Andy Turner set for Tyneside test
Sep 9 2010 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
Top-class athletics, free to the North East public, the Great North City Games should be a bit of fun. Andy Turner tells Stuart Rayner why he hopes there will be an edge
TURNER, you have to win. Those five words can break or inspire an athlete. Fortunately, pressure has the latter effect on Andy Turner.
It is why the 27-year-old from Nottingham will be secretly hoping to hear them again at next week’s Great North City Games.
Charles van Commenee, UK Athletics’ Dutch coach, is notoriously no-nonsense. In Athens six years ago he reduced Kelly Sotherton to tears after the then-greatest achievement of her sporting life. The heptathlete claimed an Olympic bronze medal and was told she was “a wimp” for missing silver by a second.
His approach paid dividends at this year’s European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, where Britain claimed 19 medals (more than he demanded). Turner won one of six golds, in the 110m hurdles.
“Charles doesn’t take any prisoners,” he says with delicious understatement. “He expects results. But then so do athletes. When we’re on the startline we’re not hoping to do okay, we want to win. With Charles it’s: ‘You will win.’ If you don’t win, you’re going to be in trouble.
“At the European Cup earlier this year he went through a list of everybody in a team meeting and told them how many points he expected us to get. He just went to me: ‘Turner, you have to win.’ He’s a ruthless guy but I think he’s fair.”
Turner has been on the rough end of van Commenee’s tough love. A disappointing 2008 Olympics cost him his £12,000 lottery grant because he was not considered a World Championships medal hopeful. He won it back with gold at last year’s European Team Championships and last month’s Barcelona event.
“I feel like I proved a point,” he says. “I got to a point where the whole funding issue was just dragging on a bit (he appealed the decision and lost). I was angry being dropped but I got over it. I wanted to prove a point to myself rather than anyone else.
“I always knew I could win in Barcelona and move onto the worlds and make finals and stuff. The time I ran is going to push the world’s top four, top five in the World Championships or the Olympics. I hope I’m going to be peaking in London (at the 2012 Olympics) and things can go really well there.
“I think it was and it wasn’t (a good thing). People say it gave me the kick up the backside I needed but I don’t believe that because I’ve always wanted to be the best I can be. I can’t train any harder than I do without killing myself.
“I was angry but it was just a reminder you can’t take things for granted.” Turner’s next challenge is the Great North City Games on Gateshead’s Quayside, where England take on Australia at the pole vault, long jump, 110 and 110m hurdles, 100m, 150m, and one and two miles.
Free for spectators, the Saturday afternoon event should be fun for those who have never seen top-class athletics up close and personal, but England captain Turner is hoping for some spice, even without last year’s winner, Will Sharman.
““I came here last year and finished second and I want to go one better this year,” says Turner. “Will’s not going to be here sadly. I would fancy my chances if he was. I’ve had a more consistent season than him.
“But it’ll just be myself and another Englishmen against two Australians who are going to be at the Commonwealth Games. I’m going to go out there and just run fast, that’s what I want to do.
“I’m going to stand on the startline feeling confident it’s my race to lose. I’m the team captain and it’s the last event. It could be 3-3 or 4-4 and it might go down to the wire and I have to win. I love the pressure.”
