Matt Hudson-Smith has revealed the Sliding Doors moment that took him from army recruitment office to sporting stardom, writes Alex Spink in Eugene.
Britain’s 400 metres record holder begins his campaign for a first global medal at the World Championships today.
He does so confessing for the first time how one lap of a track in Scotland eight years ago transformed his life.
“I haven’t even told my mum this but in 2014 I was working in Asda and I signed up for the Army,” said the 27-year old, who only began running 400m that summer.
“I didn’t want to go to university. I didn’t really know what I was going to do.”
Hudson-Smith had little money and by his own admission was just “going through life” when he rocked up at the Glasgow Diamond League meet and ran the year’s second fastest time by a European.
“I never really took track seriously. It was just a bit of fun and games that I was good at,” the Wolverhampton-born star continued. “But one race and my whole life changed.
“I had an agent, I had sponsors coming at me left, right and centre.
“It went from going out with my mates and enjoying myself to being thrown in the spotlight, panicking about tea bags because you hear about people failing tests because of contaminated meats and stuff like that.”
Almost overnight he went from catching a bus to low-key domestic competitions to flying to international meets and racing the “best of the best” who he had only previously watched on TV.
“It was manic. I was panicking left, right and centre. You want to go out with your mates but you can’t because you’re racing against [world record holder] Wayde van Niekerk.
“You’re on the edge every single day, pushing your body to the edge in training because if you’re not on your game you’re going to look stupid.
“Anyone who says they have prepared for this all their life is lying because it’s different when you’re actually in it. And the fact is I never prepared for it, never expected it.”
The boy from the Black Country would become European champion four years later but in between, and indeed since that heady day in Berlin, he has been stalked by injury.
It has been quite a rollercoaster ride and only now, here in Eugene on the track where he broke Iwan Thomas’ 25-year old British record in May, has he really got his head round it.
“Everything suddenly went fast paced and I had to learn in front of everybody,” he said. “You saw the triumphs, the failures, everything.
“Now I understand the sport and everything that’s happened. There’s nothing really that can faze me anymore.
“I’ve been there and done that, been in a world-record race, been in an Olympic final, won medals.
"I know they say the 100m is the blue riband but really and truly 400m, it's the man killer, the one that everyone respects."
