Angelo
SWJ for IAAF
27 September 2000 - Angelo Taylor has had his sights set on competing in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney since he won a bronze medal in the World Junior Championships here in 1996.
"I set the goal then to come here and compete in 2000," he confides after the race in which he narrowly defeated Saudi Arabia’s Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily. And he is not the only one, because the man who won that race in 1996 is sitting on the podium with on his right hand side: Llewellyn Herbert from South Africa.
Taylor was pleased with his race and felt that being in lane one, generally considered to be the most disadvantageous actually played a major part in his victory this evening.
"I wanted to run a clean smooth race and really attack the last two hurdles," explains Taylor.
"My initial reaction when I saw that I had been drawn for lane one was that it was going to be tough. Then everyone around me told me that it would be OK and that I would do fine, so I started believing it myself.
"In the end it was just great, because I started out too fast and then I got slowed down by the tightness of the bends and that made me attack the hurdles that much more slowly and carefully."
Taylor puts his choice of event down to the inspiration he has received from the legendary Ed Moses: "He had a lot of influence on me. He was such a nice man and also the greatest 400 hurdler of all time."
The man who helped push Taylor to his win and a new personal best was Al-Somaily, who has been coached for the past year by Californian guru John Smith, was described by his mentor as potentially the best 400 hurdler he had ever seen.
"I first saw in the Asian Games in 93 or 94, I don’t remember exactly and then he started coming to coaching sessions with us a little irregularly, back in 1996.
"He didn’t speak very much English, but I saw that he had potential and about a year ago, I told that he really needed to come and stay over with us.
"He has the perfect build for the 400 metre hurdles. He has a great long split, long legs and muscles, he is strong and fast, has great timing and he is extremely intelligent. On top of all this, he can also hurdle with either leg!" enthuses Smith.
"He needed to be with us all the time so that I could work on the faults as they appeared and he has made great progress."
It certainly seems to have worked, as Al-Somaily set a new Asian record with his performance here this evening.