Sarah Walsh embraces delayed Tokyo Paralympics

19 August 2021

Sarah Walsh embraces delayed Tokyo Paralympics

While the delay to the Tokyo Paralympics, due to the pandemic, has been challenging for many athletes, for long jumper Sarah Walsh it has been an opportunity to make some technical changes, a move which have already shown results this summer.

23-year-old Sutherland athlete Sarah Walsh heads to Tokyo to compete in her fifth consecutive global Para-Athletics meet. As a 17-year-old she debuted in 2015 at the World Para-Athletics championships placing sixth in the leg amputee - T44 long jump. In her Paralympic debut in Rio she was again sixth. She moved closer to the podium at the London 2017 World Para-Athletics championships placing fourth. Those three competitions had seen Walsh improve at each championship from 4.76m to 4.82m and 4.85m in London. She had required a leap of 5.00m in 2017 to have reach the podium.

At the Dubai 2019 World Para-Athletics Championships, the event, now reclassified as T64, saw a major shift in standard. Suddenly 5.00m would ‘only’ have placed seventh. Walsh, now 21, was up for the challenge in Dubai starting the competition with a distance of 5.03m and in the fifth round nailing an Oceania record of 5.20m. In a dramatic competition, Japan’s Maya Nakanishi moved from third to first in the last round, as Walsh placed third – her first global medal.

The world championships in 2019 were held late in the year, which was going to be a challenge for many athletes aiming to take time for a build up to the Tokyo Paralympics. Then in March 2020 came the news the Games would be delayed. This was an opportunity for Sarah Walsh.

“The postponement of the games gave us a huge opportunity to put in some solid strength training in the gym and get a lot stronger which is really important for long jump and with strength comes more speed which is also really important,” said Walsh.

But coach Matt Beckenham and Walsh also had another plan – a technical change which can take years to refine.

“We also used the delay in the games to change my jumping technique which we wouldn’t have been able to do successfully given the short turn around time from World Championships 2019 to the original games date. We added more distance to my long jump run up and changed my jumping technique to a hitch style jump which definitely challenged my brain in the beginning but now has proven to be really beneficial and helped a lot with distances.”

The efforts of coach and athlete were evident last summer with a series of personal bests by Walsh highlighted by an Oceania and Australian record of 5.49m in March 2021. But the event has also made progress and Walsh travels to Tokyo as the equal fifth ranked athlete along with reigning world champion, Japan’s Maya Nakanishi.

After a training stint on the Gold Coast Walsh travelled to Cairns last week to continue her preparations.

“It’s been nice to have some warmer weather and get used to similar conditions for Tokyo. We are just putting the final bits together in training for Tokyo with only a couple of weeks to go but everything is coming together. I leave for Tokyo on August 20th and then my comp is on the 28th so will be good to get a few days in the village before comp starts to settle in.”

The Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science student won’t have coach Beckenham in Tokyo, but Athletics Australia is prepared for these circumstances.

“Matty isn’t coming to Tokyo but we are so lucky to have access to technology these days where jumping videos can be sent to him straight away for feedback and he is always checking in on all sessions to see how things are going.”

An experienced campaigner these days, Walsh has good reason to be positive and confident in the lead up to the Games.

“We have put in a lot of hard work over the past few years and now just have to trust our processes in the final couple of weeks.”

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Image: Sarah Walsh (courtesy of David Tarbotton)