Athletics: George Gandy backs Jessica Judd for bright future over 1500m
By Sam Drury - Follow on Twitter
Last Updated: 21/01/15 3:28pm
After more than 50 years coaching athletics it takes a lot to impress George Gandy.
That should not be a surprise given that he has guided numerous athletes to world and Olympic medals over the past five decades.
The latest to come under his wing is 20-year-old Jessica Judd. The Sky Academy Sports Scholar has been competing on the world stage and excelling over the past two years but a change of circumstances has seen her part company with former coach Rob Denmark and join forces with Gandy.
She is in the category where she has got a strong chance of emerging to be right up at the top of the world
George Gandy on Jessica Judd
Judd’s record as a junior is impressive but it is her performances at senior level that her new coach has paid more attention to. Indeed, after so long in the business he is too savvy to get drawn in by the latest ‘next big thing’ seeing off all comers at junior level. Gandy knows that is just the beginning and repeating those achievements as a senior is an altogether more difficult challenge – one that has proved too big for many a junior superstar.
“I’m never what you’d call overexcited at the extent of people’s achievement as junior athletes,” he told Sky Sports.
“We’ve probably seen hundreds of them during the time I’ve been in coaching. Athletes of 14, 15, 16, 17 years of age, who look like they are conquering the world and I am still surprised by how some quite senior people in the world of sport still fall for it every time.
“They will see these 15, 16 year-old talents and massively invest in those, not necessarily financially but in how they treat them and what their expectation of them is and yet there is some 19 or 20 year-old who is on the edge of making a big breakthrough who is 50% more mature, they have their life organised in a way that makes things possible - all of which the younger one still has to grow through and handle. So I’m not overly impressed by that.”
Judd it would seem is one of those athletes close to making that breakthrough and arguably already has by reaching two major championship finals last summer. The Canvey Island runner predominantly competed in the 800m during 2014 and finished fourth in the Commonwealth Games before crossing the line in seventh at the European Championships.
As well as Judd has done over the past two years in the 800m, Gandy believes her best chance of success in future may well come over 1500m where her mixture of speed and endurance can be used to maximum effect.
“From what I’ve seen so far all the elements are there, though there are still quite a few things in need of development and strengthening, I can see the route forward and there are certain things we are starting to work on,” explained Gandy.
“So she is in the category – although I would never say it is probable - where she has got a strong chance of emerging to be right up at the top of the world and, given her background, 1500m would look to be the event in which she possibly has the biggest chance.
“She will meet some people in the 800m who have got greater speed than she has, if she was doing 3000m or 5000m she’d meet one or two who have got greater endurance than she has but she has got a lot of both. There is a clue in all of this in that she likes the 1500m the best. That doesn’t mean that that is permanently set in tablets of stone but at this moment in time that is probably the event which feels most like home.”
Another key factor in Gandy’s belief that Judd’s future could lie in the longer middle distance event is that it requires the athlete to think more than the 800m in terms of tactics and how to run the race.
“She’s obviously done tremendously well over 800m but I think she feels like in the 800m every time she goes and does a top 40 race it’s almost always run the same – just go out there and run quick and bang your head against a brick wall and hope eventually the wall is going to crumble,” he said of Judd.
“Whereas the 1500m has got more tactical elements I think and I think she has got the weapons – she has got the endurance requirement and the speed end of things to a good level already and I would be pretty confident that we will see some big progress in her 1500m over the next two years.”
Gandy talks of a ‘holy triangle’ of things, all of which are needed for an athlete to be successful and his comments suggest that Judd has all three, in particular in terms of a strong mentality.
“For me, there is the physical side which includes the physiology and the way the body works, there is the mechanical and technical side in the way the person moves and the third part in the holy triangle is what is going on inside the head,” he added.
“I wouldn’t rate any one as more important than the others; they are all phenomenally important and can make the difference between success and failure.”
“Once or twice when I have been trying to drip feed things that I think are important into Jess’s mentality or persona then she just comes out with some statement that just surprises me because she’s already got that. She’s already worked that out for herself.
“It’s nice because I think she’s a good learner, a quick learner and she already has a got a pretty well-balanced view about what she wants. For a young, aspiring athlete, she has got quite an advanced adult way of knowing what she wants out of a particular set of circumstances and that puts her in a better position to actually ending up getting it.”
It is early days but Judd has the chance to put what she has learnt under Gandy into practice at the Glasgow International Match this weekend where she will be competing in the 1500m.
