Christine Ohuruogu dropped for European Championships
Christine Ohuruogu, the 26-years old former 400m champion has eventually been dropped out of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s team for coming European Championships. She has been reported to suffer from a thigh injury which caused her to miss the trials
held in Birmingham.
Among other prominent athletes who were expected to outperform in the coming big event, Nicola Sanders too has been hampered by injuries and would only be able to take part in 4x400 relay in Barcelona. However, christen Malcolm have made his place in the
200m competition while Dwain Chambers and James Dasaolu have been selected for 100m.
For long tracks, Chris Thompson and Mo Farah have been selected for 10,000m and 5000m respectively, while Philips Idowu has also ensured to be a part of the contingent. Idowu already has the privilege to bag a gold in triple jump at World Championships last
year. Having broken 45 seconds over 400m for two times, Martyn Rooney would also be looking forward to a medal finish. If he ends with a gold in the event, he would top the European rankings.
Jessica Ennis, the double World champion has been announced as the team captain for the event, she would compete for her first European title in heptathlon along with Jenny Meadows and Lisa Dobriskey, who have been participating into 800m and 1500m respectively.
Coming back to Ohuruogu, the young athlete had also missed the European team championship back in June and was eventually replaced by Sanders in 400m. She also pulled out of 4x400 relay because of quadriceps muscle injury. The former splendid player could
not make it into the super 8 event either which was held in Glasgow in July, she had also missed the British Grand Pix in Gateshead.
The Beijing Olympic gold medalist Ohuruogu has been struggling this whole season to bounce back into the game. However, despite the utmost efforts the injuries have made her to consistently finish at fourth or fifth positions.
Talking about her injury and giving views regarding not being able to be at the trials, Ohuruogu said that initially she did not pay much attention to the injuries, which have eventually become more serious.
She said that she would have to be out of the games for the next few weeks. “Despite of the setbacks, I have been preparing for the rest of the season, I still have a positive attitude which is helping me to stay focused”, she said further.
Charles van Commenee, the head coach for UK athletics looked much concerned with the absence of Ohuruogu and other top players in the event. Lamenting the fact he said that this could wreck the hopes for achieving the long desired record-equaling medals,
however, he said that he was confident about his team to at least hit the target set by the UK Sport.
He further said that they had not bothered about selecting the biggest team for the event rather their whole focus had been there on building the strongest team. The head coach was rather contended for making the selections on World championships criteria
as according to him had they chosen the team by keeping in mind the European standards, they could have gathered a much larger contingent.
The head coach said that they were running a four-year programme, which did not allow them to be easy in their criteria for one year and to be competitive for global or Olympic level. According to him, the preparations for 2010 European championships were
geared towards Olympics 2012.
Commenee told the reporters that some months ago he had expressed an ambition to depict the best results of all times which were 18 medals in all. He said that one should never give up on one’s ambitions.
However, since lately his team had some casualties and a pregnancy, the ambition of the UK athletics had become more ambitious now. “Nevertheless, I feel we have a good team and we can still expect to bag 10 to 15 medals, however, if the team does not make
it even to that, it would be rather an embarrassing situation”, concluded the head coach.
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