Bradshaw heroics go like clockwork
SLEEPER IN THE TEAM WINS BRONZE
HOLLY BRADSHAW prepared for the Olympics by going to bed at tea time.
Every evening for 10 days before flying to Japan she would go to sleep an hour earlier than the previous one and move her alarm call forward by the same amount.
She called it “time shifting”, gradually adjusting her body clock to Tokyo’s eight-hour difference to counter jet lag.
It meant being tucked up by the start of the six o’clock news the night before she flew out, but it was all part of a masterplan.
And yesterday it paid a rich dividend as she took Olympic pole vault bronze and gave a kiss of life to Britain’s ailing athletics team.
“I had the best preparation coming in and I hope seeing me do well will be inspirational,” said Britain’s best ever pole vaulter. “Watching Keely Hodgkinson the other day certainly inspired me.”
Bradshaw was third on countback, having cleared the same height of 4.85 metres as Anzhelika Sidorova, of the Russian Olympic Committee, while American Katie Nageotte took gold with
4.90m.
Until
Bradshaw,
Britain’s athletes had only Hodgkinson’s 800m silver to show for their efforts. They lay a dismal 24th in the track and field medal table, with their biggest names having been lost to injury or false starts.
The outlook seems altogether brighter after Bradshaw shed her tag as the nearly woman of her sport. Or, as she put it herself, the “Queen of fourth, fifth, sixth.”
Dina Asher-Smith, back running fast six days after injury appeared to have ended her Games, has a strong medal chance in the relay today as part of a quartet that broke the British record and qualified fastest in 41.55secs.
Zharnel
Hughes, disqualified from the final of the men’s 100m, also has an opportunity for redemption after the men’s 4x100m team powered into a final that the USA, unthinkably, failed to reach.
And Laura Muir, albeit up against the might of Sifan Hassan, will take her marks for the women’s 1500m expecting to win a medal.
These chances were there before Bradshaw produced the greatest result of her career, but seeing such a popular team member finally get her reward has had a galvanising effect. “There were definitely times I thought I might walk away from the sport,” said Bradshaw. “The injuries were tough and I put myself under pressure. “I needed to give myself the absolute best chance so I literally spent all my time on my computer working on anything to make my life easier and my mind clearer, less stressed.”
One example was jet lag. Remembering a championship where it had affected her so badly that it ruined her chances, she decided to address it. “It’s hard when your husband wants a Nandos take-out and you have to eat your tea at 5pm,” she said. “I don’t want to be going to bed at 6pm either. But little things can make a big difference.”
They did, as sixth place at London 2012 and fifth in Rio became a glorious third in Tokyo.