Lake finds her voice in looking to become a role model for Tokyo
The gifted high jumper, one of The Telegraph Eight, is willing to have her say beyond athletics
If something is bothering Morgan Lake, she will have no hesitation about saying so. It is not that the young British high jumper is confrontational – far from it – it is just that she is determined to use her profile to send a positive message.
A quick glance at her socialmedia presence illustrates that this is someone who refuses to trot out sponsor-approved platitudes. Instead subjects as diverse as climate change, prejudice and poaching have all appeared on Lake’s Twitter account over the past few months. As someone who juggles her status as a British Olympian with studying for a psychology degree at Loughborough University, Lake is well practised at learning about a range of different topics.
When we meet to discuss her chances at the World Championships that begin in Doha this month, she is similarly engaging. Naturally Lake, 22, is determined to make good on the enormous potential that brought her two junior world championships gold medals five years ago, but there are also more important issues to discuss.
Take body image, which continues to be an unhealthy preoccupation for those commenting on women’s sport. “A lot of the time in women’s sport, if someone isn’t performing as well a lot of people will say it’s because they’ve put on weight,” Lake says. “They don’t do the same kind of thing for men. With a man they’ll tiptoe around it, try and find every other excuse – whereas a woman they’d say, ‘You looked heavy so that’s why you didn’t jump well’.”
For Lake, jumping well or not should be the focus – and it has been a mixed year in that regard. Having switched from heptathlon to high jump – where she finished 10th in Rio – Lake began this year strongly and equalled the
British indoor record by clearing 1.97m in Hustopece, Czech Republic.
Since then, though, she has struggled for consistency and has been plagued by niggling injuries. She is hopeful that those fitness concerns are behind her, in time for a proper crack at the worlds ahead of the main event at the Tokyo Olympics next year. Retaining her high-jump gold medal at the British Championships last month certainly suggests Lake is back firing. Looking further ahead, Lake has been selected as one of The Telegraph Tokyo Eight, which celebrates the future stars targeting gold in 2020.
Should Lake achieve that sort of glory in Japan then her profile would explode. Either way, she is
‘Sportspeople are scared. They say what they think people wish to hear’
‘The way my dad recovered from a stroke was a huge inspiration to me’
determined to be a positive role model.
“Having a voice is something I’m conscious of,” she says. “Because when I see other athletes tweet about things that are a bit more political and having their opinion about things, I’m more inclined to investigate it.
“I think a lot of issues I probably wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for social media. Because I don’t really watch the news every morning, but to be able to have some time out and see things when I’m online or travelling, I’m like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know anything about that’.
“I think sportspeople are scared of saying the wrong thing in interviews so they just say what they think people want to hear rather than saying what they really believe. So, yeah, it would be nice if people spoke more about these issues.”
Listening to Lake, it is clear how much inspiration she takes from the positive role models in her life. From a sporting perspective she admires female trailblazers such as Serena Williams from afar, while on a more personal level Lake counts Dina Asher-smith, who she has known since their junior days, as a close friend. Asher-smith’s humility after a stellar couple of years has served as a powerful example.
Former Olympic gold medallist Denise Lewis has also acted as a mentor, while going further back it was seeing Kelly Holmes win the 800m and 1500m double in Athens 15 years ago that captured the seven-year-old Lake’s imagination. “That was the moment when I decided I really wanted to be an Olympian,” she says.
The principal source of Lake’s motivation and inspiration though comes from closer to home. She and her father Eldon have always been extremely close – after all he
coached her from childhood in Windsor all the way up to the Rio Olympics.
But in February despite being an extremely fit 50-year-old, he suffered a stroke. Eldon’s progress since has been astounding. Having been unable to walk in the immediate aftermath, he is now healthy and back in the gym.
“His recovery has been absolutely incredible,” Lake says. “The way I’ve seen him recover from not being able to walk to jogging a few weeks later was just such a huge inspiration for me.
“If I think about myself, I only have small changes to get to where I need to be, and seeing what he did in five weeks he’s made it seem completely possible.”
Since her father’s recovery, Lake’s life has settled back to something approaching normality, although it is worth noting that normality for her would seem absurd to most people.
As both a British athlete and psychology student, Lake does much of her revision while on the road and, when at university, shuttles from the lecture theatre to the gym. Her house-mates are also a far cry from the standard combination of geographers, economists and historians – they are all highly promising young athletes, including world junior heptathlon champion Niamh Emerson.
Lake insists though that she thrives on her hectic lifestyle, and believes the hours spent in the library can help with her performances.
“Rather than sports psychology, I focus more on neuroscience and clinical psychology,” she explains. “It’s good to get my mind away from thinking about sport the whole time, and it’s nice to have that balance.”
For now the main focus is on Doha, and then – assuming she qualifies – Tokyo. She laughs thinking about it now, but back on the famous Super Saturday of 2012 when Britain scooped up three track and field golds, Lake was huddled round a tiny TV in Stoke at a junior event trying to catch a glimpse of her heroes.
Seven years on, she is relishing the chance to take centre stage.