Charlie Dobson is relishing the chance to race over 400m for the primary time at a senior main championships.
The 24-year-old has thus far 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 stage.
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 kind. He ran a private better of 44.46 over the space in Savona (Could 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) Could 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 however it’s by no means the identical.
“The way in which I set the race up was attending to 200m, seeing it go fairly properly after which push spherical the highest bend. I got here off the bend, carried on and completed rather a lot stronger than I’ve ever completed 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 deal with 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 staff as Hudson-Smith within the Bahamas – securing Olympic qualification within the males’s 4x400m – is unsurprisingly stuffed 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 operating again on the map and that’s impressed the remainder of us to push on and work more durable. We need to be the perfect we are able to. It’s an enormous hole to shut and it’s rather a lot 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 foremost 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 needs.”
Dobson reveals that he chats to the previous UK 400m record-holder “on occasion” for “normal recommendation.”
After lacking the Tokyo Olympics by means of an damage that left him on crutches, Dobson now desires of Paris however step one is to put down a marker in Rome.
Charlie Dobson (Getty)
“Lacking Tokyo was powerful,” Dobson says. “I bear in mind sitting in a rehab centre in Bisham Abbey and watching the lads’s 4x400m relay. It undoubtedly meant I may use that as gasoline for my rehab and coming back from the damage.
“I feel that rehab went properly 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 operating 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 factor evaluation of a gasoline turbine engine.
Can Dobson, also referred to as the ‘ginger ninja’, blast his technique to European 400m glory?
The last word objective for the Brit is to win an Olympic or world 400m medal. If he performs properly in Rome, you wouldn’t put any limits on his profession.
» Subscribe to AW journal right here
