World Championships near miss makes Burnley 800m runner Tiarnan Crorken hungry for more
Burnley athlete Tiarnan Crorken admits his first experience of competing at the World Athletics Championships this week has made him hungry for more.
The Great Britain athlete just missed out on qualification for the 800m semi-finals in Tokyo, Japan.
He failed to make it to the next stage after finishing fifth in his respective heat – missing out on a top-three automatic qualification place.
Starting in lane eight and up against a world class field, including current world champion and Olympic silver medal winner Marco Arop, of Canada, the tall imposing athlete kept himself in the pack during the opening lap.
The race became stretched down the back straight after the bell, but Crorken remained in contention but despite kicking for home with 100m to go, he was unable to sneak into the top three.
His time of 1:45.63 was less than half-a-second slower than the heat winner, Spaniard Mohamed Attaoui who clocked 1:45.33, while Arop – the fourth fastest 800m runner of all-time – finished third behind Kenya’s Kelvin Loti, who was second.
Crorken, who only achieved the World Championship qualification standard last month, was disappointed to not make it through to the semi-finals although it has given him huge motivation for the future.
"The three guys who qualified, one of them might win it (gold) and the other two will probably get into the final,” Crorken told Citius Mag.
"So I can’t be too mad with myself, but considering how slow the race was, I can’t help but think I could have given it a bit more down the back straight.
"But I am not going to be too hard on myself because it’s been a long journey to get here.
"Not having the experience of competing on a stage like this before, I can learn from this and it just makes me more hungry to get back here again.”