From ballet to bronze ... with naked ambition!
BRITAIN’S 2-year wait for a medal made her success a surprise.
But it is Sophie Hitchon’s transformation from ballet dancer to hammer star that made her bronze yesterday even more extraordinary.
After ten years’ dance training, dreaming of becoming a professional, she hung up her tutu and picked up the hammer when an athletics club said no one else would do it.
And the 25-year-old from Burnley is proud of her resulting physique, after training hard twice a day, five days a week, with an estimated one-and-ahalf-million throws.
Stripping off for Women’s Health magazine last year, pictured above, she said: ‘I love my big thighs. I wouldn’t be able to pick up a hammer without them. I put blood, sweat and tears into building them up.’
While this show of strength may seem a world away from the delicate poise of ballet, Miss Hitchon credits her dance experience with helping her perform under pressure. Despite being fifth going into her final attempt yesterday, she kept her composure and threw 74.54m – securing her place in the top three and breaking her own national record by 70cm.
Her coach, Swedish former Olympian Tore Gustafsson, jumped for joy when the bronze was confirmed.
‘I could never do this without him,’ Miss Hitchon said afterwards. ‘He’s stuck by me through times when I was ready to not do it any more … He comes over to the UK for the whole season. He’s not been home and he has three daughters … thank you to him for everything he’s given up.’
She had edged into the final, 11th out of 12 qualifiers. ‘I was just thinking this is it – just do what I’ve done in training again and again and again,’ she told the BBC.
Britain’s last hammer medal was won in 1 24 by Malcolm Cuthbert Nokes, who was awarded the Military Cross in the First World War, and became a nuclear scientist in Iran.