Garland at a loss over his form in Doha

Wednesday 17th March 2010, 2:29PM GMT.

Dale Garland puts the watch on a youngster competing at yesterday’s AFM Super 6s indoor athletics final at Beau Sejour. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0933584)

AN UNEXPLAINED poor 400m performance in the IAAF World Indoor Championships cost Dale Garland a place in the bronze medal winning Great Britain relay team.

The Sarnian, who represented Britain at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was selected for the national side to compete in the 400m individual race and the 400m relay in Doha at the weekend

But a sub-standard run of 48.26sec. in the 400m heats on Saturday morning not only saw Garland fail to qualify for the semi-finals, but also led to him being dropped from the British relay team who picked up the bronze on Sunday.

Back in the Bailiwick yesterday, Garland was an incredibly disappointed man.

‘I should be sitting here a world medallist, but I’m not,’ he said.

‘My performance in the individuals was down a lot on what I expected. It was one-and-a-half seconds slower from what I ran a few weeks ago. The team management looked at it and dropped me from the relay.’