by Stuart Weir
Redemption or just moving on
At the Paris Olympics, two British athletes in their first Olympics, saw their hopes go up in smoke. Jeremiah Azu, a potential finalist in the 100m, false started and his individual Olympics was over (he did gain a relay medal). Pole-vaulter, Molly Caudery entered 2024 with a PR of 4.75 and then during the year passed 4.80 nine times, including a 4.92). Yet when it came to Olympic Games qualifying round she recorded three failures – a no mark.
Speaking to both athletes this week before and after the World Indoors, it was interesting to see how the two processed their Paris heartache.
Molly talked honestly about the heartache of Paris and the criticism from the armchair critics that she had come in too high. “Paris was no anomaly. There was no reason I should have come in earlier. Knowing what we now know, maybe I would have taken the bar before, but I don’t think that would have made a difference. I just wasn’t rolling the poles through. I don’t think the actual height of the bar would have made a difference. I know what I can jump. So, no, I probably won’t change anything. I don’t think it really was down to anything. Probably on average, I may have ‘no height’ once a year, or most athletes may have ‘no height’ once a year or once every two years. And mine just happened to be in the biggest competition of my life. It’s not ideal, but what can I do now? I think all I can do is learn from it and not let it happen again. I’ve spoken to my coach a lot about it, and we can’t put it down to much more than it was a bad day to have a bad day, which is unfortunate. I don’t really have any excuses for it, but it was a good learning experience, and I’ve kind of moved on”.
She also explained something that many people – like me – don’t instantly get about balancing getting over the bar and preserving energy: “It’s finding a balance. I would love to attempt five meters this year. To get to five meters, if I come in at four metres, then there’s going to be 10 bars to go through. I know that’s extreme but if I come in at 4.50, then it’s probably only five bars. So there’s finding the sweet spot is important. I’m not someone who’s going to come in at 4.70. That is too high. But around that 4.50 mark is comfortable for me. And as long as I don’t do anything really crazy, like I may have in Paris, it should be fine. Like I said, that was an unfortunate anomaly. Besides that, I’m pretty confident in my abilities”.
In Paris, Jeremiah Azu, spoke of frustration: “I just reacted to a sound, the fans in the Stadium who were super excited, you know, it’s the Olympic Games and I’ve heard something, and I’ve just reacted.
I asked to run under protest as I am sure if we put a protest in it would go through. They said ‘no you have to get off the track’ but if the protest won, I would have to come back and run by myself.”
Speaking about the incident six months on (from China) he said: “It’s gone, it’s never going to come back. It’s happened for me. Of course it’s part of my story now and something I’ve got to live with. But for me it’s like I wouldn’t say I’m happy or not happy about it, it’s something that happened. It’s something I can use to get better and move on from it. I can’t change what’s happened. I’m always a person that’s said I’m not someone who will changing my past or my history”.
To go to the European Indoors and win a gold medal and then go to the Worlds and win another one is all he could do – and he did it!
Molly Caudery too has bounced back from Paris. She came fourth in the World Indoors, clearing the same height as the silver and bronze medalists. She said she was disappointed and frustrated with what had happened in China (the hour’s delay when the bar-raising mechanism failed) but was not going to beat herself up about it. The right approach.
We don’t get a lot of poetry in RunBlogRun but I give the last word to Rudyard Kipling:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
From If by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
