By 
NICK Griggs is going into his first ever World Indoor Championships in Poland later this month with a fear free attitude.
“I’m excited to be going to the World’s, it’s a huge opportunity with it being a straight final – you get there, line up on the start line and you’re in with the chance of winning a world title,” he beamed.
Griggs is World Championship bound after winning Irish crown
“It doesn’t matter if I come dead last. I’ve put myself in that position of being in with the chance of winning a world senior title, even though that’s probably not going to happen.
“I’ve put myself in that position so I’m going to give it a lash and if I come home dead last or I get a medal, no matter where I finish, I’m just happy to be there and have given myself the opportunity to get out there.
“I’m almost going in with a free hit. I’m still young, it’s my first World final, so I’m just going to go and fear no-one and anything can happen!”
The Newmills runner, who became the first Irishman ever to win a European Cross-Country Championship individual gold medal at the end of last year, achieved the qualifying standard for the World Championships in America a few weeks ago, but with only two places on the flight from Dublin to the Kujawsko-Pomorska Arena Toruń, he knew he would have to finish ahead of Andrew Coscoran or Darragh McElhinney at the Irish Championships 3000 metres to be able to race in Poland.
“If Darragh had won, he’d have got picked and it would have been between me and Andrew, so it was a weird one to be in a situation like that when you have the ‘A’ time but there’s still a chance you might not go,” Griggs admitted.
“I’m fifth in the world on times and I still might not have been going so it was a weird situation to be put into. It was annoying for me when I first found out because I went from thinking I had 100 per cent secured my place and I could go to National’s and have a bit of fun to I have to go out and perform. There was a lot of pressure coming into it where if you come third or get beat by the two guys, you’re run out of it.”
With so much at stake, Nick admits the build-up to last Sunday’s race was ‘incredibly tense’.
“It was incredibly tense in the lead up to the race,” he acknowledged. “It was a weird one. It wasn’t like a normal race or a normal National Champs where you can warm-up together. It was very tense to be honest but that’s what situations like that create and it’s great for the spectator to have that intrigue built into it.
“It was built to be a great race and I think, while it didn’t have the blanket finish it promised, we saw some equal drama in the end!”
Excitement most certainly ensued. With Griggs running a tactically astute race, tracking his two rivals throughout, he was able to capitalise on Coscoran’s stumble after a coming together with McElhinney before winning the sprint to the line for victory in a time of eight minutes 14.52 seconds.
“I was thinking going into it because it’s a tough one to know how to race,” Griggs explained. “None of the three of us are going to outrun each other – we’re all of a world class level – so I think, realistically, I knew it was going to be tight and tense and slow, so I felt I had to tactically be the best and I was just patient.
“I felt Darragh and Andrew were more reactive, I could see them clashing elbows and I could see they were really scrapping for the inside line. At that point it was difficult not to go because initially I went to cover Darragh’s move, but I saw that and I thought ‘maybe just ease off a little bit’, don’t be so close to him that if he gets into trouble, you get into trouble.
“So that’s why I thought it best to not lose contact with him but to hold off that little half metre and then come into the home straight and it ended up with Andrew going down and Darragh got a little impeded as well but he lost a little momentum, while I stayed calm and patient and I had more left.”
