Sullivan chasing his 8th national title
Posted Tuesday, 12 July, 2005
By Brian Smiley, Brantford Expositor staff, www.brantfordexpositor.ca
Tuesday, July 12 - Brantford’s Kevin Sullivan will be hoping to claim his third consecutive Canadian track and field championship in the men’s 1,500 metres this weekend.
The North Park Collegiate and University of Michigan graduate doesn’t want to see history repeating itself when the national championships take place Friday through Sunday.
More than a decade ago, Sullivan won the first of his seven national championships. This year, a 22-year-old from Cambridge named Nate Brannen, will be looking to take away the title owned by Sullivan, who is this country’s undisputed top middle distance men’s runner.
“At my first national championship when I was 18, everyone else in the field was 25, 26 and 27,” said Sullivan, 31. “I was on the other end of having a young guy hunting all the seniors and I think Nate is at the point where he wants to come in and solidify (his position).”
Not only will it be a matter of old versus new, but the race could also pit the Michigan alumni against each other since Sullivan helped recruit Brannen. In order for that to happen, they would both have to make the final on Saturday. Heats take place on Friday.
Sullivan, who earned a civil engineering degree from Michigan, doesn’t expect the upstart to take it easy on him.
“It’s going to be an interesting race because the Nate and I are different,” said Sullivan, who noted his opponent is more about speed and acceleration, while his main asset is his physical strength.
“We both would like to see the race unfold in a different way. It’s definitely going to be the hardest one since (longtime rival) Graham (Hood) and I were in top shape in 2001.”
Hood has since retired.
Brannen is quite new to the 1,500, having switched from the 800. He posted his personal best in the 1,500 on the weekend, winning a race in Indiana in 3:37.8.
Also in the field for this weekend’s event is Sullivan’s younger brother Colin, who will enter his senior year at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga this September.
The biggest obstacle facing the older Sullivan in his quest for an eighth title may be himself. By his own admission, Sullivan hasn’t had a great year.
“It’s been a little bit up and down,” he said. “I feel like I’m treading water. I’m doing all the same things I’ve been doing in training, I just can’t get the results. I don’t know if it’s a mental thing or something I’m doing in my training.
“The biggest positive was the race in Lausanne (Switzerland). I was finally able to put all the pieces together.”
In that race, which took place earlier this month, Sullivan was seventh in 3:36.39, off his personal best and Canadian record time of 3:31.71.
Sullivan — who lives in Champaign, Ill., with wife Karen Harvey, a Paris native and current long-distance coach at the University of Illinois — made a change this season by deciding to run less.
“I’m starting to think that may be one of the problems,” said Sullivan, who finished fifth at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
Following 2000, Sullivan failed to make the final at the 2004 Games in Athens.
“That was tough because I went in with such big expectations,” he said of running in Athens. “I don’t think I necessarily ran poorly, I just wasn’t one of the top-12 guys to make the final.”
Sullivan has also experimented with different distances this season, racing in the 5,000 metres. He has also battled an Achilles tendon injury. Because of the setbacks, Sullivan no longer has long-term plans.
He has to finish fourth or better this weekend to qualify for the world championships in Helsinki, Finland, Aug. 6-14. He would like to continue and compete at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, but he won’t stay on the track if he doesn’t think he can run his best. And he can only decide that by analyzing his performance and health on year-by-year basis.
“I think the big thing is if I don’t think my body can handle the stress of the training I need to do, I won’t do it,” said Sullivan.
ON TRACK . . . Sullivan is also the male athlete representative for Athletics Canada. He sits on a board of directors and is a member of several committees that meet twice a year. They also hold conference calls once a month to evaluate such things as criteria for the selection of national team members.
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