Dale gets shock call-up

Monday 21st July 2008, 2:30PM BST.

DALE GARLAND has put his summer hols on hold – he is off to the Olympics. The Guernsey athlete got the shock call that he was in the Great Britain 4×400 relay squad, just five minutes before he boarded a plane to return home.

He could scarcely believe it. ‘I thought it was all over,’ he said a few hours after receiving the surprise call from John Trower, head of UK athletics’ sprints and relays.

‘I’d expected a call either way, but expected it to say that’s it, you’re not in.’

On the contrary, Trower told him he was the sixth and last man in and said that his selection was perhaps down to ‘Guernsey luck’ and his excellent run for the GB team at the European Cup in Annecy, when he was second quickest of the British quartet.