London calls as Dasaolu bids to find his fitness

JAMES Dasaolu says the prospect of having the Olympics in his "home town" of London made him focus on becoming an athlete.

But the Croydon Harrier will have to put not just fellow competitors but a hamstring injury behind him if he wants to compete in the Games next summer.

After clocking 10.11 seconds over 100m in May in Geneva, with Sutton's Harry Aikines-Aryeetey in second place, the sprinter was ranked second this year on times in the UK, behind only Dwain Chambers.

Second was a ranking he maintained throughout the season, despite only running once more, in early July.

Tipped as one to watch this season by fellow sprinter Mark Lewis-Francis, the Loughborough-based athlete who hails from Croydon suffered an injury to the hamstring that ended his 2009 prematurely.

"It's the same thing, but it's more complicated this time," said Dasaolu. "I was ranked number two in Britain after the first run of the year. I was in good shape and had a really big setback. Because of the nature of my injury I had to almost do nothing and just relax. I've been unable to do anything.

"It was frustrating to miss out on the whole season, but I've dealt with it now and come to accept it," added the 24-year-old who is a full-time athlete coached at the Loughborough High Performance Centre. "I'm just starting to load my injured area up."

He hopes to be able to start preparing in November for the biggest of seasons next year.

Receiving podium relay funding from UK Athletics, he had hoped to not only make the 4x100m team for the World Championships but take one of the individual slots.

The division is highly competitive. While Chambers is ineligible for London because of his life drugs ban under British Olympic Association bylaw, there are plenty of other rivals.

They include training partners (under coach Michael Khmel) Craig Pickering, Aikines-Aryeetey and the emerging Joel Fearon, and outside the group Lewis-Francis, Marlon Devonish, Christian Malcolm and others on the horizon such as Rikki Fifton and Tremayne Gilling.

Dasaolu said: "My aim for this season was to make the relay team and the individual berth for the World Championships."

His times would, most likely, have earned him such reward. "We have three, four or five athletes all capable of running the A standard times.

"It's not an easy task, but I'm up to it, otherwise I wouldn't be in the sport."

It was around 2005, the time when Games were awarded to London, that he focused on athletics. "It encouraged me that the greatest show on earth was going to be in my home town," he said.

He ran 10.61s in the English Schools Championships in 2006 and 10.33s the following season at the U20s trials, having started, like so many others, being coached by Paul Weston at Croydon Arena.

Then he joined Lorna Booth's group, at Sutton Arena.

"She was probably the one that pushed me to come to Loughborough and pointed me in the right direction."

Now, he feels, he is training with the top group in the country, including Aikines-Ayreetey, of whom he was aware before the latter joined the group but, despite growing up close to each other, did not know.

"It's great to be competitive and training among the best 100m runners in the country. It helps to drive you on in training and keeps you on your toes. Everyone has things they are good at, different aspects they bring to the group."

Dasaolu returns home to Croydon every few months. One such trip will be to visit Parliament next week in a visit organised by Croydon Harriers coach Mike Fleet to highlight the work of Cardiac Risk in the Young, a charity that tests for undetected heart problems.

"They tested my heart a year or so ago," said Dasaolu. "It's something everyone should sign up for," he added. "You hear of footballers who have just dropped dead on the pitch. It's a good thing to know if you have a problem."