The 2010 European Athletics Championships gold medallist Kevin Borlée will team up with his twin brother Jonathan in a bid to bring Belgium it’s first 4x400m men’s relay medal in the history of the European Athletics Indoor Championships.
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| European 400m champion Kevin Borlee of Belgium. |
“We will be in the team that will contest the 4x400m relay at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris. The target we have is nothing less than the title,” said Kevin in Brussels last week, as he picked up the Golden Spike award for being Belgium’s top male athlete in 2010.
Triple jumper Svetlana Bolshakova, the bronze medallist in Barcelona last summer, took the women’s Golden Spike award while Jonathan Borlée, Europe’s fastest man over one lap of the track last year with the 44.71 he clocked in the European Athletics Championships semi-finals, took the Silver Spike.
Together, the twins won bronze medals – along with Arnaud Destatte and Cedric Van Branteghem - in the 4x400m relay at the 2010 European Athletics Championships. Earlier in the year, the pair were part of Belgium's 4x400m relay team that also won the silver medals at the World Indoor Championships.
“In addition, at the Flanders Indoor Meeting in Ghent, (on 13 February) the pair of us will attack the indoor world record in the 600m,” added Kevin.
The 600m indoor world best stands at 1:15.12 and has belonged to Germany’s Nico Motchebon since 1999.
If one of them goes under Motchebon’s mark, a Belgian phone company has promised that all proceeds from people texting the word ‘record’ to a specific number will be donated to a children's hospital.
Nevertheless, Kevin Borlée claims life hasn't changed since he upset the odds and beat his brother to the European title although the pair's performances in 2010 and their increasing popularity, both in Belgium and across Europe, have attracted a raft of sponsors.
They now have 12 commercial partners who are helping them in their training and competition schedules ahead of the London Olympics in 2012.
The Borlées returned from Stellenbosch in South Africa last week, along with their father and coach Jacques, after an intensive period of conditioning, 45 sessions in 33 days.
However, neither of the Borlée twins will compete in the individual 400m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships next month, which will be held across the border in Paris from 4-6 March.
'Three races in three days with a relay final on top, would be too intense. The season is long and the focus is also on the World Championships in Korea in the summer,' said Jacques Borlée.
'Let's not forget they are only 22 years old and still need to develop strength and body. We don't want to blow up the engine,” added the athlete’s father and coach.