When watching Ryan Gregson race it sometimes becomes difficult to distinguish between arrogance, ignorance and confidence. He races in a way that is reminiscent of his boyhood hero Craig Mottram. With a new national record of 3:31.06, Ryan looked to be a serious medal chance in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games.

For the past few years Ryan’ s progress has been eagerly followed by distance running enthusiasts, both in Australia and the world over. At the tender age of 17, the local of Bulli, just south of Sydney, went from an exciting junior to an overnight phenomenon. He broke the Australian under 18 1500m( 3:43.84), 3000m( 8:01.26, also an U20 record) and 5000m( 14:14.00) records within the space of a month. Looking back, Ryan admits there were no secrets to his break.

“ All credit has to go to Ian Hatfield [ Ryan’ s coach / trainer ]. He is a

very smart coach and he has timed my progression really well.

“ I’ ve been running for a long time now, he’ s made sure that I’ ve slowly built up the intensity and volume of my training for over a decade now. Obviously I had a bit of natural talent as a kid but its taken smart training to let that come out. I wasn’ t a 14-year-old who was breaking records left right and centre, Ian and I let things happen over the years and the results came.”

By 2009 Gregson had established himself as one of Australia’ s best adult middle distance runners. He travelled to Europe to race the circuit for the first time and based himself in London with his manager, Nic Bideau. After breaking the Australian under 20 1500m record( 3:37.24) domestically at the Sydney Track Classic in February of that year, was given his first opportunity to prove himself against international competition.

“ Last year because I had

Image by Randy Miyazaki