Olympic dreams fade for Thomas and Cutts

The 1,500m runner, who finished fourth in the British Olympic trials, came to Finland knowing that she had to run the Olympic ‘A’ standard time of 4:06.00minutes to be in with a chance of making Team GB.

But it did not go to plan for Thomas in her semi-final as she hit the front too early and faded on the final lap to finish last.

Thomas was later disqualified for stepping off the track, not that it made any difference to the 30-year-old who struggled to explain her poor form of late.

“I have no idea what is going on at the moment,” she said. “It’s a lack of confidence, a lack of belief, the disappointment of not going to the Olympics and I have had a tough time with a few niggles as well.

“I didn’t get the start to the season that I wanted and I just feel pretty terrible.

“I didn’t quite go off quick enough and then I had to waste a lot of energy to catch up with the field; I just didn’t do what my coach asked me to do. Every time I race at the moment I feel so flat. It’s in my head probably.”

Sheffield’s Luke Cutts bowed out of the pole vault competition in disappointing fashion but the 24-year-old has vowed to return stronger for the experience next year.

After a sleepless night in the Finnish capital, Cutts was clearly fatigued when it came to the qualification event on Saturday. The City of Sheffield athlete only managed to clear 5.10m before failing three times at 5.30m, still well short of his personal best of 5.60m.

And Cutts admitted afterwards that with his brain working overtime he had struggled to sleep the night before and that had cost him.

“I just couldn’t get my legs moving because I was so tired,” he said. “I’ve got to try and take away some lessons from this, learn from what went wrong and try and put it right in training.”

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