IAAF WORLD CHAMPS 2017 Aries Merritt: after London’s World Championships he has his eye on another Olympic title and improving his world record FULL CIRCLE 2 2 A T H L E T I C S W E E K L Y
ARIES MERRITT @athleticsweekly AS HE GETS READY TO RETURN TO LONDON, THE SCENE OF ONE OF HIS GREATEST TRIUMPHS, ARIES MERRITT TALKS TO JESSICA WHITTINGTON ABOUT BATTLING BACK AND HIS FUTURE AIMS PICTURES: MARK SHEARMAN HERE cannot be many T people who fail to have been inspired by Aries Merritt. His story – of how he overcame kidney disease and a transplant – has been shared with the world, but the tale doesn’t end with a return to top-level athletics. The American sprint hurdler still has many more chapters he intends to write and the next begins with the IAAF World Championships in London. “I feel like I have gone full circle,” says the 2012 Olympic champion as we discuss his next appearance on the global stage in the UK capital. “I feel like London (2012) was the pinnacle of my career - the peak point - and then after that it was a massive decline because of the kidney failure,” he adds. “So I was at the top of my career and then I was at the bottom of my career and now I’ve worked my way back up towards the top. “I’m hoping that we can pull off a global medal, but obviously I want to win – who doesn’t? It’s the World Championships, you want to be a world champion. But if it doesn’t happen, it’s not going to be the end of me. I’ll be able to come back the next year and run even better because I’ve had a full year of complete healthy training and that’s what’s key.” That prose epitomises Merritt’s mindset. Target the top but if you don’t quite get there, don’t give up – work out what you can do to achieve it next time. It’s not hard to understand why Merritt reflects on 2012 so fondly. After winning the Olympic 110m hurdles title in a personal best Aries Merritt: London 2012 champion of 12.92 the track star went on to smash the world record with 12.80 at the Brussels Diamond League in the September. It took an incredible 0.07 from the previous record and the closest anyone has come to that mark since is the 12.90 clocked by Rio champion Omar McLeod in June. However, in 2013, Merritt started experiencing an extreme lack of energy and knew something wasn’t right. The 32-year-old had kidney disease, caused by a rare genetic disorder. Despite hospital treatment, he still competed in 2014 and then in 2015, with kidney function still less than 20%, he won world bronze. Four days after standing on the podium in Beijing, he had a kidney transplant, receiving an organ from his sister, LaToya Hubbard. Merritt impressively returned to action in 2016 and came close to making the team for the Rio Olympics, finishing fourth at the tough US trials, just one hundredth behind Jeff Porter in third. But one year later he went two better to secure his spot in another world championships squad for his London return. “There was definitely a point where I thought I’d never run again, because that’s what the doctors told me back in 2015,” he says. “I still ran, against their will, and I got a medal at the World Championships. It only adds fuel to my fire. “I don’t like it when people tell me I can’t do something because they don’t know what I can do, they don’t know what we are capable of doing as humans. If you put your mind to anything you can definitely do it, for sure.” However, returning to an elite level now isn’t enough and getting world gold in a stacked event in London is not the only thing Merritt has put his mind to. The Andreas Behm-coached athlete, who has been victorious at the Rome and London Diamond League meetings this summer, wants to become a twotime Olympic champion, “and I feel like it’s very possible to be”. He also has an eye on improving his world record. “I believe in time, hopefully in the next couple of years, I should be able to give it another whack. That record is really tough,” he says. “Hopefully I will be able to get back to that point. I’m getting up there in age and that time, I have about two years during which I should be able to maybe attempt it, but after that it’s done, I’m not going to be able to do it because the amount of training that takes is ridiculous. We’ll see what happens.” n Aries Merritt’s return to the London Stadium begins with the 110m hurdles heats and semi-finals on Sunday, before the final at 21:30 on Monday A T H L E T I C S W E E K L Y 2 3
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