Tonbridge race-walker Tom Bosworth has appeared on the big stage for the final time. Bosworth, 32, had already confirmed this will be his final season and admitted racing at the Commonwealth Games perhaps may well be the ideal stage to exit the sport from after the event in Birmingham.
He was due to compete at the European Athletics Championships in Munich, Germany, this week but now has pulled out of the 20k event. “It’s with a heavy heart I have decided to withdraw from the 20k at @ECMunich2022,” Bosworth said on Twitter. “I never take racing for GB for granted and want to compete, knowing I can do myself and my country proud. “Despite the training, I know my body will struggle too much. “CWGs [The Commonwealth Games] was the perfect send-off.” The two-time Olympian earlier this month received a thunderous ovation as he came down the home straight at the Alexander Stadium having finished seventh in the 10,000m race walk, won by Australia's Evan Dunfee with a new Commonwealth Games record.
After that race, Sevenoaks-born Bosworth said: “I've got so much emotion right now. I had planned to go to the Europeans, but we'll see what happens. “I was pain free and, after the year I've had, I didn't think I would ever get there.
I felt like I could do something, but I just wanted to finish too. “This stadium and crowd are amazing and perhaps that was a perfect way to end. “My career has been a bit of an accident, I started the sport just to stay fit, and I've just enjoyed all of it, even the bad bits. “To think I've done any of what I have over the last 13 years, it doesn't seem real to me. “I'll make a decision about the Europeans in the next couple of days because I want to go there and do myself proud.