Athletics: East keeps hype in middle distance

The timing could hardly have been more ironic. No sooner had Michael East bade farewell than the latest edition of Athletics Weekly dropped through the letter box. "Middle-distance crisis: 10-page investigation," it trumpeted on the front cover.

For 10 years now British athletics has been making a crisis out of the dramatic drop in fortunes of its middle-distance runners. After the gold-rush years of Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe, Steve Cram and Peter Elliott, it was always going to be difficult.

There are glints of hope for a brighter future, though – as reflected in the European indoor championship bronze medal Michael East happens to have in his possession.

He won it in Vienna back in March with the execution of an astute tactical performance that belied his lack of experience at the highest level, finishing strongly to take third place behind Rui Silva, the world indoor champion from Portugal, and Juan Higuero of Spain, who was an Olympic finalist in Sydney two years ago.

It was only his third senior international appearance for Britain (his second having been in the heats the previous day) and just his fourth race on an indoor track. It was no fluke, either, judging by the assured manner in which the 24-year-old Portsmouth man kicked past John Mayock to win the 1500m at the Norwich Union international meeting in Glasgow the following weekend.

A new middle-distance star had been born – or so it seemed. Three months on, the reality for East is that he is back among the rest of the Brits, looking to make a name for himself all over again, this time in the outdoor arena – starting with the Aqua-Pura Commonwealth Games Trials at the City of Manchester Stadium next Saturday and Sunday.

"Obviously Vienna was a very big confidence-booster," he said, "but we are trying to forget about it and concentrate on what's ahead of us. Mark Rowland and myself are very black and white about it. We need to move on."

When it comes to the pragmatic, East could hardly have a better coach guiding him than Rowland. He has never been known to call a spade an earth-moving implement. Suggest to him gingerly that he switched to the steeple-chase in his own racing days because of the strength of British middle-distance running and Rowland will tell you bluntly: "I just wasn't effing good enough".

The irony is that the man behind Britain's latest middle-distance hope was himself a victim of Britain's middle-distance strength in the 1980s. Rowland was a 3min 34.53sec 1500m runner and 3:52.99 miler at the time of Ovett, Coe, Cram and Elliott. He moved to the 3,000m steeplechase and won a bronze medal at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. His British record, 8min 7.96sec, has remained unchallenged ever since.

"I've learned so much from Mark in the year I've been with him," East said. "You stand there and think: 'Well, he's been there and done it himself so what he says has got to make sense'. It's a good partnership, I think."

It's certainly a promising one, though East still has a long way to go truly to establish himself on the international scene. That much has been made evident to him by his struggle to get into races on the European circuit in recent weeks.

"Although I came third in Vienna, you still need a fast time against your name," he said. East, who has become a full-time athlete and acquired the services of an agent since his medal-winning run in the Austrian capital, has a personal best for 1500m of 3min 38.94sec.

He set it last year, when he ranked fifth in the event in Britain – behind Mayock (3:34.43), Tony Whiteman (3:34.88), Andy Graffin (3:35.97) and Tom Mayo (3:38.34), who will all be among his rivals in Manchester next weekend.

Chris Mulvaney could also emerge as a serious contender for the two England team places that will be on offer (the third will be left to the discretion of the selectors). A native of Bolton, he has been in impressive form running for the University of Arkansas in the United States, improving by five seconds to 3:41.89 and finishing runner-up in the American collegiate championships last weekend, beating the much-vaunted teenager Alan Webb.

East has kept his own form largely under wraps, running just one 1500m, clocking 3:41.74 ahead of the Olympic 800m champion Nils Schumann in the German town of Dessau. He has also improved his best 800m time to 1:48.30.

"It's going to be tight at the trials, really tight," East said. "A lot of people have been trying to put tags on me since Vienna and I really just want to get out there and have a bash at it now. People have been asking if I am going to be the next Ovett or Coe, but John Mayock and Tony Whiteman have run 3:31 and 3:32 for 1500m and they have never had that label whacked on them. It's rubbish really."

It's certainly premature. Indeed, the favourite to win the 1500m next weekend is not the rising East, nor any of the other English trial runners for that matter. The leading entrant is the "guest" runner Craig Mottram, who already has a Commonwealth Games place – in the Australian team. He has been hailed as the new Herb Elliott, but, then, that brings us to another national middle-distance crisis altogether.