WILKINSON IS THE ‘SIGNPOST’ OF AMBITION
FOR MANY athletes their most defining career moments can be over in a matter of seconds, almost impossible to recall in detail, but world junior 10,000m walking champion Callum Wilkinson can recite each of the 2441 seconds it took for him to win Great Britain’s first global walking title in 52 years.
The 19-year-old has taken a wrecking ball to the national record books in 2016, obliterating all meaningful junior records, indoors and out, from 3000m to 10km, winning international races in the process and finishing with the biggest of the lot in Bydgoszcz last month.
Callum Wilkinson: the world’s best junior race walker
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After a slow first three kilometres of the race Wilkinson, with just one piece of pre-race advice from coach Mick Graham to not take the lead, threw the tactics book out the window and went to the front, showing a level of confidence rarely seen at junior level to stretch the field with an injection of pace.