The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Although he got off to a slow start, men’s national 400 metre record holder Steven Gardiner is slowly coming around to where coach George Cleare expects him to be - a legitimate threat at the August Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Cleare has been home since November where he has relaunched his High Performance Management team with Gardiner as the focal point.

After getting off to a slow start in his previous three meets, including a second place finish in his season’s debut in 45.83 seconds at the Chris Brown Bahamas Invitational in April, Gardiner surged to victory at the American Track League in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday in an impressive season’s best of 44.62.

“This weekend was about putting together a solid race model,” Gardiner told The Tribune on his arrival home. “I am happy I was able to execute the race properly and it felt very good. I am looking forward to running faster as the summer progresses.

“My coach (George Clare) has been working on my running technique and power in the weight room and I can see where it is paying off.”

Gardiner’s time was listed as the seventh best by the global quarter-milers so far this year and the fastest by a Bahamian going into the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations’ National Track and Field Championships June 24-25 at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium.

“I think we’re pretty much where we want to be,” Cleare said. “This year, we did a lot of changes with the programme. We did a little more volume than last year, little more strength work, so we didn’t get into the quality work until a little later.

“But it was intentional because we wanted him to have some fresher legs so that he can be a lot more healthy later on in the season. With him being relatively new to the sport, as a young runner with not a lot of training under his belt, he hasn’t quite adopted to the load of an athlete who has competed extensively from Carifta.”

Gardiner, 20, according to Cleare, is still in the developmental stage and he wants to ensure that Gardiner has every opportunity to have a long and successful career.

All things considered, Gardiner popped onto the scene and made it to the semi-final of the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China in his international debut at the senior level. Cleare said with the experience, Gardiner will only get better.

“Even though he’s running the 400m, he came on the scene as a 200m runner,” said Cleare of the Abaco native, who started his training under coach Anthony Williams in Moore’s Island.

“So the 400m last year was a relatively new race for him. He ran some 4 x 400m relays here and there, but as far as the 400m is concerned, he basically was running the 200m. So the 400m is a different event for him.”

Although everybody was looking for some instant success from Gardiner last year after he ran 44.27 to break Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown’s national record of 44.40 that was set in Oslo in 2008, Gardiner said it was definitely a learning experience.

“Last year was an eye opener for me on the world stage,” Gardiner said. “I realised that at this level, everything matters and so I have to be accountable for all areas of my training, diet, rest and race day execution.”

Cleare said he’s learning to take it all in stride.

“We want him to be running faster, but we always have to be mindful that he has a learning curve,” Cleare said. “I think he’s starting to understand, not just his race, but what it takes to be an elite athlete and the mindset of getting hurt and being able to run on tired legs.

“And when he has to consider that he has to do interviews with the media, it could be tiring for a young athlete with not much of a junior experience at the elite level. So we’re learning every day and we’re learning every race.”

After getting his baptism at the Worlds where he had a disappointing seventh place finish in a fast time of 44.98, Cleare said the goal is to ensure that he gets ready to improve on his accomplishment in Rio in August.

“The idea is to get him back in training and to get him ready for the nationals,” said Cleare of the meet, which will also serve as the final trials for the Olympics. “That’s a weekend we have to take care of business and once we get past that point, we will have a few weeks to rev things up and get ready for the big dance.

“We’re focusing on one step at a time and not looking too far ahead. We’re starting to round into shape at a very good time. Actually at this time last year, he would have ran a number of sub-45s and at the end of the year, it showed. But we are hoping to get him a lot fresher later in the season this year.”

Being home and training, Cleare said Gardiner has been faced with a lot of distractions, but he’s happy that he got his HPMT to train in the new Thomas A Robinson National Stadium.

“The NSA has done a tremendous job in opening their doors and allowing us to train,” Cleare stated. “But there’s still a lot of other areas that we can get better if we want to comfortably train at home and not be distracted.

“I think the BAAA has been on board with the athletes coming home to train and the NSA, under their new chairman Lynden Maycock, has done a superb job, not just with the use of the facility, but being athlete-friendly. I would like to thank him and let him know that the athletes appreciate him in helping them to get to the level where they need to be to train at home.”

The fruits of their labour will be determined when they compete in the nationals and subsequently the Olympics, if they qualify. And once he is ratified, Cleare should be there to push them along as the designated head coach of the Bahamian Olympic athletic team.