Steve Solomon outruns his demons to qualify for world titles

It has taken five years, but Steven Solomon is back in the form that carried him to the London Olympic final in 2012.

Steven Solomon has finally broken through to qualify for next month’s world championships in London. Pictue: Brett Costello.

It all seemed so easy when Steven Solomon broke through to reach the Olympic 400m final as a teenager at the London Games.

But in the ensuing years, Solomon has discovered just how hard a road international athletics can be.

He could hardly have anticipated, when the future shone so brightly ahead of his 19-year-old self, that it would be five long years before he would run so fast again.

The breakthrough finally came in lane nine in Palo Alto, California, at the weekend, where he ran 45.19sec to qualify for next month’s world championships in London and banish the demons that have possessed first his body and then his mind in the intervening years.

A back problem in his first year at Stanford University turned into a chronic hamstring injury that required surgery after the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

At that point, Solomon believed he would be back to his best in time for last year’s Rio Olympics but he struggled to trust his body afterwards and narrowly missed the qualifying time for the Games, despite ­multiple attempts.

“Having that trust translates into performance,’’ he said after finally making the breakthrough that he’s been searching for.

“I am now over that mental block. confident in the health of my body and finally able to start taking it to its upper gears without fearing a fault.’’

“In addition, racing the clock is hard, really hard, and I have done it a lot over the past 16 months.

“You also need some luck, even a small piece such as good weather can make a bid difference and it’s something that has been hard to find over the past two years.’’

His coach at Stanford, PattiSue Plumer, pulled some strings to get him into the Palo Alto race, a round of the Tracktown ­Summer Series, and he was ­allocated the outside lane, which is not necessarily ideal for 400m running.

However, he grasped the ­opportunity and finally produced his fastest race since the London Olympic final. He now hopes to keep building for the world titles, back at the scene of his Olympic success.

Rio Olympian Peter Bol was another who finally reached the qualifying standard over the weekend, when he ran a ­personal best of 1:45.22 in the 800m in Mannheim, California.

Meanwhile, rising distance runner Patrick Tiernan, who has qualified to run the 5000m and 10,000m in London, set yet ­another personal best to finish seventh in the 3000m at the Paris Diamond League meet yesterday.

National javelin champion Hamish Peacock also finished seventh in Paris (83.87m) in a strong field.