Back on track McCartney’s bumpy recovery
For all the pain of her physical injuries, pole vault sensation Eliza McCartney has also been forced to conquer just as many mental scars on the long and bumpy road of rehabilitation.
The Kiwi track and field star, who has endured a horror run of injuries since exploding onto the international scene with a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, has opened up on the mental battles that accompany those physical injuries.
Speaking on Stuff’s Inside Your Bubble project with Carol Hirschfeld, McCartney has revealed that even athletes at the pinnacle of their sport can suffer from a confidence crisis.
Especially in a year such as McCartney’s 2019 where every time she thought she was back, another injury blow would end her chances of returning to competition.
‘‘It was the toughest year. It kind of just kept getting worse.
‘‘It was as if I had just reached the point where my body was like ‘no, we can’t keep doing this and I don’t want to pole vault and no we’re not going to do this’ and so it was really hard navigating through that and being unsure about what that meant for my future and when I’d ever get back,’’ McCartney said.
The silver medallist at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games said those physical battles would inevitably bring negative thoughts and a lack of confidence despite her incredible run of success in a limited number of international competitions.
McCartney said it was impossible not to have the negative thoughts of ‘‘can I vault, like how do you ever pole vault?’’
‘‘Those thoughts do come into your mind. It’s really, really tough and it’s something that your mind never stops thinking about.
‘‘It’s a really bizarre thing because I’m sure people would look at that and think that’s ridiculous of course you can pole vault but your mind just does these crazy things and it’s really hard to keep doubt out and sometimes you just can’t.
‘‘The mental challenge of overcoming it, it’s just something . . . it’s always going to be hard and I’ll always be working on ways to overcome it.’’
Just like bettering herself as an athlete physically, the 23-year-old knows mental strength always needs to be worked on to become the complete package.
‘‘I don’t feel like mental resilience is naturally my strongest point so it’s something that I’ve always worked on (the) last few years as being really important so it’s not going to change. I’ve just been put through all of these challenges that will hopefully make a big difference one day,’’ she said.
For McCartney, the best way to push those doubts out of her head is to try and remain positive and focus on the small things that are going better than the day before and accumulate those little achievements.
‘‘So I have a little win every day rather than kind of searching for something really big.
‘‘So sometimes that might mean that I got in one more jump or I was able to run just a little bit further.
Despite the almost constant injury struggles since Rio, McCartney has still managed to increase her personal best and achieve more than she thought she could with a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games.
‘‘So it’s not all bad at all.’’ Her latest comeback has been delayed by the Covid-19 outbreak but McCartney hasn’t let that dampen her enthusiasm for training during New Zealand’s lockdown despite her lingering doubt over the Tokyo Olympics going ahead in 2021.
With the world championships being moved to 2022 she hopes the Diamond League circuit may start up again in 2021 and said the worstcase scenario was a major domestic season at home over the 2020/21 New Zealand summer.
Last month, McCartney told Stuff it was a relief when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) finally delayed the Tokyo Games due to the Coronavirus pandemic because of her injury struggles but also to gain clarity of the situation given it was obvious to the athletes it wouldn’t be going ahead in 2020 as scheduled.
For the first time since her professional career began, McCartney will spend a winter at home in New Zealand and she hopes to use that time to her advantage.
‘‘Having the Olympics next year obviously gives me a bit more time because I’ve struggled with injury for a long time so I’m hoping that having an extra 12 months could really help me out if I make good use of that time.’’
She is waiting to learn exactly what level three will look like and if she will have access to an outdoor track but at the minimum, it will allow her to bring equipment such as a pole home to allow her to complete some training drills.
‘‘Even though I’m not pole vaulting, a pole is still helpful to hold and do drills with and to run with,’’ McCartney said,
McCartney struggled with lockdown after the first week but is now at peace with the limited training she can do from home despite a new challenge of going it alone.
‘‘You have to dig in deep sometimes especially when trainings are hard because I’m used to having other people there to kind of push you on a bit and motivate you.’’