Sprinting from pot-holed paddock to London Games

MAJURO, Marshall Islands – When Marshall Islands sprinter Timi Garstang steps into London’s Olympic Stadium, he will be in a facility that holds almost 30,000 more people than the entire population of his Pacific nation.

Further adding to the 21-year-old’s nerves will be the fact that he is taking on the world’s best 100-meter sprinters only a few weeks after attending his first ever track meet.

And if that was not enough, Garstang’s homeland — an impoverished western Pacific nation of 53,000, where the main exports are coconuts and fish — does not even have a proper track for its athletes to practice on.

Instead, Garstang has had to nurture his Olympic dream on a pot-holed, garbage-strewn paddock which has been likened to a cow pasture, a far cry from the five-star preparations enjoyed by the likes of Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay.

“It was hard training on a flawed surface like the grass field, as it has holes in it and the ground is uneven,” Garstang told AFP.

“While you’re running, you get worried about having injuries from tripping on a hole, broken bottles, animal excrement, other kinds of trash and get distracted from kids that run around.

“So mainly you cannot train on your top speed.”

The Marshall Islands is a relative newcomer to the Olympic Games, sending its first team to the Beijing Games in 2008 after finally winning recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) a year earlier.

The results for the nation’s runners in China were not encouraging: Roman Cress placed last in his preliminary 100m heat, while Haley Nemra was seventh in her women’s 800m heat.

However, the emphasis for small nations like the Marshalls is on participating on the world stage, rather than winning medals, which is why the IOC allocates wild card places for them to send athletes to the Olympics.

In track and field at the London Games, every country automatically gets two entries, one male and one female, even if they fail to achieve qualifying times.

After receiving his dream opportunity through a wild card, Garstang said he was determined to do his country proud.

“I think about the people who expect the best from me and those that support me back home — I don’t want to fail them,” he said.

Garstang’s personal best over 100m is 12.5 seconds, more than two seconds outside the Olympic qualification time, although that was recorded on his “cow paddock” training ground in the Marshalls’ capital Majuro.

To help prepare him for London, the IOC paid for Garstang to undertake two months of intensive training, beginning at the Oceania Athletics Association’s High Performance Training Centre on Australia’s Gold Coast.

While in Australia, he also participated in his first international track meet at the Oceania Championships in Cairns. Disappointingly, his 12.56 made him the slowest man in the field, as he failed to reach the final.

He then shifted to Britain to spend the final weeks before the Games acclimatizing at a training camp for Pacific athletes at Edge Hill University near Liverpool.

The camp is designed to offer top-class facilities to Pacific athletes in a bid to help them achieve personal bests at the Games and then take skills back to their communities which can be used to help develop future generations.

Some at the camp, such as swimmer Debra Daniel from the Federated States of Micronesia, had experienced the same lack of facilities as Garstang.

“Back at home we don’t have a pool so I’m used to training in the ocean or the rivers, so this will be different for me again, it will be very modern,” said Daniel, who went to the Beijing Games in 2008.

“The last time I competed it was an amazing experience, we were treated like stars and I loved it. This time, for me I want to make sure I beat my own personal best.”

Marshall Islands track coach Rais Aho said everything about the Olympic experience — the track, huge crowds, tight security, even the food — would be far removed from what the team were used to in the islands.

“If we’re intimidated as coaches, I’m sure the runners are (too),” he said.

“They have to adjust to running against the world’s best, and running on a surface they’ve never practised on.”

Garstang summed up his feelings about London in one word: “Nervous.”

“You can never feel ready, even after weeks of high-level training,” he added. “All I can do is train and do the best that I can.”

While the pressure to perform for the London crowds, as well as family and friends huddled around television screens half a world away, will be intense, Garstang said there was one thing he was happy about.

“It’s safer in a real track, and you don’t need to worry about debris,” he said. – Agence France-Presse