THOMAS BARR is hoping to go from grieving to achieving at the Olympics as his focus shifts from individual to team goals.
Barr – fourth in the 400m hurdles in Rio – fell short in his bid to qualify for his third successive Games in his preferred event.
He will be in Paris as part of the 4 x 400m mixed relay team for which girlfriend Kelly McGrory has been selected, as well as the 4 x 400m women’s team.
But he admitted: “It was like a kick to my pride.
“I shot and missed, in that I put a huge amount of work this year into getting qualified for Paris over the hurdles and it didn’t pay off.
“I’m not going to sugar coat it, it was very disappointing because it’s been my game for so long and I had qualified for a championships every single year since 2011.
“This is the first one that I really felt I missed out on but again, checking my privilege, I’ve been lucky to have had that kind of a track record.
“What I just meant was that this one was quite difficult because I put in nearly more work this year.
“I was hoping to qualify for the Olympics in Budapest last year which is what a lot of athletes did.
“I missed out so I had to build up a huge amount of ranking points this year and I had to chase races, talk about the least optimum way of training for a season.
“I took a little bit of time to grieve about it, to talk about the ‘what ifs?’, to say this and that, but I think it’s been a blessing in disguise because it has taken a huge weight off my shoulders.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into the hurdles.
“A lot of work would have gone into the hurdles this month to get me to a point where I would have been happy coming away from the championships and it is like my workload has halved.”
And it helps that he has an event which offers a realistic chance of success.
Alongside Rhasidat Adeleke, Sharlene Mawdsley and Cillin Greene, they took bronze at the World Relay Championships in May.
Adeleke is likely to have a curtailed involvement this time around as she chases a medal in her individual event.
Barr said:” I think we have a really strong team at the moment and there is a huge amount of depth within the team.
“It’s the Olympics and I’m not going to say it is going to be any small feat, we have to be on point sand on our game on the day.
“I still think we can make a final even if Rhasidat decides not to run it.
“For her to be in the position that she is, challenging for a medal in the 400m.
“I would never hold that against her and everyone in the team will respect whatever decision she makes and we’ll be her loudest supporters when it comes to the 400m.
“It would be great to have her in the team because she is a phenomenal, generational talent. She’s also good fun.
“She has bigger fish to fry in some respects but we’ll wait and see how it pans out.”
LAST DANCE
Barr is likely to retire after these Games but says he is not tortured by missing out on a medal eight years ago given his injury-plagued build-up.
He said: “The only thing I’ve looked back at is my start.
“Hayley Harrison gets all the splits and touchdown times and from the blocks to hurdle one generally I’m around 5.7, I think I ran around a tenth slower than I normally would.
“I could nit-pick but the fact that I got the rest of the race better than I ever have when it counted, and the context of where I came from as well, was huge.
“I’d been injured pretty much all year.
“What I do look back at Rio and think is ‘what did I do back then?’ or ‘what did I have back then that I haven’t had in the last eight years?’
“I’ve been chasing that 47 seconds, that PB, since then but I never look back and Rio and think ‘what if? I could have had a medal’.