By Leanne Hancock.
The odds were stacked against Jaylah Hancock-Cameron in last Saturdays 800m event in Vienna's track night spectacular!
Basically full of distractions in terms of competition running. The concept of this event is to draw the crowd in, get them to the venue, enticing them with live entertainment, some trixters on bikes down on track, throwing a race in between, while bands were on break! The biggest test for an athlete is to remain mindful n focused on the job at hand!
Jaylah said it was over the top, being her first experience at a high level " competition" to have so much going on in the background, while athletes are trying to perform and make selection, for world champs, and Olympics 2024 in Paris.
Coach/ second mum, Andae Kalemusic ,has stayed behind here in Australia for the first time in Jaylahs adventures on track, a test for both, but both working just as hard as one another, to make the most of the opportunities that are before them.
Andae has been working tirelessly from home soil to connect Jaylah with opportunities, to give her the race experience needed to compete at the European level, its not as easy as you think, connecting, networking with all the right people, knowing what races to put her in, to take full advantage of her race time before coming back home.
That, all out of the way if I still have the interest of my readers, I will proceed forward into Jaylah and her results in Vienna. For those of you that watched the livestream, you would have seen our girl to the right in the early footage in marshalling, perfect conditions up until that point, then you would have noticed the gale force wind come through, yay!
Taking the line in the Australian colours, her white socks, ribbons she looked amazing , super proud as her mum, her intentions leading into the race set by herself and coach was a pb.
She did it , shaved off a second in her 800m, with gale force winds, double lane start, cut in to three lanes into a tunnel, with a motorbike hot on her tail, pyro graphics going off trackside, having a couple of athletes fall in front of her, and the green lights lighting the track, for those ambitious world record potentials.
Wow wow wow, congratulations on your 2.03 ,amazing running, for what was sent to test you my Lil champ, I was horrified at the motorbike on track, something that we don't do here in Australia, cross country yes in front of our runners, but on track, yeah nah.
Congratulations goes to Jaylah n coach Andae, you will be a product of success as coach n athlete .
Image: supplied
