Chris O'Hare is preparing for a rebuilding job in the wake of his brilliant bronze medal-winning run on the closing day of the European Athletics Championships in Zurich on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Borderer became the first British man to win a European outdoor metric mile medal for 28 years when he battled up the home straight to claim third place in the 1500m final. That, though, will be the last sight of him on a track in 2014.
"Next year. That's it for me now," said O'Hare when asked when his next race would be. "Mentally, I've just been drained for the last couple of weeks and my hamstring problem has been killing me. I need to take time off and let coach [Terrence] Mahon tear me down and build me up from scratch. Next year I'll be a hell of a lot better."
It is an exciting prospect for British athletics. O'Hare has become Scotland's first European men's 1500m medallist and Britain's first since 1986, despite suffering from a long-term hamstring problem which has worsened as the season has progressed.
After taking a well-earned break, O'Hare will relocate to New England to join the Boston Athletic Association high performance group coached by Mahon, the American distance running guru who guided Deena Kastor to Olympic marathon bronze in 2004 and who previously spent a year as head endurance coach with UK Athletics. "Coach Mahon is really on the ball; I'm excited for next year," said O'Hare.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article