Abi Galpin

Abi Galpin will be racing over her favoured 200m at the start of the meeting tomorrow evening before later running 100m.

Peter Curtis will bring the curtain down on the event, going solo in the 400m hurdles, his first appearance at Footes Lane this year.

Triple jump returns to the agenda for the second time this season and one of those competing will be Holly Drake.

Holly Drake

Holly moved to the island in August to take up a role as a French teacher at Les Beaucamps.

She is already fully absorbed in the club, not only competing in triple and long jump, but also coaching and officiating. Athletics has taken over her life in some ways, but in a good way, she said.

‘I’ve been at three different clubs now,’ she said.

‘And I’d say this is the most cohesive and the best team spirit. Normally, you get groups,  these are the long jumpers, and these are the sprinters, and everybody keeps to themselves. But here, everybody knows everyone. So it’s really nice.’

She began athletics as a 14 year old: ‘when gymnastics stopped, athletics started.’

She tried ‘everything’, including two years of pole vault even though she is scared of heights, before settling on triple jump.

‘I really like jumping. It’s really fun,’ she said.

‘I like jumping in the sand. The sand is my friend. It’s always everywhere in my house. But I think I just really enjoy triple jump more than long jump, because it’s got the three parts, there’s three different things that you can get right, you can get wrong.’

When she first started coaching, she did not realise how technical the jumps were.

‘Obviously, there’s the run up, there’s the actual jump, there’s the landing, but then in that jump, there’s the takeoff,’ she said.

‘So how do you come off the floor? What do you do with your knees? What do you do with your legs? Your arms? Everything, you have to be quite coordinated to be able to do it. And then with triple jump, you’ve got three times that. It’s quite hard going between the phases. That’s the bit that can make or break a jump. And I’m still learning to do that.’

She broke her wrist in October, surgery ruling her out of sport for more than a month.

That was a time of the year where a lot of gym work should have happened, so given that she says her season is not going too badly so far.

She was also not training during Covid restrictions while she lived in England.

‘I’ve got distances in my head that I want to achieve in each competition,’ she said.

‘The first one was just to jump over 10m. The second one would have been about 10.50m. I didn’t manage to get that, but I did quite a big no jump that I was quite happy with.’

She finished third in round two of the track series, with a best of 10.03m.

The field was led home by Vicky Hancock with 10.76m while Sofia Mella was second with 10.52m.

Holly coaches club juniors on Tuesdays and Thursdays before taking the main adult jumps group on a Sunday.

There she has been working with Jordan Kelly, Vicky, Sofia and Amelie Carpentier.

‘That’s going really, really well, they’ve started getting [Island Games] A-standards, which I’m very happy about.’

Jordan showed a return to form by hitting 6.92m in the long jump last time out.

‘I’m really happy for Jordan because it seems like he’s had a few years of bad luck, badly timed injuries. Vicky and Sof, most of the work was done for me before I got here. They’ve obviously had some really good coaching in the past, and they’re doing really well. And Amelie’s there or thereabouts, so we’re doing really well.’

She thanked everyone at the club for their welcome.

‘It’s like a really nice family at the club. It’s been a really good way of coming to an island not knowing anybody to actually integrate myself and have a proper life.’

Tomorrow’s meeting also sees another packed field of U13 and U15 athletes competing for points by trying to better their previous performances in events including the 200m, 800m, 75m and 600m.

In the field, Jeanne Svejstrup and Ulrike Maisch, more normally runners, will be in the shot putt circle taking full advantage of the different disciplines on offer.

Timetable for ActiveGsy Track & Field Series 4 on Thursday 26 May

6.10pm 200m

6.15pm Javelin

6.20pm 200m (U13)

6.35pm 800m

6.50pm 600m (U13)

7.05pm 100m 

7.10pm Shot Putt

7.15pm Triple Jump

7.15pm 75m (U13)

7.35pm 300m Hurdles

7.40pm 400m Hurdles.