THE BIG INTERVIEW GUY LEARMONTH
T
HE story is a good one but it hasn’t
come with a completely happy ending
for Guy Learmonth. Yet. After leaving
Loughborough University to fend for
himself and rejoin coach Henry Gray in the
Scottish borders three years ago, the
27-year-old adopted a somewhat
unconventional approach to training.
Making do with what they had, the majority
of Learmonth’s time was spent completing his
speed reps along the banks of the River Tweed
rather than on the track at the Tweedbank
Stadium.
It was a genuinely no-frills set-up for the
800m man which would not have been out of
place in a Rocky movie and it seemed to be
working – his personal best of 1:44.73 coming
last summer during a year in which he had to
work through all manner of injury problems.
A glass half-full kind of athlete, Learmonth
does indeed feel that Gray has put him on the
brink of something big but, not so long ago,
the London 2017 semi-finalist also became
keenly aware that, to take that next significantstep, he and his coach would have to alter their
approach.
“There’s been a change in mentality,” he
says for starters. “The more high-profile races
I’ve done, and the more losses I’ve had, have
actually made me realise that I can win.
“I’ve raced against certain people and
thought ‘I could beat you if I was in a better
position’. So it’s a case that I need to get into a
better position and the tactics are paramount.
That’s where I lack big time. I know that and
that’s where I need to develop.
“I said to Henry that one of the main
problems with tactical races is that we don’t
run on a running track a lot of the time, so
sometimes when I get on to the track and it’s
a slow race and there are seven or eight guys
around me, I’m thinking ‘what do I do here?’.
“I’m used to running on the River Tweed,
on a concrete path with my wee brother
pacemaking for me. It’s simple and we just
run fast and we run hard and that’s why my
best races and my quickest times have been
where it’s been strung out from the start, I’ve800m MAN LEARMONTH TALKS TO EUAN CRUMLEY
ABOUT THE TACTICAL CHANGES HE HOPES WILL BRING
SUCCESS AND EXPLAINS WHY HE WILL NEVER STOP
BEING HIMSELF, DESPITE WHAT THE CRITICS MIGHT SAY
PICTURES: CHRISTOPHER GREEN PHOTOGRAPHY & MARK SHEARMAN