One coach said I’m too heavy for high jump
As a female athlete, you are subject to specific pressures – but I ignore comments on physique
There are so many pressures with just six months until Tokyo, especially as a young athlete. Right after Rio 2016, I moved to Loughborough University to study psychology, and there have had so many times where I have be sitting doing work these past few months thinking, why am I doing this to myself in an Olympic year?
I like having a distraction, though, and being at university, it is just the pressures of exams – which every student feels anyway – alongside the pressures of the indoor season being two weeks away. Luckily, I do not have any summer exams this year. I have deferred them because I want to focus on training, competing and achieving my 2020 goals.
I had my last exam on Tuesday and even on Sunday I was like, I just want to chill. High jump is quite a mental event, so you cannot just get your miles done and go and revise. Uni work was one of those things just niggling away at you, so I think that adds pressure on top of trying to get to the Olympics.
It definitely took a lot out of me that I did not realise until I finished this week, but now I am excited to get my season under way.
The pressure as a young woman in sport can also be big. I have heard of other coaches saying to female athletes that one of the reasons for bad performances sometimes is your weight, whereas with a guy their weight is one of the last things they focus on.
In 2015, I was at the World Championships and a highjumping coach from another country asked if I was going to do high jump long-term or stick to heptathlon. I said I would be sticking to heptathlon, as that was the plan at the time, and he said, “That’s good, because you’re too heavy to be a high jumper.”
It was crazy. I had become world junior high jump champion the year before and I was there competing in high jump, but because my body was different he said I could never be a high jumper.
That really hit me, because I was only 18 at the time. When I got into high jump afterwards, I was a bit more self-conscious, thinking I have got to change, I cannot be carrying this same weight.
Luckily I do not think about that any more. I have got these muscles, done all this work, why would I throw that away because of one comment from someone who does not know anything about me?
Another big pressure I find is social media. The fact you can see what the other athletes are doing, you feel an obligation to show what you are doing. Tenerife is one of the big places for warm-weather training – apparently in January it was swamped, but I did not go because of exams. Every group from around the world seemed to be at that one track. It is like athlete FOMO [fear of missing out].
It is trying not to get too absorbed in it. I think back to my old days training, as when I was younger I would never have looked at what people were doing, social media was not a thing. I did fine then, so I do not need to be looking around – I need to trust in me and my coaches doing the right work.
My set-up completely changed over the summer. I went back to being coached by my dad, who coached me for Rio. Though I got a personal best every year since 2016 and made improvements, I was not enjoying it and me and my old coach had a bit of a disagreement about some training elements, so I made the call to go back to an environment that I know works for me. In 2020, I am looking to find the joy in the sport again – when I am happier, I jump better.
I needed a fresh start going into an Olympic year. Now I am back living with my parents, and that is weird after four years away. With my dad coaching me, it is a lot of training chat at home – but it is not as bad as when I was younger. Now I can say, “Right, put on your different cap when you’re home.”
My psychology degree has helped me understand myself better. It has been useful, even though I tried to steer away from the sports psychology modules. A lot about visualisation and mental rehearsal can aid in competitions.
I think everyone’s in the same boat, looking ahead to Tokyo. It is coming so soon. No one really knows who is actually going yet, so you have just got to get your head down and get the work done.