20th August 2008

Following her Gold medal winning performance over the 400m on Tuesday evening, the golden girl of athletics Christine Ohuruogu reflected on her memorable moment:

"I had a race plan but as usual it just goes out the window!

"I just run and I’m in my own world – people were asking me ‘did I see that (Sanya) Richards had gone off very hard’ – but she was in lane seven so I couldn’t see her – all I had to work off was the Russian girl outside me who I thought would go off hard and she did.

"I think at 200m I was really annoyed with myself that I hadn’t stuck with her, that I’d left myself too much work, but I think the thing is with how I run is that if you’re going to beat me you have to fight me very hard.

"My coach Lloyd Cowan has always said to me that the race is going to be won in the last 50m – it doesn’t matter what you do the first 200m, well it does, but it’s won in that last 50m, if you can just keep your cool, keep your composure for the last 50m, that’s when people start dying and he knows that I don’t start dying – that’s how I run and it works for me.

"My coach has always said to me you train for three days and three days only – that’s all you train for. You don’t train for grand prix, you don’t train for trials, you train for three championship days. It’s just three days you work for, if you just work for that, it doesn’t seem like as much, when you train all year, it’s not very much to ask for.

"As long as you get through the rounds and get to the final, it’s not about who’s fastest or strongest it’s about greatest will – that’s what my coach says.

"If I compare this race with the semi-final, the semi felt much better – my warm up was better, tonight I think I warmed up for an hour and a half, and I just had to keep stopping and sitting down to sort my head out – I felt tired, I’ve not slept much the last two nights. The pressure was getting to me – I thought can I win?

"Leading up to it you can think ‘I’m going to win’, but as it gets closer and closer you start think it’s a lot harder. I’m just so glad that I’m able to come out and perform because a Championship is where it’s at.

"If you believe with the talent you’ve been blessed with – you can go out and do it That’s all I carry with me into a championships, I don’t carry anything else – just my hard work, and I believe in God that I can work very hard.

"I don’t know – I’m numb right now…, it’s hard. I’m really happy I’ve done this for athletics and Great Britain."

Ohuruogu’s coach: Lloyd Cowan said:

"That went to Christine’s plan, the plan was to back off, run first 200m – push out quite hard, not go to crazy get to 300 in about 36 seconds and change and then come in off a 12.2, 12.1 pace.

"The race will do what it has to do, but I know Chris can close, it went to Chris’s plan – my plan was for her to be in front at 300m, but she does exactly what she wants to do, she runs it back to front as I call it.

"I feel the same (as emotional as Christine). I’ve just coached the Olympic champion, I’m actually overwhelmed by this moment and I want to jump for joy and go get drunk and do all the things I really want to do, but I’ve got to enjoy it and I’m going to enjoy this moment, because it only lasts for a short time and then we get on with our job again."