Angry Ohuruogu hits back at critics

Having chosen to focus on the 200m to boost her speed in the early part of the season, Ohuruogu has competed over 400m just four times due to illness and a hamstring problem. The 2009 world rankings do not make for good reading either. Ohuruogu has mustered a season’s beat of 51.14 seconds – a […]

Having chosen to focus on the 200m to boost her speed in the early part of the season, Ohuruogu has competed over 400m just four times due to illness and a hamstring problem.

The 2009 world rankings do not make for good reading either. Ohuruogu has mustered a season’s beat of 51.14 seconds – a time beaten by no less than 24 other athletes.

Ohuruogu has never been one to arrive at major championships in peak condition however, and was ranked only eighth as she touched down in Beijing – she has made her name as an athlete who relishes the big occasion.

Being nearly two seconds slower than arch rival Sanya Richards suggests that desire will only get the Brit so far in Berlin but Ohuruogu is quick to disagree.

“I had a slight niggle,” she said. “It was obviously a concern because of the timing but that was just how it is.

“I don’t understand why it has been made such a big fuss of, I am here and I plan to go out and defend my title and that is it.

“If you were to pull out every person who has a slight niggle going into a championship then you would be left with no one.

“Everyone has got little problems, that is pretty much the game and it is just a matter of who can hold up for the three or four days when you are out there.

“It gets very annoying when people have to comment about this and you just think ‘do you know what, you guys are not seeing what we do day in and day out’.

“When have I ever, ever run anything faster than 51s and a bit going into a major championship?

“Going into Osaka and going into Beijing I wasn’t in the best shape I might have been but I have come to realise that everything is always a challenge in itself and you can never expect things to be perfect because they are never going to be.

“You have just got to man up to the challenge and deal with it because if you are just going to run away from everything then you are not going to go anywhere in life.”

Having been born just a javelin’s throw away from the Olympic Park in Stratford and after claiming Great Britain’s only athletics gold medal in Beijing, Ohuruogu has unsurprisingly become the poster girl of London 2012.

That alone brings added pressure but a growing injury list and a medal target of five at the World Championships has thrust Ohuruogu and her Berlin preparations further under the microscope