Managing the moment: Zoe Hobbs is in control
There are pressures but it’s just part of sport and it helps elevate me, if anything.
Zoe Hobbs
In the past year, Zoe Hobbs has been on a meteoric rise, but she knows achieving a personal best time in every race isn’t attainable.
It’s the ability to manage expectations that sets her apart as New Zealand’s fastest woman.
Hobbs (Nga¯ ruahine) has had a crazy past 12 months and though proud of her fast-tracked success, the 26-year-old admits that it’s been fullon.
In 2023, Hobbs — now an eight-time 100m sprint national champion — shattered her personal and national records five times, achieving a historic 10.96 second run at the Resisprint International meet in Switzerland. She qualified for her first Olympic Games and became the first woman from Oceania to break the 11-second barrier in the 100m. And, if selected for Paris, she’ll be the first female sprinter from New Zealand to do so in almost 50 years.
Reflecting on the year, Hobbs told the Herald: “I’m really proud of what the team has managed to pull together.
“It’s been a lot and really exciting and I think it’s just enabled a lot of momentum moving forward.”
Despite her remarkable success, Hobbs finds herself facing increased pressure.
“Unfortunately, you can’t run PBS [personal bests] all the time, so it’s more just understanding where you are and trusting your preparations.
“There are pressures but it’s just part of sport and it helps elevate me, if anything.”
Before the last year, she would let the uncontrollable — like the conditions on race day — feed into her emotions.
“Conditions can have a massive play on the result. If you’ve got a big headwind, then you’re probably not going to run an overly fast time.
“If you have a tail, then sometimes it’s not clocked as a legal time and, in the past, I used to get quite caught up in all of that.”
Hobbs also pointed out sprinting has a distinctive tension, where athletes spend up to 40 minutes together in the call room, building anticipation before the race.
“It’s quite a unique situation for our sport because you’re sitting in a quiet room with your competitors opposite you and beside you.”
But Hobbs said she’s found recent success by not letting the aforementioned bog her down.
She’s also had to deal with travelling alone overseas for months at a time.
“It can get quite lonely because you’re not in your usual environment,” she admitted. “You don’t have your usual entire team or people around you.”
When she’s home, the Taranakiborn runner finds joy off the track by undergoing house renovations with her partner.
“It’s important to not talk about athletics or be at the track, completely remove myself from that environment and just switch off,” Hobbs said.
She highlighted the regularity of competitions and her focus on 60m races have also been instrumental in her success.
Earlier this month, she made her first global final of her career — missing bronze by 0.01s in the indoor 60m in Glasgow.
She revealed she initially had a few frustrations executing the shorter distance. But after familiarising herself with the event — and using the valuable experience of running three rounds — she knew she had the potential to succeed.
Hobbs said the shorter race had finer margins and there’s less room for error.
“It’s a lot less forgiving. You don’t have the time to make up at the end if you do screw up the start so it really forces us to hone in on some of the more finer details. It’s more of a pressure cooker environment, and having to nail each component of the race.
“There’s more focus on the acceleration phase of what would usually happen over 100 metres.
“It’s just the top-end running that is missing . . . but to come home so strong like I did at the World Indoors was probably the most reassuring part for me.”
Right now, Hobbs is working backwards from the Olympics in July to ensure she’s at her peak.
Hobbs feels being the first Kiwi woman sprinter since Sue Jowett in 1976 in Montreal to compete at the Summer Games is an opportunity to put sprinting on the map in New Zealand.
“Making the Games full stop is a huge achievement and a massive feat and I hope it shows that it is possible,” Hobbs said.
“That alone to me is enough . . . anything else that comes with that is a bonus.” — NZ Herald