Mighty Thoirs brings the thrills and thunder
ASELF-CONFESSED adrenaline junkie sporting a super-bling ring big enough to choke a gannet. Jax Thoirs isn’t your average one-dimensional athlete.
But when it comes to competition? The big man with the ultra-chill attitude straight from the West Coast — that’s West Coast of the USA, not Scotland – is absolutely, definitely, 100 per cent all business.
The country’s leading pole vaulter, having missed out on a medal by the narrowest of margins at Glasgow 2014, heads to the Gold Coast for next spring’s Commonwealth Games determined to make amends.
In the meantime, he’s happy doing things his way. Entirely prepared to accept the odd looks of compatriots baffled by his hefty hunk of NCAA Championship jewellery.
Yes, he may admit that the American tradition of awarding digit adornments in lieu of medals is a little daft. But he’s going to brazen it out. At least for a while.
The former University of Washington star will also continue to do things — a ten-metre cliff dive being just one example — that probably leave his coach, physio and sports psychologist jabbering with bemusement and frustration.
Now that he is studying psychology himself, having enrolled at Glasgow Caledonian University after moving his training base from Seattle back to Scotland, Thoirs could probably explain his need for madcap stunts and extreme sports in clinical detail.
What it probably boils down to, though, is that the 24-year-old just loves to go higher, faster, further than is technically possible. Not the worst character traits for someone who regularly flings himself over something bigger than a double-decker bus.
‘I went sky-diving last year,’ revealed Thoirs. ‘That was pretty fun. It was in Seattle. Well, an hour’s drive from there. It was a beautiful day. I did that with my … well, ex-girlfriend now!
‘I do stuff like that. We go to the Falls of Falloch, which is an hour away from Glasgow, and jump in. It’s like a ten-metre cliff and we jump off that into the water. It’s pretty fun.
‘And we’re always trying to do stupid gymnastics-type stuff in training to get the heart rate going.
‘Is there anything I’ve been talked out of? I’m trying to think. I’m not going to do anything where there’s a really high chance of injury.
‘But show me something and there’s a good chance I’ll want to try it. I think I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so it’s about going high up in the air. I get a thrill out of it.
‘For the most part, I’ve been getting higher and higher. The higher you go, the more of the thrill it is.’
Having finished joint third in the last Commonwealth Games, jumping exactly the same height as the bronze medal winner but denied a podium placing on count-back, Thoirs admitted: ‘I want to get some redemption next year.’
Until then, he can always gaze at that heavy-duty knuckle duster awarded for beating all-comers in the ultra-competitive American university championships last year.
Displaying a fine grasp of US trash talk as well as some solid Scottish embarrassment, Thoirs said: ‘Yeah, I’ve got my national championship ring. Normally people don’t wear them. But I just thought: “I’ll be a douche and just do it!” It was for my national championship win. I got it a couple of weeks ago, so I’m going to sport it for a couple of months.
‘People have taken notice of it. It’s pretty obvious. I think they look at it and think I won the Super Bowl or something.’
It, erm, certainly catches the eye. As does Thoirs himself, when pounding down that runway and performing whatever trickery it takes to clear the bar.
Should he do that consistently enough to win a medal on the Gold Coast, nobody would mind if he wore the gong around his neck for a very long time. Just maybe not while cliff diving.