Nigel Levine has revealed a lack of acknowledgment spurred him to gold at the Indoor UK Trials and Championships last weekend but it won’t stop there as he now prepares for the world’s best.
The 22-year-old from Bedford began last year by winning the UK indoor 400m title and then representing Britain at the European Indoor Championships where he narrowly missed out on a place in the final.
Levine also helped the British 4x400m relay team to silver in Paris and then took gold at the European Under-23 Championships in the summer while also running at the World Championships in Daegu.
He was part of a British relay quartet that finished seventh in Korea and ensured 2012 started in the same fashion as 2011 as he retained his UK indoor 400m title at the EIS in Sheffield on Sunday.
Levine clocked 46.28 seconds to win and fulfil the qualification standard for next month’s World Indoor Championships in Istanbul and, contrary to public opinion, he believed he always had it in him.
“I don’t always get the recognition but it makes me more determined,” said Levine who took gold in a competitive 400m final involving Michael Bingham, Richard Buck and Rob Tobin.
“I train to win titles like I did at the UK indoors and this is what I am all about.
“It feels great to have retained my title. That is what I went to Sheffield to do so it was very much a case of job done for me.
“I am working with Linford Christie now and I’ve got great support from my training partners Luke Lennon-Ford, Richard Strachan and Conrad Williams.
“They are all good quality guys that push me on and we should have a really good chance in the relay at the world indoors.”
Meanwhile Bedford & County AC’s Katrina Wootton couldn’t quite follow in Levine’s footsteps in the 3,000m as British athletics’ woman of the moment, world 1500m silver medallist Hannah England, took gold in Sheffield.
England clocked 9:06.04 minutes to top the podium but Wootton wasn’t too far behind, clear in taking silver in 9:06.99, to leave her buoyed at her efforts since the turn of the year.
“Everything is going in the right direction and I am just starting to find my form again so I am really pleased how everything is going,” said Wootton.
“I’ve been doing lots of cross-country training so really working on endurance.
Nothing complicated just putting in the miles.
“Competing indoors for me is to just break up the winter and just to see how my form is going and to get inside for a bit.
“At the moment every race I do is another step in the right direction. I am just taking it one step at a time so I haven’t got any real aims for the summer at the moment.”
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