by Stuart WeirThis piece was written about Reece Prescod, one of Team GBRs’ finest sprinters, by Stuart Weir. I like Reece, and Stuart introduced him to me in Birmingham indoor. This piece was written prior to the British Champs and & Trials (June 24-26, 2022), and I got behind. Stuart updated (in bold) at the bottom. I felt that you needed to get into Reece’s mind and his painful, but an important reassessment of himself. All athletes can learn from Reece’s experience.
Reece Prescod
When Reece Prescod ran 9.93 (PR) at Ostrava, it was a significant moment. Everyone knew he was a talented world-class sprinter. He has been GB champion twice. He was a finalist in the 2017 World Championships. He took silver in the 2018 European Championships with 9.96 and also ran a legal 9.94 and a windy 9.88 that year. The Ostrava 9.93, incidentally was also into a headwind!
In Tokyo last year he false-started in the Olympic semi-final. His assessment was: “I think at the time, mentally, I wasn’t in a good place. Looking back on last year I felt that all sorts of things were going wrong, injuries, etc. I was trying to keep going but not having had a solid block of training. When I got to the Olympics, with hindsight I wasn’t really ready. All the pressure got the better of me. Later in the summer, I ran a PB in the 200 (20.30). My coach, Marvin Rowe, said “go and have fun with it. You haven’t run a 200 in years.” And he went out and ran a PR!
At the end of the season, he and Marvin sat down and reviewed the year: “what went well, what didn’t, what am I weak at. We made a plan for 2022 – and a three, four-year plan. It felt like a new start, a re-brand as if I was starting from the bottom again.
“I look at the Power of 10 rankings like the [English] Premier League [Soccer]. At the moment I feel like West Ham (seventh) and I need to get into the top four and then hopefully get the top spot in the UK in both 100 and 200. But then it’s Champions League – competing against the big boys around the world. I feel I’m fighting to get back to where I was before. Starting with smaller meets almost like back to under the 20s if that makes sense. I feel it’s getting better every race”.
Reece spent time in the USA, working with Mike Holloway in Florida but is now back in London, where training is going well. “I’ve had a good run of three, four months training with no injuries and no niggles which means that I started the season in a much better place than last year. I’m just trying to chop away at times and see where that takes me. I spent three months in Texas but I think America is not the place for me and that I work better in a team that I know in the place where I know. I’m training at Lee Valley, North London”.
As he looks ahead to the GB Championships and Trials this week, he said: “I came fifth last year which wasn’t the best. I need to get the standard and make the team for the champs. It’s a slow burner but I think I’m going in the right direction. People used to say ‘is he injury prone and not stable enough to do both events?’ but I’ve worked on that in the winter. I’ve done a 100 and also a 200, which people often say is my best event”. He added that he was open-minded about the busy season of Worlds, Commonwealth and Europeans: “I might do 1, I might do two – I might do a relay”. The relay comment is interesting as Prescod has opted out of relays in the past to concentrate on individual events.
In a press briefing a month or two back, Reece shared how he had struggled with an addictive personality – eating a diet of fast food and spending hours on computer games. He said: “I’m more focused now. I no longer have my PlayStation [PS5] – getting rid of it, that was a sad day. I was having too much delivery fast food. Now I am working more on recovery, going to wellness centers, and using recovery techniques. In the past, my addictive personality has taken away from those things but now I think my wellness is beginning to show. I asked myself was I playing PS because I enjoyed it or because I was upset with everything else? Was I eating and playing as a reaction? I have started using prep kitchen [a healthy meal prep service] for my food. So it’s a case of improving every single area of my life, slowly.
He continued: “100%. I had to be humble and start again. I look back and the times when I was traveling the world to Diamond Leagues, racing every week in different places. I feel that now I have to reset the wheel but I feel that I’m learning a lot about myself on this journey. I have been using psychology and seeing a doctor and a therapist as well, to keep my mental health going to make sure I’m in the right place. I don’t think I can just sweep Tokyo under the carpet. I had to deal with the baggage from that and understand what it was. I am learning to use techniques to help deal with the pressured environment. It’s the compound effect, that extra 1%, and understanding what I need to do before each race to make sure I’m ready for it.
“Things are getting better but I’m not disheartened with my performances so far [speaking before the 9.93]. Marvin is building a stronger, more robust Reece so that when it comes to the championships with round after round, that is what I have to be ready for. For me, it’s just about remembering my goals and being ready. Now I got a solid team, I’m eating better, sleeping better, my mind is better so if all these things are better, then my performance should be getting better”.
Recalling the golden year of 2018, mentioned above, he said: “Berlin 2018 looked like the beginning of a golden age but it hasn’t happened. Back in 2018, I thought I would be getting medals in the next couple of years but that isn’t the reality. I had to deal with a major injury, reset and then start again. Then I picked two bad coaches – not bad coaches – but bad coaching setups for me. I had to find a new coach and stabilize. Going back to the football analogy, if a team has a bad run of results and they change the head coach it takes a bit of time but then season after season they perform well. So we must not panic but take some accountability. I am 26 and I’ve got probably one more cycle to go – six years at most. The talent is still there and I’ve just got to bring the best out of myself.”
Reece Prescod noted: “Last year was tough and I wasn’t really happy with it. The aim now is to be free of all that. I was dealing with the pressure of being a young talent and then not fully progressing”.
His last word was: “The message is: watch this space, be patient with me and we’ll see how things go and the next few months”.
The 9.93 was certainly an indication that he is moving in the right direction. He ran 9.94 (with a +2.5 wind) at the GB Championships last month but had to settle for second place, surprisingly beaten by Jeremiah Azu. He was second in Stockholm on 10.15. One feels that Oregon 2022 will be a significant championship for Reece.
