2025 Tokyo preview – Max Burgin
When Max Burgin finished second in the Diamond League final in Zurich last month in 1:42.42 – just 0.05 seconds behind Emmanuel Wanyoni – it seemed a significant moment. He told me what he had taken from that performance: “A lot of confidence that I can be that close to not just Wanyonyi, the Olympic champion but with Arop, the previous world champion and also properly in the mix. I think that’s the first time this season that I’ve really felt like I had a proper chance of winning and had things gone slightly different, I think I could have”. When pressed as to whether a championship race (like Tokyo) without a pacemaker would unfold differently, he replied that he did not think so, explaining: “I think in our event how Wanyonyi often approaches championships means that the races go quite similarly either way. Now obviously that could change. He could change that and if he does, I think, it would be a considerably different race because there’s not too many other front runners in the mix at the moment. Whether it will be any different than a paced race, I have no idea, but I think it would be very interesting because we haven’t really seen a proper slow tactical one in the Diamond Leagues at all this year”.
Approaching Tokyo, Max is in a great position, which he puts down to the simple fact of not being injured and therefore getting in a full season: “I don’t think much approach-wise has changed at all. Obviously it has been a great season, consistency-wise, my first one since probably 2018 that I think I’ve actually managed to have a full season and hit pretty much every race I wanted to. The issues that I’ve had in the previous three years haven’t really been ones that had been brought about by anything specific in training. There’s nothing that we’ve done really to bring them on, especially that sural nerve issue that has been the main thing bothering me the last two years. That’s mainly been managed this year and sorted through a few series of stripping injections that I’ve got over the winter. And I guess maybe more knowledge of how to avoid setting it off. So maybe a few minor adjustments here and there, but mainly it’s just been a case of those things becoming resolved and me being able to actually train the way we wanted to train”.
He explained further: “I’ve…
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