Mark Rowland
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| Olympic medal record | |||
| Men's Athletics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | Seoul 1988 | 3.000m Steeplechase | |
Mark Rowland (born March 7, 1963 in Watersfield, West Sussex, England) was a British athlete who was a shock medallist at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Unheralded and unknown both in his own country and globally prior to the Games, the tall and ungainly Rowland came third in the men's Men's 3000m Steeplechase behind the Kenyan competitors Julius Kariuki (gold) and Peter Koech (silver). His time was 8 mins 7.96 seconds, which remains a British record.
Rowland became the eighth and, thus far, final British athlete to pick up a medal in the steeplechase event at the Olympics. His post-race interview at the track-side was famous for his quote:
| “ | I just kept telling myself to dig, dig, dig - and I did it! I've got a bloody medal! | ” |
Two years later, Rowland was beaten to silver in the sprint finish in the same event at the European Championships in Split by the Italian athlete Francesco Panetta, whose victory was all the more remarkable after he had tripped over the first barrier of the race and had to run it from the back.
Rowland's career didn't hit such heights again and, after retiring, he became a coach to many promising young British steeplechasers and is now a highly-respected steeplechase and middle-distance coach for UK Athletics.
