Max Burgin, Louie Hinchliffe and Jacob Fincham-Dukes fly flag for Yorkshire at British Championships
Olympic finalist Max Burgin has Tokyo redemption in his sights as the Yorkshire middle-distance runner prepares for a summer that could define him.
The 23-year-old has long been talked about as the next great two-lap runner of British athletics and despite the many signposts that point towards it, there have been plenty of bumps in the road for the Halifax athlete.
As he prepares for this weekend’s British Championships in Birmingham, a top two place to get him to the world championships in Tokyo in September is the bare minimum requirement.
And Burgin will feel the Japanese capital owes him one, for he missed the Tokyo Olympics with hamstring and groin injuries that ruled him out for an entire year.
"I've had a lot of hurdles and haven't necessarily progressed in the same way people had hoped for me back then, but I'd like to think I'm over a lot of the challenges of the past five or six years," says Burgin, who qualified for the 2023 worlds in Budapest but couldn’t be at his best due to nerve damage.
"Finally, I am getting back to the trajectory that I was showing when I was younger and breaking all these records."
Burgin has been on that trajectory for a while now, not least last summer, when he reached the Olympic 800m final, the first British man to do so since London 2012.
This year, he remains on the upward curve
Only four men worldwide have run faster than the Yorkshireman this year, after he lowered his personal best to one minute 42.36 seconds at the London Diamond League.
That time is within 1.5 seconds of David Rudisha's 2012 world record, and made him the third-fastest British man in history.
Lord Sebastian Coe holds that record at 1:41:73, a mark that has stood for 44 years.
"It feels achievable at the moment, 0.6 seconds is a lot when you're getting down to these faster times, but it's not impossible," said Burgin, who has lowered his own personal best by a second this year.
"There are a few fast races to go this season and I'll definitely be wanting to have a go at that.
"It's very likely that, if you want to challenge for a World Championship medal, you'll need to be running a British record with the way the times are going."
This weekend’s two-day meet is headlined by Olympic medallists Josh Kerr, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Georgia Hunter Bell, all of whom are bound for Tokyo due to their exploits over the last 12 months.
Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson is not back yet but is targeting a return in Lausanne at the end of the month to prove her fitness for the worlds, which take place from September 13-21.
A year ago, all the talk heading into the trials was about student sprint sensation Louie Hinchliffe of Sheffield, and the young man who had just won the NAA 100m title in America under the guidance of the great Carl Lewis, did not disappoint, winning the flagship race at last year’s British Championships.
Hinchliffe went onto reach the Olympic 100m semi-finals before turning professional to be coached by Middlesbrough’s Richard Kilty, who he won a bronze medal alongside in the 4x100m relay in Paris.
The championships mark a return to action for Leeds City long jumper Jacob Fincham-Dukes, 28, who missed the international indoor championships with a torn abductor. He was fourth at the Europeans last year and fifth at the Olympics.