Awde relief at GB Olympics call-up

EXCLUSIVE by Colin Munford Wednesday, July 4, 2012
5:52 PM

Awde hoping for top-10 spot in Decathlon at Olympics

Woodford Green with Essex Ladies decathlete Dan Awde described a feeling of relief after finally having his place in the GB squad confirmed on Tuesday.

Awde had the B standard of 8102 points achieved at the end of May and has been waiting ever since to get the confirmation and the 24-year-old finally received the green light of his place in the home games.

“It was a massive relief when I first heard the news of my place being confirmed,” he said.

“I had been waiting for a while and the first person I called was my mum to tell her the great news.”

Messages of congratulations have been coming in their thousands over the social networking sites and the multi-event star was getting so carried away with replying to them that he burnt his dinner!

“The amount of messages I have received over the last couple of days has been amazing,” added the Woodford Green-based athlete.

“I was replying to a load of them and completely forget about my lunch in the oven and when I got to it, I realised it was burnt!

“It’s not exactly the end of the world though after you have had your Olympic place confirmed.”

Awde represented Team GB in the Olympic Games back in 2008 in Beijing and completed the gruelling two-day event in 21st place.

But he believes he has learnt an awful lot from that experience and is targeting a place in the top 10 after conversations with his coach Greg Richards.

“I sat down with my coach and we put a plan in place if I got the call-up and now it is all confirmed we can go ahead with that,” he added.

“We now have four weeks of intense training with a week away in Portugal to get us ready.

“My aim is a place in the top 10, that would be a great achievement and secretly I am hoping to get as near to the top five as possible.”

■ Other athletes from Woodford Green that will be competing in Stratford this summer are American-born duo Shana Cox and Tiffany Porter in the 400m and 100m hurdles respectively.

Another high-competition athlete, Simeon Williamson will also taste action in the 4x100m relay at the London Games.