Track gains benefit battling Buck

The York sprinter may have had his funding cut and his training schedule reduced by the need to take a job at Tesco to supplement his finances.

But outweighing those are a growing number of fast times, exclusive use of the Olympic track and an unwavering belief that he will make the start line at his home Games.

And it is that relatively private use of the London Olympic track that could prove useful as he bids to be one of either three Britons in the 400m individual event, or more likely, a member of the 4x400m relay team.

At present Buck is training at Loughborough University, which is one of only two places in the world – the other being London – that has a single lane of the Mondo track that the world’s best will race on next summer.

“Mondo is different to the tartan surface because you get a bit more feedback off the track,” explains City of York runner Buck.

“Your foot comes off quicker and harder. You shorten the ground contact and lengthen the stride and it makes times quicker, which is exactly what they want at the Olympics.

“The main benefit is for the technical events like the long jump, triple jump etc, because you lengthen the stride. For us sprinters it’s good because we now have a feel for the track.

“When it comes to actually doing speed work we do it on the London lane because we’re moving faster and when we come back onto tartan we’re able to move that little bit quicker.

“It brings the Olympics right into your training schedule.”

Despite being cut from funding recently, Buck is philosophical.

He is grateful for what he has received in the past and being overlooked has merely made him more determined.

He trains 35 hours a week around his Tesco shifts, predominantly at Loughborough and twice a week at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

Buck is also in good form ahead of the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March, the last gatepost on the road to London.

“Ironically, considering the funding cut, it’s been going well,” he says.

“I’ve won a couple of world and European indoor medals and I ran a personal best in July, which goes to prove I am finally getting over the injuries that have dogged me the last few years.”

The most frustrating of those was a virus he contracted just weeks ahead of the Beijing Olympics, which meant he was forced to watch from the sidelines as the team came home fourth.

“It was a fantastic experience being out in Beijing but the virus knocked me for six,” he says. “I completely understood the decision but it was hard because I was absolutely desperate to run.

“I had four years without any real forward momentum but now in an Olympic year I find myself in a good position on the track.”

The competition Buck faces in the 400m ranks is intense. Nine men have run sub-46 seconds this year, with Buck’s personal best three quarters of a second off the individual qualifying standard for London. Great Britain can only enter three men, hence the importance for Buck of the relay.

Buck says: “It’s great that it’s competitive. There’s a lot of us running so close that it’s moving us all forward together and strengthening the team.”