The British 400m champion on changing focus and raising his ambition level
By early September, Charlie Dobson had run 10 individual races over the course of the year, over the entire 400m. It was a season like no other, not only because it yielded Olympic relay bronze, European individual silver and a first British title, but also because all those awards came over the quarter mile.
For most of Dobson’s career, he considered himself primarily a 200m runner. So at the end of his first year, completely focused on that distance double, he thought he might test himself again on a shorter sprint to see if a streak of 400m personal bests would translate when he fell.
Dobson, 25, was penciled in for the season-ending 200m, but before the manager texted the organizers of the Diamond League final in Brussels to double-check that he was not needed.
Dobson competed in three Diamond League races over the summer, earning enough points to finish 10th in the standings. As the Belgian hosts were allowed to add a home country athlete, it meant he required three athletes to come out if he was to be awarded a place in the eight-way final. It is unlikely, but it is worth asking the question.
Charlie Dobson (Getty)
The answer that came back was unexpectedly positive, but with plans changed in favor of a trip to Belgium, there was one more hurdle to overcome. When the starting list was released the day before the race, Dobson was allocated the unappealing, solid, inside first lane, while the remarkably slow addition of Jonathan Sakour was in lane seven.
Negotiations took place, the two men were belatedly switched hours before the match and Dobson was able to mount the most dramatic of late charges, rising from seventh place as he entered the home straight to claim one of the Diamond League’s most improbable titles. It was “the biggest shock of the night”, according to stunned commentator Tim Hutchings.
“It was 100 percent a shock to me,” Dobson says. “You go into every race with full confidence in yourself, but you have to set realistic goals for yourself.
“Initially I thought I would be happy if I finished in the top five. By 250m I would be running my own race and people weren’t as far ahead of me as they had been in previous races. I came out of the bend and saw that they were only five or 10 meters ahead, so I thought I would be able to chase them down. I gave it every bit of energy I had and surprised myself. The zone change changed the world.”
Charlie Dobson (Chiara Montesano)
It was a performance that should have significant ramifications for a career that has often vibrated with glimpses of Dobson’s talent over remarkable distances. Only last year he won the indoor 60m in Birmingham, while he won world under-20 silver over 200m and finished fourth over the same distance at the 2022 European Championships.
In the five 400m races he had run so far this year, he had never run slower than 56 seconds. It was this ability that led Ivan Thomas to tell AW two years ago that his 400m British record of 44.36 was Dobson’s “if he wanted it”.
At the time, Dobson still considered himself a 200m runner, admitting now: A series of injuries meant a change in that mindset, with 200m training “not consistent enough for me to continue to enjoy the sport”.
When his former coach Benke Blomqvist returned to his native Sweden, Dobson sought out the services of Leon Baptiste last fall and decided to focus all his energy on the 400m. “I just wanted to finally enjoy a full season of track and field again,” she explains.
The result was the first injury-free year, which Dobson attributes to a combination of changing coaches, changing the intensity of his training to longer distances and graduating university; to sit at the desk.’
June’s European silver came with a personal best of 44.38, which she then bettered a few weeks later when she clocked 44.23 at the London Diamond League. That performance proved Thomas right, but didn’t set the law for the outstanding times produced by Matt Hudson-Smith, who has been under 44 seconds three times in 2024, including the run that propelled him to Olympic silver.
Charlie Dobson (Getty)
“It’s great fun, but really nerve-wracking at the same time,” says a smiling Dobson when asked about having Hudson-Smith as a compatriot. “Personally, I would like to break the British record. Now Matt has dropped it by almost a second, which is incredible but disappointing.
“But it’s amazing to have him as a British athlete and incredibly inspirational. He’s a great guy and fully invested in the relay team, which means a lot to all the guys.”
The men’s 4x400m Olympic bronze was one of five relay medals won by the British team at the Paris Olympics, including bronze in the women’s and 4x400m medley. That, Dobson says, is in no small part down to Hudson-Smith.
“We have such a strong team now,” he says. “We’ve won medals at every major championship since the 2022 Europeans, and long may that continue.
“The British men’s 400m really went into a bit of a lull and a lot of people wrote it off, but Matt, with his incredible comeback and medal win in Eugene (2022 World Championships), has led the renaissance of the British 400m. It certainly inspired me to pick up the 400m and put more time into the relay, and I’m sure it did to others.
“We’re starting to develop some really good depth, so we have the ability to trade people in as and when we need to and still be incredibly strong. It was proven at the Olympics.”
» This is an abridged version of a feature that appears in the November issue of AW magazine, Ssubscribe to AW magazine herecheck out our new podcast! here or subscribe to our digital archive of back issues from 1945 to the present day here
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