CHRISTINE Ohuruogu has been studying her rivals and past greats as she looks to become the first Briton to win 400 metres Olympic Gold.
The world and Commonwealth champion believes part of her success comes from gleaning how her rivals contest their races – and has also been studying the medal-winning formulas of past greats as she looks to supersede the previous silver-medal displa
ys of Ann Packer and Lillian Board.
Ohuruogu believes the statistics she has unmasked will help her see off the threat of the USA's Sanya Richards, who is widely tipped to be her main rival in Beijing.
Richards missed the World Championships in Osaka last year after failing to recover from illness for the USA trials, but has since beaten the 24-year-old Londoner three times.
"It's just interesting to see what the stats say of people running before me," said Ohuruogu.
"I always check up different splits for the 400, the 300, just to see what people are running – what their 200 times are, if they have run 800.
"You just want to know exactly where they are and what they have run. It's not so much studying that could win a medal, it's studying technique and their times."
Ohuruogu has particularly checked the times of Cathy Freeman, who was a sensational winner in front of a partisan crowd of home supporters at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
She added: "I look at what Cathy Freeman did (and] fast 400m runners – people who have medalled, made finals and people who maybe should have done better than they expected to do. Lessons can be learned and a lot of it kind of gives you confidence.
"(Some] people go fast over the first 300m and some people don't and they are still in contention of medalling. It just gives you a different view and a different perspective. No matter how much you plan things, sometimes it doesn't go basically right on the day and that's the beauty of 400 – you can just run it which way you like."
Ohuruogu insists Beijing is currently at the centre of her thoughts – but sees no reason why she will not be lining up near her east London home when the Games come to London in four years' time.
"I will still be around then, I don't see why not," she added.
The full article contains 399 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
