The 800m runner says recent Achilles problems are actually his ‘sural nerve’ as he prepares to qualify for Paris in Sunday’s UK Champs final
In his first track race for 10 months, Max Burgin showed few signs of race rustiness at the UK Championships on Saturday (June 29). Dominating the so-called ‘heat of death’, he powered home in 1:45.52 to win a stacked race as he led all of the qualifiers going into Sunday’s final.
“Classic Max Burgin!” said runner-up Ben Pattison. “He doesn’t do much training and then runs like that.”
Burgin did the same 12 months ago as he made his season’s debut in the UK Championships, leading the final through the bell at sub-50-second pace before finishing a close third behind Dan Rowden and Pattison.
He ran even quicker at the Diamond League in London a fortnight later with 1:43.85 but subsequently struggled at the World Championships, fading to eighth in his semi-final in Budapest.
Burgin was a terrific teenage talent but has been bedevilled with injury problems in recent seasons. If he can make the start line in a race, though, his incredible talent makes him a factor.
He arrived at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene as the fastest man in the men’s 800m but was unable to make the start line due to a blood clot in his calf and ended up having to spend a spell in a mobility scooter.
In 2023 and during last winter he struggled to train properly due to persistent Achilles problems. Such were the issues, he resorted to wearing Vaporfly shoes as slippers to ease the pressure on his heels.
In December, however, he finally had the problem diagnosed. “It’s not the Achilles itself,” he explained on Saturday. “It’s the sural nerve – in both legs.”
The sural nerve travels down the back of the calf and has become trapped and irritated in Burgin’s lower legs. “I’ve had plenty of procedures and injections on it,” the Halifax Harrier says. “It’s similar to last year but a bit better as I’m able to do a bit of steady running now. Knowing what it is for certain is such a positive mentally.”
In the run-up to this weekend’s UK Championships no one seemed sure whether Burgin would actually start. But when he did – and was drawn alongside Pattison, Rowden, Alex Botterill and world 1500m champion Josh Kerr – he chose to sit and kick in the final 150m rather than using his usual front-running tactics.
“There were three of four guys in it who I knew I couldn’t just run a 1:46 and beat them, so I wanted to mix things up,” he says. “And in training speed sessions are one of the few things I’ve been able to get in consistently.”
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Burgin also usually throws up after races. “I only did it a little today,” he smiled, adding: “I’ve come a fair way as I’ve managed to string together a bit of training, enough to get this champs and make the final. The problems I’ve had are manageable and I can get my sessions done.”
Burgin certainly wasn’t getting carried away after his heat win either. “Today was a good result but it’s Sunday’s final that’s important and the Olympic places are very much up for grabs.”
Burgin is joined in Sunday’s final by Pattison, Kerr, Elliot Giles, Reece Sharman-Newell, Callum Dodds, Finley Mclear, Tom Randolph and Ethan Hussey.
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