Posted: March 3, 2005

Athletics: Confident, Cragg Relishes Role Of Favorite At European Indoor Championships

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

By Bob Ramsak

MADRID -- Alistair Cragg has no problems with being tagged as the favorite for the European 3000 meter title. In fact, the 24-year-old Arkansas grad is relishing the role.

"My running developed in that kind of environment. That's what I'm used to," said Cragg, who collected seven individual NCAA titles during one of the finest track careers in the history of the U.S. collegiate championships. "I feel the pressure, but it's good. It's nice to be able to be in a position where I can get the pressure. It'll be kind of a sad day when you come to a championship and no one really cares how you do."

That Cragg, the South-African born runner who now represents Ireland, would arrive in the Spanish capital as the year's fastest in the event --let alone as the event's favorite-- seemed unlikely just four months ago. In November, he underwent a hernia operation and said he wasn't even planning on competing during the indoor season.

"We just started working on strength work and mainly we were focusing on world cross country. I stepped on the track a couple of weeks before Boston, ran a few sessions, and all of a sudden I could run a 7:40 off of what I was doing for cross country."

That Boston race was the Reebok Boston Indoor Games on 31-January, when his defeat of double world record holder Kenenisa Bekele made international sporting headlines.

Cragg readily admitted that under more normal circumstances, nine out of ten times he wouldn't expect to beat Bekele. But the race did instill confidence, and his performance in that race, 7:39.89, remains the fastest this season. Looking back, he thinks he could have run much faster, perhaps even faster than his 7:38.59 national record from 2004.

"I still felt like a 7:40 was pedestrian, which was more exciting that actually beating him. I got a lot out of that race."

He followed up with a win at the Powered by Tyson Invitational on his home track in Fayetteville, beating Ethiopian Markos Geneti in 7:40.53. After that race, he said, his confidence continued to grow.

"Again without any rabbits, and again I ran another 7:41," he said. "So I'm able to put up these sorts of times without any rabbits or getting pulled along. So it's exciting, coming into this event."

In Madrid, he's hoping to team up with Mark Carroll, the winner in 2000, and take two of the three medals for Ireland for the first time ever in these championships.

"I've been hiding in the NCAA for two years," he said, referring to his status as a relative unknown on the world scene. "I kind of feel like whatever I've done there has gone unnoticed, which is okay. But it's my time now, and now that I'm done there, it's time to transfer all my success there onto the track here."

"We've got a good opportunity to get two medals out of here," Cragg said of his appearance here, which begins Friday morning. "I know Mark wants one of us to win it. And we're going to try our best to put ourselves in that position. He's got a lot of experience. I'm very fortunate that have a guy like Mark on my side."

Carroll, who has primarily been training for the marathon in recent years, clocked 7:46.60 in late January, the fourth fastest among entrants here. Cragg said that he and Carroll know the primary foe will be Spaniard Reyes Estevez, a 1500 meter specialist who recently lowered his PB in the longer event to 7:43.80.

"I respect a guy like Estevez a lot, I grew up watching his running," Cragg said. "He's a 1500 meter specialist, but he's coming to what I can run. Obviously Estevez can kick quick, and we're going to make sure that he can't do that at the end of the race. How we run will determine weather he can close with us. I know he can close in 50-flat off of a slow pace, but I don't know what he can do off of a fast pace."

Cragg finished 12th in the Olympic 5000 last summer, an experience that has few, if any fond memories for him.

"If I had run my best race in the Olympic final, I would have been a lot happier with my year. But my best race wasn't on the biggest day. It left a bad taste in my month."

Athens, he said, was hindered by a self-proclaimed lack of focus. "There were no expectations on me. The media and public seemed to be satisfied that I got into the final. It was a big thing about me being the only European in the final. But I had no goal, I couldn't gauge myself on where I should have been. And I just found myself lost out there. When I did start to move," he continued, "I just felt a lack of fire, and that was just sad. I just felt very, very disappointed."

Cragg doesn't expect a similar scenario here.

"Now that I'm a favorite again, I feel more comfortable that when I was going into the Olympics."

The championships record of 7:43.89 was set by Spain's Alberto Garcia in Vienna in 2002.