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Birth date: |
23/06/1982 |
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| Birth place: |
Barnsley, UK |
| Main discipline: |
Middle Distance |
| © Photo: UK: Athletics |
Coach: |
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© Photo: UK: Athletics |
Sam moved to 800m after competing as a junior 400m international in 2000-01. He improved at 400m from 48.97 in 1999 to 48.20 in 2000, in which he won the Yorkshire U20 and Schools and the English Schools titles and was third (48.40) in the Commonwealth Youth Games, and to 47.7 in 2001. That year he won the Northern U20 title and was 2nd in the AAA U20s before running the third leg on the silver medal-winning 4x400m team at the European Juniors. He ran what remains his 400m best of 47.61 to take 2nd place in the British Universities for Sheffield Hallam (where he studied architecture) in May 2002 and improved steadily at 800m to 1:48.83 in August, having won a slowly-run AAA U23 race.
He won the British Universities 800m in 2003-04 and had a season's bests of 1:48.54 in 2003 and 1:47.86 in 2004, when he also won slowly-run Yorkshire, CAU and Northern races.
He retained Yorkshire and CAU titles in 2005, but, after running much faster to win in 1:47.69 at the Loughborough International, missed the vital mid-season races.He won his third successive CAU 800m title in 2006 (again in a slow race) but was third at Watford in 1:45.67 (taking 2.02 secs off his pb) and has followed this with four 1:47 times, including 1:47.49 for 2nd at the Norwich Union Trials/AAAs to secure selection for the European Championships.
A new personal best and the silver at the AAAs in 2006 secured Ellis a place at the European Championships in Gothenburg. A tactically well run race in the final and a strong finish led him to third place and his first major senior medal. Following on from this he was picked to represent the Great Britain team in the 800m at the Norwich Union International Great Britain v U.S. v Russia v China meeting in Birmingham. In the race Ellis finished third for Great Britain, behind an American and a Russian, with a time of 1:47.98.
Unfortunately Sam spent most of 2007 recovering from a knee injury before returning to action at an indoor meeting in Sheffield where he set a time of 1:17.65 in winning the 600m. So far in 2008 Sam has finished 3rd in the 800m at the Norwich Union Trials & UK Championships in Sheffield and had the same result at the Norwich Union International in Glasgow.
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Personal Records
| Discipline |
Event Date |
Competition |
Venue |
Performance |
| 400m |
03/06/2006 |
BAL Division 1 |
Bedford |
48.23 |
| 600m |
24/11/2007 |
North of England AA Indoor Open |
EIS, Sheffield |
1:17.66 |
| 800m |
10/06/2006 |
BMC/Nike Grand Prix |
Watford |
1:45.7 |
| 1500m |
05/07/2003 |
Northern League Division 2SE |
Grimsby |
4:06.1 |
| 5 Miles |
28/03/2004 |
Wombwell 5 |
Wombwell |
28:06:00 |
| Javelin |
01/05/2004 |
Northern League Division 3EC |
Cudworth, Barnsley |
54.61 |
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