{"id":1040009722,"date":"2026-01-30T16:45:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/?p=1040009722"},"modified":"2026-02-04T16:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:40:06","slug":"my-greatest-race-mark-rowland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/news\/my-greatest-race-mark-rowland-1040009722\/","title":{"rendered":"My greatest race: Mark Rowland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steeplechaser looks back on the Olympic final in Seoul in 1988 where he won bronze with a British record of 8:07.96 \u2013 a mark that still stands today.<\/p>\n

It was my coach Alan Storey and my agent Kim McDonald who came with the idea of me switching to the steeplechase heading into the 1987 season. I wanted to be Steve Ovett. I thought maybe I'd have to move to 5000m but Alan knew I probably wouldn\u2019t be the world class 1500m runner I\u2019d have loved to have been.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went to Portsmouth for a development day and I met John Miller, who was a 400m hurdles coach. Every Thursday evening, I'd go down to Portsmouth and learn how to hurdle and do technical drills. I also coached myself. A lot of the stuff that I ended up doing then is what formulated who I am now as a coach. We adapted. We changed. I really wanted to get my hurdles right.<\/span><\/p>\n

My water jumping was terrible. My ankle used to swell up, which ended up being a nightmare. I was trying to take videos of my jumping and hurdling and we broke it down. These days it\u2019s easy to do with a mobile phone but, back then, it was a completely new field. Everyone was telling me it looked okay but I was knackered so I knew it wasn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>

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I worked out, on one freeze frame, what I was doing wrong. It was just little things. I did a little hurdling work with David Hemery, too, and all the little pieces came together.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mark Rowland (Mark Shearman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I did core work every morning and I\u2019d hurdle after every track session. I'd always do 100m run overs, over hurdles, just to build up hurdle endurance, because I wasn't a natural steeplechaser. I needed to learn that. I became obsessive. I wanted to prove the people who\u2019d said I couldn\u2019t do it wrong.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a working-class lad. I'm not an academic. I'm not a smart guy. I just worked hard. I only did eight steeples before the Seoul Olympics. At the 1987 world trials, I hit the barrier and got a haematoma with blood clots and was out for two weeks. But I was completely bought in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having two young kids, family, drive, hunger \u2013 I was motivated to earn a living and put food on the table for the kids. But, fundamentally, I wanted to be successful, to be the best. It was just the penny dropping in 1987 that I could be good at this despite the criticism.<\/span><\/p>

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I didn't think I was that gifted, so I had to be better. I\u2019m a butcher's son but I cut out red meat. I wouldn't advise that to anybody, but I did it. At that time, it was thought: \u201cThere\u2019s more fat there.\u201d I wanted to do everything, anything that I could do to be the best I could be. I wasn't a Coe, Ovett or Cram. I trained with those guys but I had to be meticulous in all the other areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

I did all the physical and mental preparation, instilling confidence and belief. I ended up doing some tapes for relaxation, calming myself down. My nature is always to be worried about the environment but I learned I can't control anyone else, or control the weather. I can control me, now.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Peter Elliott with fellow Emsley Carr Mile winners Aouita, Ibbotson, Stewart, Rowland and Cram in 2003 (Mark Shearman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Headed to Seoul, I'd run 8:07 in a time trial at the holding camp. I didn\u2019t know how much faster I could go but, by that point, I wanted to win. It was all about winning. The Italian Francesco Panetta was the world champion, so he was a big player. I knew there were always three Kenyans, so I had to do something good.<\/span><\/p>\n

We anticipated the hardest thing was going to be the heat, and running the semi rather than the final. Semi-finals were harder because they're slower. I was better running quickly because there was more efficiency.<\/span><\/p>

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I went to the medical centre in the village to get quite loose. I\u2019d never had a massage in my life, but I needed to get loosened out after the heat frightened me. Then you keep focused. You stand on the line and just ignore everybody. For the final I was really in the moment, in the zone.<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew it was going to be quick. I just needed to keep them in touch. You never know what pace it will be run in, but I would have probably ignored that anyway. The one thing you don\u2019t want to do is to hit the hurdle and I skimmed the very first one. It woke me up because I didn't want to over-hurdle. That tuned me in. It might have been a blessing in disguise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there was a critical moment when the Kenyans started to go with 1000m left. That's a critical moment when it went down. Panetta had died back but some of the East Germans had come back, and they started to get to the front.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember, with about 800m to go, thinking: \u201cIt\u2019s on here, just stay with them.\u201d Alan had told me: \u201cJust don't start sprinting and stick with as many as you can.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mark Rowland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I couldn't do anything down the back straight. I was looking back, seeing a blur of blue vests. I thought: \u201cDon't look back.\u201d I was in third and I couldn't do anything about it. I\u2019d come fourth at the world and European indoors in 1987. That had killed me because I put it on the line there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter hurdled the water jump, and then I went in and I was pretty good. I felt myself closing a bit more. I just attacked every hurdle. It went into slow motion over the last 300m. I attacked the last one, I got over, and it was just there \u2013 the finish line.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not disappointed that no-one has broken my British record since then. But, now, I\u2019d love to coach someone to break it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Rowland is head coach of the Edinburgh University Endurance Programme<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As told to Mark Woods<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steeplechaser looks back on the Olympic final in Seoul in 1988 where he won bronze with a British record of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1039998015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","inline_featured_image":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_championship":0,"wds_primary_country":0,"wds_primary_sports":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,35970],"tags":[],"championship":[],"country":[],"sports":[35994],"class_list":["post-1040009722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-nostalgia","sports-3000m-steeplechase"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040009722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040009722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040009722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1039998015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040009722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040009722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040009722"},{"taxonomy":"championship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/championship?post=1040009722"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=1040009722"},{"taxonomy":"sports","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sports?post=1040009722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}