ATHLETICS Outlook bright for Sharp after change in fortune
After such a bumpy ride, a smooth start to 2015 has Lynsey ready to take on the world
AN odd thing has happened to Lynsey Sharp since the latter part of 2014. Things have started going to plan. For a start, the foot injury which caused her to miss just about all of 2013 — and for which she had to undergo two operations — healed by itself, meaning she avoided having to see the surgeon’s scalpel for a demoralising third time.
So rather than having to spend half her winter enduring the drudgery of yet another comeback, the woman whose motto of ‘Get out strong, commit’ drove her to a silver medal at Glasgow 2014 against the odds and won her so many admirers in the process last summer, was able to plan and carry out her ideal training programme instead.
As someone who has had to deal with a myriad of problems throughout her career thus far, it was the most welcome — and significant — of developments.
As an 800metres runner, the 25-year-old might not have to tackle the hurdles in her chosen discipline, but she does always seem to find significant obstacles being placed in her path.
Be it drug cheats denying her a lap of honour and the top spot on the podium, her own team-mates appealing her selection for the Olympics, that foot injury which meant she raced last year with a plaster covering an open wound, or the illness which almost denied her a shot at Commonwealth glory, this young Scot has had to fight every lung-busting step of the way.
Now, with this year’s World Championships in Beijing to come in August and the Rio Olympics less than 500 days away, it’s tempting to wonder just what the European silver medallist might be able to achieve if she manages to stay injury, illness and incident-free.
Given what’s gone before, there were no chickens being counted when Sharp sat down with Sportsmail in the glorious surroundings of Cameron House Hotel just when the banks of Loch Lomond were at their most bonnie.
However, there was no mistaking the contented smile on her face when she spoke about the unexpected bonus she received once the clamour of last summer had died down and the autumn leaves were just beginning to fall.
‘Even when I finished the season at the end of 2014, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to need a third operation, so I had to take an extended break,’ she says. ‘I had a good four or five weeks off to see whether my foot would heal itself in that time and, luckily, it did.
‘That meant I didn’t need a third operation. If I’d had to have that I would have been out until at least Christmas time, going into January, which would have meant I’d have had half a winter again.
‘As soon as I knew I didn’t need to have the operation, it gave me an extra two-and-a-half months that I thought I wasn’t going to have.’
So rather than pedalling her way through rehab on an exercise bike, Sharp began her year on a British Athletics training camp — not in Kenya with the nation’s middle distance runners, but in Stellenbosch, South Africa, with the sprinters. Watch the speed she generates in the last 200m of any of her races and you will see exactly why.
‘It was a sprinting and power camp,’ says the Scottish record holder, who will shortly head to Florida as she fine tunes her preparations with US-based coach Terrence Mahon and gets ready to begin racing in May.
‘I didn’t really want to go back to Kenya again so I talked Neil Black (British Athletics performance director) into letting me go back to South Africa. It worked last year!
‘It’s an amazing place to train — we were there for just under four weeks this year and I think we’re going to try to do six weeks next year, because obviously with Rio it’s a big year, so I’ll be trying to get everything right.’
There’s a long sigh, a pause, and a temporarily distant look out of the window as she contemplates how she might have coped if her foot had not decided to play the healing game this time. This is an athlete whose love of the sport — and her job — is clear. Having been denied time on the track for so much of last year, when she did get back to racing, she ran herself to a standstill.
‘I kept racing, which I hadn’t really done before,’ she says about the aftermath of her silver medal-winning performances in Glasgow and then at the European Championships in Zurich. ‘Usually after a championships I’m like: “Oh I’m done”. But just because I’d enjoyed the year so much and I’d missed racing, I just wanted to carry on.
‘Every race I did, I thought: “This is going to fall apart at some point, I’m going to get to the point where I’m so tired...” and I almost got there. I managed to do Birmingham Diamond League, Brussels, the street race in Newcastle and then the last one was the Continental Cup (in Marrakech) and I was absolutely knackered.
‘Obviously I was representing Europe so it was a big thing — I really, really wanted to do well but I just remember...
‘I always know in the first 100m whether I’m going to run well or not and I didn’t even get that far and I thought: “I don’t know how I’m going to get to the finish!”.
‘I can usually change gear as I go round but I just didn’t have it. I was just so tired by that point but it was so much fun — I just loved racing again.
‘When I was injured and not able to compete or train, it made me realise how much I’d taken it for granted. I think Kat Johnson-Thompson said that when she was back competing indoors that you do take it for granted and you don’t realise how lucky you are to be doing what you’re doing until someone takes it away from you.
‘Then you’re able to see how much it means to you and how much you miss it. In a way it was a blessing in disguise.’
Her stay in the midst of one Scotland’s most beautiful and iconic locations offered a brief chance to relax and take stock, not to mention inspire the junior section of the nearby Helensburgh Amateur Athletics Club with a coaching session. The hero worship tables were turned, however, when the Rangers-daft Sharp was surprised following a Q&A by a bouquet-wielding Walter Smith.
THE foot wasn’t totally taken off the gas, though — a gruelling training session at Scotstoun stadium in Glasgow interrupted the lap of luxury and underlined that matters of business are never far from her mind.
Ask her about what lies ahead and the focus seems nothing other than absolute. Ranked world No 3, this is an athlete operating on a far higher plane than before. She defeated current world and Commonwealth champion — Kenya’s Eunice Sum — twice last year, after all.
‘Even the contrast between the European Championships 2012 and the Europeans last year were massive — I just felt like a totally different athlete,’ enthuses Sharp. ‘I raced like a totally different person as well and now I feel like I deserve to be competing against those girls
and that I can be competitive, whereas in 2012, I almost felt like I was scraping in to making teams or being invited to race. It’s a totally different mindset and I feel like I can be a lot more competitive now.
‘In 2011, I missed the qualifying time for the worlds, 2013 I was injured and missed Moscow, so this will be my first experience of World Championships, hopefully.
‘People often say that it is a higher level than the Olympics, so having already been to the Olympics — which I guess is kind of the special one — it would be nice to be part of a world team and it would be great preparation for Rio. It’s about time I got to go to a World Championships!’
And what if things stop going smoothly? ‘My friends have joked that it’s like I need a crisis,’ she smiles. ‘Stephen Maguire, who was in charge of the Scottish team in Glasgow, he’s now at British Athletics and I phone him up still when I’ve got a crisis and he’ll say: “I’m not responsible for you any more, I’m in sprints”.
‘It’s not so bad now, the whole thing with my foot was hard work but things have gone really smoothly, but no doubt there will be something ... it’s all part of the game.
‘I couldn’t have had a worse preparation (for Glasgow). Now I know that if anything gets thrown at me on race day then I should be able to deal with it.’