George Mills cites 'silly mistakes' leaving his Olympic dream on a knife-edge

George Mills blasted a below-par performance after leaving his Olympic dream on a knife-edge in Paris.

The Harrogate middle distance star, son of former England footballer Danny, failed to progress through his 1500m heat and will have to do it all again in a repechage this evening.

Mills, 25, finished 10th in his race after British teammate and reigning world champion Josh Kerr had breezed to victory in his opening encounter just moments earlier.

Mills cut a dejected figure in the Stade de France media area and took aim at the ‘silly mistakes’ that left his hopes dangling by a thread.

“It was not good enough today,” he said.

“I made very silly mistakes.

“I’ve done it before but I’ve learned from it before, so I have to get the job done tomorrow.

“There was no bad luck today, it just wasn’t good enough. I’ll be ready for the repechage.”

Mills burst onto the scene by winning his first British title at the 2020 UK Athletics Championships.

And three years later, he propelled himself up to third on the British mile all-time list with a time of 3:47.65.

He stormed to European 5,000m silver in Rome earlier this year and is now bidding to emulate that form on the Olympic stage.

But he will need to up his game in the repechage if he is to join Kerr, whose red-hot rivalry with Jakob Ingebrigtsen is one of the stories of the Games here in Paris, in the semi-finals.

Kerr, who picked the pocket of the Norwegian to win a heart-thumping world title in Budapest, donned gold spikes at the Stade de France as he waltzed past the rest of the field to cross the line in splendid isolation.

And the Scot, 26, said: “The goal here was just to stay relaxed and be confident in my fitness and I think I did that today.

“Everyone gets really angsty in these first rounds because of all the build-up, the hype and it’s a big stadium with lots of people, so just made sure I stayed relaxed and when it was time to go, I put the burners on: maybe a little bit too hard.

“I thought everyone was going to be battling with me.

“But I felt exactly how I thought I would, and it was a reassuring thing.”

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