than I’ve ever finished earlier than. That made a distinction.”
With that run, the Brit is now the third quickest European athlete over 400m this season, solely behind Matt Hudson-Smith and Alexander Doom.
After breaking his personal European 400m report of 44.26, with a shocking 44.07 on the Oslo Diamond League, Hudson-Smith determined to withdraw from Rome to give attention to the Olympics. That now leaves the door open for a battle between Dobson and Doom on the Europeans, with the latter having a season’s better of 44.44.
Dobson, who was additionally on the identical World Relays crew as Hudson-Smith within the Bahamas – securing Olympic qualification within the males’s 4x400m – is unsurprisingly filled with reward for his compatriot.
Males’s 4x400m winners (Getty)
“He’s had a resurgence over the previous couple of years and it’s actually good to see,” Dobson provides. “It’s put British 400m working again on the map and that’s impressed the remainder of us to push on and work more durable. We need to be the most effective we are able to. It’s a giant hole to shut and it’s lots more durable!
“The Bahamas was fairly enjoyable. It was the World Relays however in the best way that it was arrange, it made everybody really feel actually relaxed which was good.”
Dobson additionally states that Iwan Thomas has additionally been an enormous supply of inspiration and one of many predominant causes behind his everlasting transfer to the 400m.
In an interview with AW two years in the past, Thomas mentioned that if Dobson stepped up from the 200m to 400m then “he may run very quick” and “it [400m] is all his if he desires.”
Dobson reveals that he chats to the previous UK 400m record-holder “from time to time” for “common recommendation.”
After lacking the Tokyo Olympics by way of an harm that left him on crutches, Dobson now goals of Paris however step one is to put down a marker in Rome.
Charlie Dobson (Getty)
“Lacking Tokyo was robust,” Dobson says. “I bear in mind sitting in a rehab centre in Bisham Abbey and watching the lads’s 4x400m relay. It positively meant I may use that as gas for my rehab and coming back from the harm.
“I believe that rehab went effectively and it’s clearly had a constructive knock-on impact now. We’ve modified just a few issues so my physique is paced a bit extra this yr which is good.”
Dobson doesn’t simply have a ardour for working although. Final yr, the Brit graduated from Loughborough College with a first-class diploma in aeronautical engineering, a course he spent 5 years on. His dissertation was on the finite component evaluation of a gasoline turbine engine.
Can Dobson, also called the ‘ginger ninja’, blast his solution to European 400m glory?
The final word aim for the Brit is to win an Olympic or world 400m medal. If he performs effectively in Rome, you wouldn’t put any limits on his profession.
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