800m World record holder and Olympic champion David Rudisha made a return to racing last weekend, after over a year out with injury.
The Kenyan master class was absent from racing for all of last season with a knee injury, which forced him to miss the World Championships.
On Saturday, however, Rudisha was back where he belongs, on the start line at the Eugene Diamond League. Whilst he looked visibly more nervous than he did when at his world beating best, athletics fans were able to see glimpses of his old self, as he dictated the pace through 600m at 1.17.19.
With world class opposition, Rudisha fell back to 7th place as young talents Nijel Amos and Mohammed Aman stormed through to take first and second, in a time of 1.43.63. Tiring dramatically in the final 70m, Rudisha’s finishing time was 1.44.87.
Although this is nearly four seconds slower than his personal best, Rudisha was pleased to be back racing, and he was upbeat about his performance.
With the Commonwealth Games coming up, Rudisha will be hoping to build on this performance on June 14th in New York. After insisting he will be back to his winning ways in the next few weeks, he and his coach will be working on improving the last 100m of the race.
