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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
Trevor Barry at the 2016 Rio Olympics
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Bahamian Olympic finalist Trevor Barry is already on the road to the IAAF World Championships in London next August.
“It’s all one step, or in this case one leap, at a time,” says Barry, one of three Bahamian high jumpers to qualify for the Rio Olympics. He returns to Nassau after the Olympics to train again with his legendary coach, Keith Parker, starting their world championship medal campaign. He already holds a bronze world medal from Daegu 2011.
Barry finished 11th in the Rio high jump final with 2.25 M, after qualifying with a season’s best jump of 2.29 meters.
Barry headed off to Rio on August 8 with high hopes for his next international medal. Teammate and former world champion Donald Thomas, also cleared 2.29 M on Sunday, and finished tied for seventh place in the finals with another leap of 2.29 M. The third Bahamian high jump Olympian, Jamal Wilson, did not advance to the finals.
Jumper Barry noted, “Mr. Parker has been my coach for the past 6 years. I live in North Dakota so I usually rely on his email analysis of video. He coaches by email and telephone apart from the times I am able to travel home and at the actual major competitions such as the World Championships, Olympics, CAC Championships and Commonwealth Games, when Coach Parker is usually with me.”
Barry explains, “Although Mr. Parker was planning to be in Rio with me, I was concerned when I learned that he had not received the necessary accreditation even though he purchased his tickets several months earlier.
“So, I told him that in case he could not be in Rio, I would like to come home to work out before I left for the Games. Mr. Parker was enthusiastic about this possibility and very quickly found a sponsor for my trip home. Bahamas Wholesale Agency agreed to have their Lucozade product sponsor my fare, so we have been able to have those crucial training sessions together before Rio and have a head start on the London world championships.“
Coach Parker says, “I believe that an athlete benefits from training at the same time of the day as the major events for which he is preparing. In this case the Rio high jump events were scheduled at 8:30 in the evening which means being ready to warm up and do preliminary jumps from about 7 p.m. The Lucozade sponsorship made it possible for us to do this together in Nassau, resulting in real breakthroughs and high hopes for a medal in Rio. We are switching our sights to London.”
Barry adds,” The high jump is a very technical event with very precise margins of error. I have had a problem (common to many high jumpers) in maintaining a consistent approach run as the height of the bar changes. We have been working on several strategies to try to correct this problem which, if successful should enable me to increase my current best height from 2.32M to 2.35M which is usually the height required to win a medal. I am most grateful to Lucozade for making it possible for me to come home to try to get this improvement on the way to and from Rio.
“Marketing Manager for Bahamas Wholesale Agency Chrystonia McCoy hopes to be able to say 'Reaching Higher Heights with Lucozade' and I certainly did my best to prove that this is true.”
Perhaps the dynamic duo of Jumper Barry and Coach Parker will pull off another long distance “leap of faith” such as the one which gave Barry the bronze medal and The Bahamas its only medal at the 2011 IAAF World Championship in Korea.
Coach Parker was unable to travel due to dengue fever, but the two kept in touch by phone before the competition and via TV during the event. Such is their faith in each other that when coach Parker advised his star athlete to pass (skip that height) at the highest height he had ever cleared, Barry did so and went on to clear the bar at 2.32 meters, his highest jump ever.
Barry says, “Prior to the 2011 world championships, my best clearance was 2.29. Coach Parker phoned me from his dengue fever sickbed and advised me to pass this height, predicting this jump could probably only place me 6th or 7th. I did this, to the surprise of all the team officials and broadcasters present. But, I cleared my best ever height of 2.32, just as Coach Parker had predicted. This earned me the bronze medal, the only medal our team won at those world championships.”
© Copyright 2016 by thebahamasweekly.com
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