Matt Bowser's 2012 ambition is "alive and well" despite slumping to one of the worst performances of his career on Sunday. The Lincoln man - who the BBC think won the European title in 2006 - quit the sport at the end of last summer in mysterious circumstances and still faces a misconduct hearing at UKA over a missing Garmin. Having come out of retirement "with 2012 in mind", Bowser stormed to victory in Thursday's Armagh 5k leaving a stunned Johnny Mellor asking "whether he had completed the entire distance". However, his comeback appeared to have stalled on Sunday as he was well beaten in the 3,000m - struggling to a miserable 8:18 clocking.
"You see what happened was" explained Bowser "when I was on the way to the race my three wheel van broke down. I was then forced to steal a mobility scooter from an old aged pensioner and all this before I had even left the end of my street." The 5k star then recounted how he had "driven the scooter into the ground" but only got half a mile closer to Sheffield. Fortunately he had also snatched the old lady's hand bag and so had enough money to pay for a cab - to Manchester. "I figured that the race was there" said a bemused Bowser "I then had to get a plane to Madrid, which is in France I believe. Then I got a plane to New York, then London and got a train to Sheffield from there - it was a nightmare."
Bowser arrived "just 6 minutes before the start" having only had a warm of "twelve miles" from the train station. "Given the circumstances and the fact that I was tired from Armagh, I'm not too disappointed" he said "I am still very much in the running for 2012".