Jamie Baulch - Athletics Career

Athletics Career

Jamie made his debut for the GB & NI team at a Junior International in Salamanca, Spain, in 1991, winning the 200m and breaking the Welsh record in that race. Baulch then changed his distance preference becoming a 400 metres specialist. Baulch particularly excelled at running the distance indoors (where races are usually run on 200m tracks rather than outdoor tracks which are 400m long). He won the 400m gold medal at the World Indoor Championships in 1999, and also claimed silver and bronze medals at the event in 1997 and 2003.

Baulch was a member of the British 4 x 400m relay team which finished second in the 1997 World Championships. However on 7 January 2010, it was announced the British team are to be awarded the gold medal as they were beaten by a United States team which included Antonio Pettigrew, who subsequently admitted to having taken performance-enhancing drugs, thus disqualifying the US team. Baulch received his World Championship gold medal in May 2010 and, although he was happy, he said: "It would have been great to have been in front of 80,000 people up on the rostrum...nothing can replace that. This is a second best unfortunately, but it's nice to be recognised".