Jimisola.com - keepin’ on

Like most of you probably already know my Swedish Outdoor Record over 400m was broken by Johan Wissman at MAI Galan Monday evening. It was not a surprise since Johan already had 20.40 on 200m and 45.77 on 400m (in his first race) this season.

The last couple of days the most asked question have been “Are you upset/sad that you lost your record?”.

The answer is simple: honestly no.

People might get the wrong impression that I don’t care. Having the record is one thing, breaking it something else (and I still have four more records) . Eric Josjö’s 400m record was a classic at that time (almost 20 years old) and I literally chased that record for 2-3 years. Almost every meet, no matter the weather or competitors, was about me beating that record - at least from the media’s perspective. Not many know that it was such a relief when I broke it that I actually cried after the race.

I’ve been following Johan since he was 17 years old or so. I remember when we ran our first dual meet against Finland together. Johan fought hard for his third place further back in the field (I was of course way ahead :)) and we won the triple! We’ve run together in relay teams and against each other individually many times - and I’ve always liked him and his humbleness. He has the physical talent and more importantly - the mindset - to become a real good 400m runner. Not many know what it takes to train for the 400m…

That said, records are meant to be broken. Someone else breaking it does not change my performance and losing it to Johan felt right in way…

It would of course be fun to be healthy and be able to race against him, knowing that my best years have been when other Swedes ran pretty fast as well (thinking of e.g. Magnus Aare and Johan Lannefors) and we pushed each other to better results.