Italian job for Buck (From Gazette & Herald)

Italian job for Buck

RISING athletics star Richard Buck is to speed into an Italian job that could yield a place in the world junior championships.

The 400-metre specialist - he was unbeaten in all his one-lap outings throughout 2003 - has been selected as part of the Great Britain 'world potential athletes (under-20s) team', which this weekend jets out for Tuscany.

The team's destination is a special training camp at Grizeto where, for ten days, the cream of Britain's young athletes will familiarise themselves at the very venue for the world junior championships in July.

The 17-year-old Buck, who is rated as the UK number one at 400 metres, for the under-17 class, and tenth in the seniors, will be accompanied to Italy by his grandfather Geoff Barraclough, who is also the talented teenager's coach.

On his return from Italy, Pickering-based Buck, who is a member of the Nestle Rowntree Athletics Club, will prepare for the county championships to be held at Sheffield on May 16-17.

If he continues the impressive form he displayed in 2003, during which he captured the AAA's under-17s national crown as the fourth all-time fastest Brit in that age group, he will surely be on track to make a return trip to Italy, when the world championships call in the summer.

Updated: 11:34 Wednesday, April 07, 2004