SAM Baird now rates as the fastest under-20 Australian 400-metre runner this year with one of the quickest under-20 times for his event in the world.
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Baird’s 46.76-second effort on the track in the Victorian titles at the weekend was 0.2 seconds off his personal best.
This is a big step forward in the 19-year-old’s return to running and ambitions to get back on the national stage.
Baird was third in the men’s 400m for the Victorian Open track and field championships at Lakeside Stadium.
But his times in the final and heat (47.26secs) were below the qualifier for the Australian Athletics Championships in Brisbane later this month.
Baird’s coach Peter O’Dwyer said his charge still very much needed to fine-tune his race, but progress was going well.
“Sam’s been training well for a long time but is lacking that race practice and fitness,” O’Dwyer said.
“He was leading with about 30 metres to go and with more race practice and fitness he might have raced even better.”
Baird clocked a world junior qualifier for 400m in February last year before taking a hiatus from running after the Stawell Gift at Easter.
He made his comeback race at the Ballarat Gift 120m in early February after an intense six month training block – the break from competition making him more hungry and more driven than before.
O’Dwyer said Baird planned to race a couple of amateur club meets as a lead-in to nationals.
This weekend, Baird returns to Bendigo to contest the 400m Black Opal.
It is the event that marked his arrival as an emerging athletics star when he won in the white off 17m two years ago.
Baird will plot his next phase according to how he fares at nationals.
He is expected to race at Stawell this Easter from April 4.
