Zharnel Hughes 'coming back for revenge' in 2025 following injury-plagued season

Zharnel Hughes 'coming back for revenge' in 2025 following injury-plagued season

Abigael Wafula 18:00 - 11.10.2024

Following a challenging season marked by injury, the Olympic bronze medalist is determined to come back stronger in 2025.

Great Britain’s fastest man Zharnel Hughes is coming back for revenge as he looks to shine next season with the 2025 World Championships as the main event in his roaster.

In an interview with Sky Sports, Zharnel Hughes explained that winning a bronze medal at the Paris Olympic Games was the highlight of his troubled season but he wanted more, including winning an individual medal. Hughes was part of the Briton team that claimed bronze in the men’s 4x100m relay race.

The 29-year-old goes into next season with great ambitions and hopes to be in the form of his life to deliver everything he wanted to achieve in 2024. He suffered a hamstring injury earlier this season and had raced sparingly in the build-up to the Olympic Games.

His last 100m race before the Olympics was in front of a home crowd where he finished fifth at the Diamond League Meeting in London, clocking 10.00 seconds to cross the finish line. Zharnel Hughes was then eliminated from the men’s 100m at the Olympics in the semifinal and did not start in the 200m.

“It felt good to walk away from Paris being on the podium…I wasn’t leaving there without anything. I was not leaving Paris without something, that was me, and despite having a very difficult season due to a hamstring injury, it kind of sucked in the very late part of the season because I was determined, I wanted to leave with something and I wanted to make myself proud and make my team proud and I was happy to do so but I’ll be coming back for revenge. Trust me, I am,” Zharnel Hughes said.

“I know what I’m capable of and I want to showcase to myself most importantly. I feel as if there are more opportunities along the way that I can grasp and why not just use that fuel that I felt from not being able to perform the way I wanted to perform at the Olympics and carry that same energy to the next season where I can better myself, run fast times and get on the podium.”

The world 100m bronze medallist noted that at the time the Olympic Games were happening, he had not competed enough to attain his full shape, the reason behind his dismal performance.

Zharnel Hughes added that during his training sessions, he was running fast times but could not implement that in competitions, explaining that training is way different from running an actual race.

“I wasn’t really sharp because of the time gap I had between London and the Olympics and the Olympics was a very narrow window and I was not able to have that many races after the injury because I was out for about four weeks and I only had two weeks to play with. In training, I was hitting times but it is very different from the competitions. In Paris, the heats for the 100m was my second 100m of the season so it was difficult,” he added.

Tags: