Harry Aikines-Aryeetey: my greatest race

British sprinter claimed world, European and Commonwealth relay medals, but 100m bronze at the 2014 European Champs brought a solo sheen to his career

European Championships, Zurich, August 13, 2014 – men’s 100m final, third place, 10.22

The 2013 season was my first with Rana Reider as my coach and it was a bit of an interesting year. I had to adapt. His group expanded massively the following year with the likes of Richard Kilty, Christian Malcolm and Anyika Onuora joining. Indoors, I went 6.64 over 60m in Prague but then got disqualified at the trials for the World Indoor Championships.

I felt like I was in quite good shape to run something half-decent. Richard went on to win at the worlds, which was amazing for the group. Everyone was on a high. We went and did the longest warm weather training camp you could ever imagine off the back of that, to Daytona, for two months.

There was racing on top of that. Sprinters love to go to America to race. A lot of times you might go and try to train for two weeks and then race off the back of it but that’s not really a training block, I would say. Fundamentally, it’s all about making sure that you put the training first and racing when you’re ready. We got out there and I actually did my first race straight away in Gainesville. I ran 10.17 – I definitely knew that I was in good shape.

A week later, I had a hamstring injury, but I was able to carry on training with the group. I came back with a run of 10.14 in Clermont that got me the qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games.

When we got back to Europe, it only took me a matter of weeks to equal my personal best (10.08) in Hengelo. That was the most consistent run in terms of the most sub-10.20s I had in my career.

And that’s really when it got interesting. CJ Ujah had run 9.96, James Dasaolu had gone 9.91 but had got injured, Dwain Chambers was still doing his thing and then the British Championships came around. It is always won in low-10.1s.

One of the best races I ever had was in that semi-final, running with Kilty. Maybe the familiarity of having my training partner next to me gave me a little bit more confidence but it just felt so natural and effortless. Going into that final, we knew that top two were going to go to the Europeans. If you finished third, the chances were that everyone would be waiting on the spot to open up, depending on whether James was fit. I started to get a bit of confidence…