Double Olympic medallist Sam Reardon has spent the year following his Paris success battling injuries so a long delay before his World Championship semi-final was the last thing he needed.
The Beckenham athlete made headlines France a year ago when he was called up by Team GB after the opening ceremony of the Games and brought home a pair of bronze medals in the mixed and men’s 4x400m relays.
The 21-year-old was hoping to kick on in 2025 but has found his season disrupted by a succession of injuries, including three hamstring tears that have required multiple MRI scans and endless rehab.
Despite those setbacks, he made it to Tokyo and was just a tenth of a second off his personal best in his heat.
In a tough semi-final, he then had to deal with an interminable delay after a problem at the start, with the athletes twice asked to get up from their blocks and then having to wait for a high jump attempt.
After that long delay, Reardon came home last in his semi-final in 45.10 seconds, before revealing that he had felt some pain in his hamstring.
He said: “The delayed start didn’t really help, especially with the injuries I’ve had this year. Then the first 50, I felt a tightening in my hamstring, like happened in Madrid. This time I thought I’d try and finish it off. So we’re all very disappointed.
“It was really tough. You warm up to get yourself ready and when you are delayed that long, outside in the stadium, in the elements, cooling down every second, it’s not really helpful. You can see in our semi-final, the times were a lot slower than in the heats on Sunday. I don’t think it helped us at all and especially with my injuries this year.
“I think I’ve done something to my hamstring so I’ll go back and see what that is.”
Reardon had not featured in the mixed 4x400m relay at the start of the week, but was hoping to play his part in the men’s 4×4.
With three semi-finalists to call upon, Novuna GB and NI had legitimate ambitions of challenging for top spot on the podium.
But as well as Reardon’s potential injury, world number one Matt Hudson-Smith has been dealing with a hip issue and also went out in the semi-finals, as did London Diamond League winner Charlie Dobson.
So while Reardon is not ruling out a run at a medal, he admits that the team is not in peak form for that bid.
He added: “Fingers crossed (it’s not too serious). We’ve got a good relay team if we’re all fit.
“I think looking at our performances this year, we could definitely challenge for the gold when we are all fit and performing at our best but today hasn’t shown that we aren’t at our best. So it’s back to the drawing board now. The team will definitely be out there on Saturday and hopefully we can push for a medal.”
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AloJapan.com