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INTERVIEW – Martyn Rooney No half measures Martyn Rooney has shown superb potential over the classic quartermile distance of 400m, but his long-term plans involve moving to 800m, writes RICHARD LEWIS PICTURES: Mark Shearman
EXPERIENCE. You cannot buy it, and if you could, would there be a price for it? Listen to one of Britain's top young sprinters talk and you realise that no money would match what he has been through in the past few months. His name is Martyn Rooney. He is a 400m runner who also excels over double the distance and first entered the sport because of cross country. But now he is being talked about as one of the great young prospects in the British team. A well-worn phrase, that. Prospect. Is there such a thing when the Olympic champion at his distance, Jeremy Wariner, of the USA, is 21, the world record-holder for the 100m, Asafa Powell, is 23, and the Olympic gold medallist from the same event, Justin Gatlin, is 22. While the champions are becoming younger, those on the climb to meet their standards are doing what any coach or any manual could not advise. They are watching. And in the case of South Londoner Rooney, they are learning. Last summer, at the World Championships in Helsinki, Rooney was a member of Britain's 4x400m relay team which finished fourth. At 18, he had earned his place in the quartet for the final after a brilliant split in the heats. He ran 44.9 and then in the final, in the same team as Tim Benjamin, the British No.1, Robert Tobin and Malachi Davis, the trio who had represented Britain in the individual event, he ran even quicker. This time he clocked 44.8.
"Rooney has the ability to run 44.80 and he says the 800m is his preferred event and that time over that distance is world class. Now he needs someone to sit down with him and sort out the right coaching. And on top of that he has got to want to take his career forward too. " Perhaps unbeknown to Cram, Rooney was doing that almost as those words were being written. "I had been watching Jeremy Wariner before his race," says Rooney. "He had a brilliant way of relaxing, just waiting for his race, and not letting anything get to him, which for someone with that pressure was fantastic. You can learn by just watching how other athletes run and prepare for things and then try to bring some of that into your racing." It was a small part of the building process which Rooney, now a student at Loughborough University, will hope to take with him during the next nine months. Not surprisingly he has made the English 4x400m relay team for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March but he has the World Junior Championships in Beijing as his main target. He will go there knowing that while still doing course work from Loughborough which will be emailed through to him, he will also be using the knowledge he has collated from last summer's brush with some of the superstars of the sport. At the European Junior Championships last July in Kaunas, Lithuania, Rooney had finished second in the final of the 400m in 46.56 before running a brilliant anchor leg of the 4x400m to lead Britain to gold. His split time was 45.27 and on the plane home he knew how he could go even faster. He had wanted individual gold and he says: "I had quite a long talk with Rodger Harkins, the coach of the 4x400m team. We were chatting about tactics and stuff and how I would have to change mine. "I have learned about 400m tactics now. In the past I would go off really slow and relaxed and kick at 200m. Now I have learned that you have to go off pretty hard for 100m, relax down the back straight and kick with 150m to go. "It is more holding your form. I am still learning it because I tried it at Sheffield to go off really hard and it did not work but it is the way forward for me. "I have watched how other people have run and got some great advice from the likes of Tim Benjamin and Malachi Davis. You can just see how focused they are. "When I was selected for the Worlds squad it was a big surprise. But I thought, Okay, I've got to do well for myself now and have a good run out there'.
"I was nervous meeting a lot of the athletes that I'd seen running on the television like Jeremy Wariner and Paula Radcliffe but they all made me feel welcome. But then it was another shock when I was picked for the final of the 4x400m. "I was anxious in the call-up room but when I got out on the track and started running I felt at home and relaxed. "Everyone was gutted to come fourth but looking back we ran 2:58.82, we're all really young and we have a lot to build on. Racing in Helsinki has made me hungry to continue competing at that level." Going to Kaunas might have been the first major championship where he competed, but few athletes have had to go through what he did 12 months earlier when he made the team for the World Juniors in Grosseto, Italy. Rooney was born in Croydon but his parents, Marie and Liam, are both Irish and they felt it was natural for him to have an Irish passport. Which, for a 16-year-old going to a major sports championship, did not seem a problem, that is until the IAAF took a look at it. "Before I went, I was told that it was okay," says Rooney. "Then when I got there, I was told that I would not be allowed to run for Britain because I did not have a British passport. "I was gutted. There was nothing I could do in that quick time." He had been selected to run in the 400m relay. "I was so annoyed that I did not do anything for two days," he says. "I was mentally annoyed and did not train." Team officials thought it would make more sense for him to stay at the championships to gain some experience, leaving him with an unexpected summer warm-weather training trip to Italy when his hopes had been built up to take part in the year's biggest junior event. "It was a very good experience and it did help me a great deal along with the way when it came to last year's championships," adds Rooney, who by the time he went to Kaunas - infact long before - had a British passport. Which brings his story full circle to the World Junior Championships again this year. When an athlete has such talent so young, as Rooney has shown in abundance, mishaps at junior level can so often be rectified as he will hope in China. He now has another chance to shine at the world juniors where his main target for 2006 is in two parts. He is aiming for gold in the 400m in Beijing and will then dream of returning to the same stadium two years later to bid for the Olympics. "What a stepping stone that would be," says Rooney. While he is coached by Nick Dakin at Loughborough, where he is studying sports science management, his guru from when he first started, Mike Fleet, remains a big influence. "Mike still organises some of my Thursday training," says Rooney. "He still has quite a bit of input and Nick and him discuss things. Mike is based in Croydon. He has been coaching me since I was 11 and is hoping to come up to Loughborough more to see me." Rooney's group which includes Rhys Williams, the British 400m hurdler who reached last year's World Championships in Helsinki, and his week is split between his study and his training. On one of the days that we chat, he asks if I could call him back because he is just entering an exam. It is all about ensuring the balance is right between learning in lectures and learning on the track. Monday will be spent doing circuits in the evening, with Tuesday being his main sessions, between 11-1.30pm, which begins with a warm up and ends with an ice bath, while Wednesdays and Fridays involve weight training. On Thursday he does an aerobic session to work on cardiovascular strength before Saturday is a fartlek session, with about 30-40 people, on a field at Loughborough, which lasts 45 minutes. It is something which fits his persona because his background was cross country, which he ran last year still, though track has brought him greater rewards. Yet he adds: "I like the cross ... the views were better. "I started running when I was 11. I won a cross country race at primary school and I was invited to join the (Croydon) Club. "I enjoyed the cross country but the track took over when I was 13. I was doing shed loads of it (cross) last year, but not to the same standard, yet it was a good fitness base. "With track running, I am a much more focused. I always see cross country as more laid back and relaxed event, and I am quite a relaxed runner anyway. "On the track I find you have to focus much more. It can be much more strenuous. You have to keep going when you are sprinting at a high intensity." His daily routine now sees him train during the day at the high quality facilities at Loughborough in a schedule where he has three days of lectures and two days off. But the 400m came by chance. He adds: "In 2003 I was doing 800m and 400m and I would do it only as part of club races. "But then in 2004, I did the Surrey Championships. I was doing the 800m and I did a 400m before. I ran 47.60m having run 48-something the week before. "I was so concentrated and enjoyed doing the 400m with no pressure. I always had found there was more pressure on me in the 800m and I still feel it." Yet this endurance toughness makes him a prime candidate to eventually, perhaps, specialise in the 800m, and at the end of last summer, he impressed at the Watford Open Floodlit meeting where he finished third in a personal best time of 1:50.55 to go alongside his 400m PB of 46.44, which left him sixth in the British rankings for 2005. As he says: "The 800m seems a natural way forward for me. I'll focus on the 400m for now but I have always seen the 800m as my event and perhaps I have a bigger future in that. But I am in no rush." Indeed no. For now, Melbourne and Beijing and the 400m and you suspect the future will take care of itself.
From issue 61-03, 19th January 2006.
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While it was generally a disappointing
championships for Britain, Rooney was one of the unsung stars. As Steve Cram, the former mile world
record-holder, said in his column on the BBC website on the day Helsinki ended: "Martyn Rooney is a good example of the kind of young athletes who are
developing. He came here as part of the 4x400m relay team and ran wonderfully
well.
