Pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw fired up for World Championships in Beijing
By Mark Ashenden
Last Updated: 28/08/16 8:10am
Back in June, Holly Bradshaw competed in her first competition for 16 months. She won. On Wednesday, a bigger prize awaits....
Britain's top pole vaulter will walk out at the Bird's Nest Stadium in front of 91,000 screaming athletics fans for the final of the World Championships in Beijing. All her injuries and setbacks will be a distant blur.
The 23-year-old Sky Academy Scholar from Preston may have missed a year of competition, including the whole indoor season, but after cruising through qualifying on Monday, a medal is within her grasp.
Watch the video (on the right) to get an insight to her preparations for China and a close-up view on how she's been training.
Here are Holly's personal words describing her final training session before the Championships......
I had a two-week acclimatisation camp in Fukuoka, Japan getting ready for Beijing and it was amazing. The camp and hotel were brilliant, it was an amazing stadium to train in and got all the help and advice I needed to beat jet lag, stay healthy and get my body in the best place possible.
I am feeling amazing, probably the best physically I've ever been, and this is partly thanks to the help and support from British Athletics, the medical team and Sky.
Training has been going really well. I'm feeling sharp, fast, explosive - all the things you want to start feeling ahead of the most important competition of the year - so this is giving me a great amount of confidence.
AUGUST 19 - Day in the life of me!
It's my final vault session before heading to Beijing but more importantly it's my last training session before I compete in the World Championships!
It was an early start. 7.30am: Alarm. 8am: Eggs on toast. 8.30: Physiotherapy. 9am: Bus to the track.
This was early for me as usually my alarm is set for 9am, but as my qualification in Beijing starts at 9.30 (meaning a 5.30am alarm), my coach and I thought I had better start getting used to being up so early!
My training session went really well, and although earlier on in my season I mentioned I couldn't quite time my jump up technically, this has improved so much and I'm starting to feel rhythm in my jump which is perfecting timing.
My coach (Scott Simpson) and I got back from the track too late to make lunch in the British Athletics dining hall so we ordered room service and watched Jurassic World. It's not very often I get room service so it felt like such a treat - a well deserved one after such a great training session.
In the afternoon I had some recovery strategies to complete, including soft tissue therapy, stretching and using the Normatec machine (a computer controlled compressor using wavelike pulses applied to legs or arms to maximise circulation).
I'm very lucky to have my own machine in Japan and that's only because Sky helped me get one! It means I can use it whenever I want instead of missing out on a recovery opportunity because the universal ones are all busy.
Towards the end of the afternoon, I started to flag. It was a hard and mentally draining training day so it felt like it was a perfect time to grab a coffee - it seems wherever you go across the world there's always a coffee shop. And certain enough, 200 metres from our hotel…. there is one!
It wasn't my usual brand but you can't be too fussy when you're on the other side of the world.
At around 7.30pm I headed down for food. This is one of the best times of the day in Japan when everyone is in the dining hall so you get to catch up and chat to everyone.
This was really nice as most of the year we are all just going about our own business in our own part of the UK so it's really special when the team comes together on a trip like this.
I'm usually in bed by 9.30pm, settling down to sleep for 10pm. I always like to listen to my audio book for 20 minutes before sleeping as it settles me down and helps me relax.
At the minute I'm working my way through the Game of Thrones books and I'm not sure how relaxing they are!
This World Championships is my first outdoor major championships since the London 2012 Olympics and only my fourth competition since March 2014.
This makes me super excited as it's such a privilege to be able to say I'm back competing at the highest level and in the beautiful GB strip!
I am always so proud and humbled to represent my country and to be able to do it once more makes me the happiest girl alive.
Holly Bradshaw is one of 12 athletes being supported through the Sky Academy Sports Scholarships scheme.
The Scholarships offer a programme of support tailored to each athletes specific requirements covering areas such as funding, media coaching, mentoring and wider developmental support.
