100m (wind assisted)

Chris Lambert (Belgrave Harriers) won the 100m (wind officially 0.0) in 10.43 seconds as he begins to prepare for an assault on the Olympic elite qualifying time of 10.12.

Winner Chris Lambert: "Although it was a season's best, I feel I can run a little faster. Technically it went OK. I am looking for a little bit of rest now and maybe a sharp 100m somewhere. But after that, it really is just looking towards the Olympics and getting myself ready for that."

But both on times alone and in actual head-to-heads with his rivals, he has proved himself one of Europe's very best this season.

"I will be scared to death on the blocks in Athens," he admits.

"But I'm sure every athlete will be - it's how you control the fear that counts.

"I'm in the team on merit. I'm the pre-eminent 200m runner in Britain this season.

"The focus is to make the final in Athens, and then do what I have to do when I'm there."

Lambert wins the 200m at the Olympic Trials

The 200m is one of the most eagerly-anticipated track events at the Games. The field is stacked with talent.

The whole of Greece will be cheering on reigning champion Kostas Kederis, while experience is represented by the peerless Frankie Fredericks and youth by Jamaican teenage sensation Usain Bolt.

Then there is the challenge from Lambert's British team-mates, Sydney silver medallist Darren Campbell and former world junior 200m gold medallist Christian Malcolm.

"The 200m doesn't get as much of the limelight as the 100m, but going back to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 it's been a rammed event," says Lambert.

"Mo Greene's exploits in the 100m took the attention off it, but it's back on the 200m this year.

"There's going to be guys knocking on every door from everywhere. I've just to make sure my mind's right and make sure I'm one of them."

Sprinters are notoriously competitive, trash-talking their rivals and displaying the braggadocio of heavyweight prize-fighters.

So does Lambert see Campbell and Malcolm as team-mates or rivals?

"We're a bit of both. When we go out there to Athens it'll be more of a team atmosphere, but when you're on the circuit it's every man to do his job.

"When you're out there at big championships, you help each other if you can - until the final, when it's once again every man for himself."

Lambert's 200m best is 20.34secs, a big chunk slower than the world's best this year.

But he refuses to be intimidated by the records of those who will line up against him in the Olympic stadium.

"Every 200m runner's target time is to go under 20 seconds. If I can get close to that this year, it'll be the fruition of a lot of hard work.

"My main priority has to be to get my mind right. I could go to Athens in 20.0secs shape and run 20.6secs, so between now and then I have to work on my focus."

"I'm going to get some good racing going - first at the Golden League, and then the London Grand Prix at my home track, Crystal Palace."

Mind over matter

When he gets to Athens, Lambert will be competing in the city that gave birth to the ideas behind the modern governments he studied at college.

But he insists that the focus next month will be on pushing himself physically rather than mentally.

"You can enjoy Athens as an experience within reason, but you can't be walking around all day in 40C heat visiting the Parthenon and all that good stuff," he says.

And of the supposed amateur Olympian ideals? Remember - Lambert is a 21st century man.

"I'd be trying to make as much money as possible if I wasn't trying to do something noble like this," he laughs, setting off for another session in the gym.

Athens Olympics 2004

Preview: Athens Olympics: UK Athletics

European Under 23 200m Champion Chris Lambert (Belgrave Harriers) is impatient to maintain Britain’s proud sprinting tradition at the Olympic Games in Athens.

“I can’t wait. I want to get out there and perform,” says 23-year-old Lambert as he prepares to fly out next Wednesday to the Olympic Preparation Camp in Paphos, Cyprus, after earning his place in Team GB by winning the 200m at the Norwich Union Olympic Trials in Manchester and proving his form by scoring another impressive victory in a season’s best of 20.50 seconds at the Norwich Union London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.

Taking his imminent appearance in his first Senior championship in his giant, flowing stride, he adds: “The only thing that surprised me is that I have not run faster. I have trained much harder this year, largely because I’m back home and this is Olympic Year.”

As he’s back home after three years of study at Harvard University in the USA, he is ideally placed to understand and explain the advantages enjoyed by USA based sprinters.

“I know it starts to sound like a cliché, but you cannot under estimate the difference between training and racing in 18°C and training and racing in 32°C. The major point of athletes doing a summer sport is that it is supposed to take place in summer weather. I don’t think any of us will be ashamed to admit that the American based sprinters are quicker than us at the moment but there is a world of difference between performing in the sunshine of California and the wind of Manchester.”

But he believes that a spell in Cyprus will warm-up chilled British muscles sufficiently for the current crop of sprinters to continue an amazing sequence. Only once in Lambert’s life has a major athletics championship passed without a British athlete contesting a sprint final. Since Allan Wells won the Olympic 100m title in Moscow in 1980, Britons have reached a 100m and/or 200m final at all Olympics, World and European Championships and Commonwealth Games except the 1997 World Championships.

“When that all started, we had one sprinter at a time at truly World class – Allan Wells, Linford … Now we have a lot more than that.”

So much quality, in fact, that he missed out on a place in the Norwich Union GB Team at last year’s World Championships in Paris despite finishing the season ranked second in the UK at 200m with 20.34 seconds, his winning time at the European Under 23 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The selectors left him out because, only eight days after his continental win, he finished fifth in the Norwich Union World Trials in Birmingham. That race finished: 1 Julian Golding, the 1998 Commonwealth Games Champion; 2 Christian Malcolm, the former World Junior double Champion who was fifth in the 200m final at the 2000 Olympics; 3 Darren Campbell, the most successful British sprinter of the current crop with Olympic Silver and World Bronze medals to go alongside European titles; 4 Marlon Devonish, the 2003 World Indoor 200m Champion.

If ever one domestic race illustrated the extent to which British sprinting has reached World class, this was it.

And the fifth man over that line, Lambert freely volunteers the fact that he has been spurred to work harder this year – under the guidance of his coach, John Powell – by memories of “being so close and yet so far last year.”

He devoted his year to preparing for his Olympic challenge, working part-time as a physiotherapist at Crystal Palace only when he was sure it wouldn’t get in the way of his training.

Lambert adds: “It took a while [to get over the disappointment] but the only way you can look at things is to accept nobody is going to do you any favours. It’s great for the fans to watch so many involved in the battle for places in the team but, as an athlete, you might like a bit more understanding. It’s good for the sport. We can’t complain!”

Now he heads for the Athens 200m as UK No.1 and World ranked No.45 – a figure bloated by the fact that 18 of the 45 are from the USA. And he has picked up enough experience through the age groups to know that rankings lists count for little in multi-round competitions.

He says: “How fast I have run or not run, I have been taking it one race at a time throughout my preparation.

“I am hoping to go there and make the final. Once you make the final, anything can happen. If I make the final, I would like to think I can push for a place among the top four or even three – and you cannot hope for more than that.”

Lambert makes coaching switch

November 10 , 2004

AAA 200m champion Chris Lambert has joined Tony Lester's leading sprints' group in an effort to make his mark on the world scene, writes Steve Landells.

Lambert, 23, enjoyed a fine first half of the summer, winning the 200m AAA title at the Olympic Trials but a minor hamstring tear picked up just one day before he was due to fly out to the Olympic holding camp was to scupper any serious challenge in Athens.

The Belgrave Harrier regained his fitness sufficiently to compete in the Olympic 200m heats but he aggravated his hamstring injury and pulled up lame before the end of the first bend - his Olympic dream in ruins.

Lambert, a Havard University graduate, took six weeks' rest after Athens and has decided to switch coaches to join Lester after previously being guided by John Powell.

Lester also coaches Olympic 4x100m gold medallist Marlon Devonish, AAA 400m champion Tim Benjamin and Britain's No.1 female sprinter, Abi Oyepitan.

"I just felt I needed a greater challenge", said Lambert of the coaching change.

"I have not progressed how I have wanted over the last couple of years, especially since the Commonwealth Games, and I have no one but myself to blame for that.

"John (Powell) brought me on a long way and I really appreciate that. But John had a full-time job and I would often start training at seven in the evening. I'm a full-time athlete and training is my day.

"I also felt I didn't want to be the fastest in the group anymore. I'm training with Marlon, who is a 10.1 and 20.1 200m runner and the likes of Tim, which will help me."

Lambert, the World University Games 100m champion is not making any bold predictions about what he wants to achieve in the future but the short-term goal is simple.

"I want to cut it at world level," said Lambert. "This year I have become British No.1 which is a great accomplishment for me but I want to go to world championships and make it to finals."

The official damage on his summer injury was described as damage to the connecting tissues to the hamstring.

He has also not ruled out competing indoors in the new year.

Pre-race: The Harvard graduate was tipped as an outside bet for a British medal at the Olympics last year after wins at the Gateshead and London Grand Prix. Sadly injury ended his challenge in the 200m heats, so he will have a point to prove in 2005.

“I am not happy with that race at all, actually I am disappointed.  It didn’t work out the way it should have.  I only got back from South Africa on Thursday although I still expected to run well today. I don’t like to make excuses, I ran poorly today and lack of experience showed through. If I continue with the indoors, I would like to make the Europeans, but I want to make the team for the World Championships.  I have set target times for this year, but I am going to keep them to myself for the moment.  I have changed coach recently to Tony Lester, it is hard work and he takes no prisoners, but it is a lot of fun, we have a good group and we get the work done.  I am not aiming to be domestic number one, that does not get you medals, you have to aim to be the best in the World!”

In first round heats, Lambert cruised to the third-fastest time this year in Europe, 20.94, to beat the European Indoors qualifying time, and in the semi-finals he safely negotiated lane five in 21.03. However, in the final Paul Hession (Ireland) withstood the strongest of pressure from Chris Lambert in the final strides to equal his lifetime best. Lambert was just two-hundredths of a second behind him in 21.03.

“With indoors, my problem is the turns. I have plenty of power down the straights but I struggle on the turns. I just didn’t have enough time to catch Paul on the final straight. It’s a bit disappointing not to win after running so well this morning, but it’s just one of those things. It’s been a good day, though, overall. I wanted to come here and run the qualifying time for the Europeans and I’ve done that. I’m looking forward to the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham now, though I never really wanted to do this indoor stuff. My coach looked at my form and said I should go out there and put down a marker or two. So I thought I’d give it a shot and I am pleased with how it is going.”