Dai Greene
DOB: 11/4/86 Events: 400m hurdles Medals: European, Commonwealth and World Champion Flag: GBR
By Emma Bird
Last Updated: 25/07/12 3:52pm
Dai Greene hopes to claim the only title that eludes him when the 2012 Olympics arrive in London-full of confidence after his stunning victory at the World Championships in Daegu.
The Welsh 400m hurdler, who played for Swansea City's youth team until his late teens, proved to the world that he is a force to be reckoned with after overtaking a strong field in the home straight in South Korea.
Having only taken up athletics in his late teens, Greene turned down a professional football contract with Swansea after he contracted Osgood Schlatter disease, a common cause of knee pain in young athletes.
Greene then moved to Cardiff to be coached by Benke Blomqvist and began to taste success on the junior athletics circuit in 2005.
The following year, he competed in his first senior tournament, the 2006 European Athletics Championships, however he failed to progress beyond the heats with a run of 50.66 seconds.
The Swansea Harrier then relocated to the University of Bath in 2009, allowing him to be coached by veteran coach Malcolm Arnold.
Although Greene competed for Team GB at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, he was only able to finish 7th in the men's 400m hurdles final.
It was during the 2010 season that Greene set the scene ahead of the recent World Championships in Daegu. In July he won Gold at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona. He then added to this in October, taking the Commonwealth title in Delhi.
His most impressive performance though was in September 2010, at the Continental Cup in Split, Croatia. Greene clocked the fastest time since the days of Ed Moses, beating Bershawn Jackson and Puerto Rican Javier Culson in 47.88sec.
This time meant that the Welsh athlete ventured to within 0.06sec of the British record set by Kriss Akabusi at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.
