Former Olympic 400m champion Jeremy Wariner has his sights set on the London Games after recovering from a toe ligament injury that forced him out of last year’s World Championships. Wariner anchored his Central Texas All Stars squad to victory in the 4x400m relay at the Texas Relays meeting Saturday in 3min 1.54sec, and said afterwards that his left foot was feeling fine. Wariner already has three Olympic golds — the 2004 Athens solo 400m, and the 4x400m relays in Athens and Beijing 2008 — as well as the individual 400m silver in 2008. He is gearing up for the US Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, in June. He tore a ligament in a toe last year which forced him out of the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. “It was best for me to stop,” Wariner said. “It hurt to do that. I wanted to run worlds but I was looking at the long run, and the long run for me right now is to get back and get ready for the Olympics.” Wariner, who has not won a major international 400m title since the 2007 World Championships, plans to run his first individual 400m of the season at a meeting at Texas State University next week. “The last few years I’ve been kind of taking it easy and trying to get ready at the last second. This year we wanted to start a little earlier and just get going,” he said. Women’s 400m specialist Sanya Richards-Ross, like Wariner coached by Clyde Hart, won the 100m in a wind-aided personal best of 10.98sec. She then anchored her 4x400m relay squad to victory. She said her strong 100m showing was a good indicator that her 400m training is on course. “I know whenever my speed is on, the 400 gets easier for me, so I’m just really excited about the rest of the season,” she said.
