Aviva London Grand Prix athletics special
August 2 - 8, 2010 | 47
Sharman’s sporting history THE AVIVA London Grand Prix, taking place on August 13 and 14 at Crystal Palace Stadium, is an event fit for all the family and with so many of our British athletes juggling family and their career on the track, we spoke to 110m hurdler William Sharman on all things athletics and family. “Sport has always been a big part of my family, my uncle was a PE teacher and my dad played second row for Northampton Saints which is pretty cool. As he played before I was born the details I have about his time there are pretty hazy but when we were in Northampton recently we went to look up the newspaper archives in the local library and sure enough there was his name - mentioned on a weekly basis on the sports pages in the local newspapers! “Although my dad played rugby I never did although I really wanted to and so did my brother, we were really keen on getting involved. But my dad always said “wait till next year’’ and the next year would come and again he would say “wait till next year’’; I think he just wanted us to get a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger before he would let us play. But of course, in the mean time, we would do other sports while
FAMILY MAN: Sharman (left) with U.S hurdler David Payne
we waited for ‘next year’ such as athletics - and ‘next year’ never came! It was all a ploy! Although my dad is very sporty my mum isn’t really although I reckon she’s got potential. She’s one of the first people I raced against – to the
front door of my nursery when I was little!
WORLD-CLASS ATHLETE “My brother is also a worldclass athlete and is the brakeman for the GB Bobsleigh
Team. He does a lot of sprint training as part of his training schedule and, as a bobsleigher, he’s pretty quick over 30m on the track, not as quick as me though. I’m too competitive to let him have that victory! We both do a lot of
power based training with weights and some of our track work is similar but we don’t usually have the chance to train together as he lives on a military base at the other end of the country. On occasion he has
come down to Loughborough and joined in with a training session. He joined in on a sprint session recently and because he is used to doing sprint work over very short distances, say 30m or 40m, he didn’t cope too well with the 150m sprints we were doing that day. He came home and just needed to go to bed! “As my brother competes in such far off places such as Switzerland and Lake Placid, it’s very difficult for me to travel out and support him at the competitions so I support him through Eurosport when he’s on the telly! He comes to watch me when I’m competing in Britain and it’s really nice to have him there. “I’ve got a little boy who is 11-months-old now who is already very strong and fast at crawling. He first learned to walk at 10 months and can manage five steps now! Who knows what he’ll end up doing or whether he’ll end up being an athlete. Whatever he chooses to do I’ll support him but I’ll definitely encourage him to get involved in a sport of some description. If he did want to do track and field I’d make sure to get him down to his local club to make lots of friends as it’s a very social sport. The most important thing in the beginning is to have lots of fun – that’s what it’s all about!
CARMELITA JETTING IN TO LONDON CARMELITA JETER may not be either the World or Olympic Champion but following her period of competing in the UK last summer she went on to run the second quickest time in history. America’s Florence Griffith-Joyner set the current World Record in 1988 and remarkably, until last year, the five fastest all-time records were set before the turn of the century. But buoyed by the news that Jeter believes she is in the form of her life, she admits she is as excited as her fans to see what damage she can do to that long-standing record. “You know what I’m hoping to see something special from myself. My training has been going so well and I’m not usually a person that gets caught up in how well you train because sometimes you can go to a meet and just flop, but my training has been going so well that I’ve never had training sessions where John Smith (her coach) is just looking at me with nothing to say,” said the 30-year-old.
“He’s just honestly been looking at me speechless because he’s got nothing to say to me right now which is kind of scary because I’m like ‘say something’ and he’s all ‘well what do you want me to say to this, I can’t say anything’. So, I want to know what the clock is going to say, I’m a little exited myself to see what the clock is going to say. “I love the Aviva meets because I always run so well at your guys’ meets. Every meet I’ve been contracted to run in Britain I’ve always run well.” “I love racing against my main rivals, I love the challenge. I love to line up with the best and you know, they might come one day with their A-game and I’m always going to come with my A-game. I’m loving the rivalry that we’re having, which is a friendly rivalry. “It’s good for the sport and it’s good for women’s sprints because we hear a lot about the Asafa’s and
EXCITED: Jeter
Tyson Gay’s and the Bolt’s, but its’ about time for the Jeter’s and the Veronica Campbell’s to have the big impact on the sport. “I like to see that we have a little limelight on the meet because you know, you have to have the women’s 100m! We bring something to the crowd also so I’m definitely liking how the Diamond League is putting interest on us as well and put us in the spotlight as well.” Jeter has put in impressive per-
formances throughout the Samsung Diamond League, most recently at the Monaco meet where she took first place, cementing her position at the top of the women’s 100 metres table and being marked as the first person throughout the new league to win their Diamond Race in their respective discipline. If the American runs as fast as she thinks she is capable of then the limelight will undoubtedly come shining, just in time for the London
Olympics, for which she has high aspirations. “I’ve been fortunate to win every time I’ve been to London - me coming to London now for 2012 is definitely given me that ‘grrr’, to know that the Olympics is there. I missed out on the team in 2008 so me coming to London now is actually a big deal for me because I want to be there for 2012 so this is pretty much my role for going to London because I’m not missing out on 2012!”