Dropping his beloved skateboard by his ft as he flops down on to a settee within the Loughborough College students’ Union, it’s like Robbie Grabarz has by no means been away.
For a lot of his grownup life – the last decade that noticed him win Olympic, world and European medals –the East Midlands college campus was Grabarz’s second house. However he thought these days had been lengthy behind him; he made a acutely aware effort to make it so, which is why his presence on a bitterly chilly January morning requires some clarification.
As does that of Morgan Lake sat alongside him. Two of the best excessive jumpers Britain has ever produced, united within the unlikeliest of partnerships.
“It occurred out of necessity,” says Grabarz, with fun. “It’s a passion that I didn’t actually need.” Lake chips in, candidly admitting: “It wasn’t a alternative, nevertheless it’s gone properly.”
It began with a frantic telephone name in July 2021. At that time, Grabarz was as faraway from athletics as doable, having “simply disappeared out of the game” upon retirement from his aggressive excessive leap profession in 2018.
So when Olympic-bound Emily Borthwick’s quantity flashed up on his telephone whereas he was the other way up putting in a staircase on a constructing website, he thought it have to be vital.
Borthwick and Lake had a urgent challenge. With the Tokyo Video games simply weeks away, they’d simply been informed that their coach Fuzz Caan was suspended and wouldn’t be travelling to Japan. Element was skinny on the bottom and time briefly provide. They wanted somebody to supervise them, therefore Borthwick’s SOS name to a person who Caan had beforehand guided to the highest of the athletics pyramid.
Robbie Grabarz (Mark Shearman)
Again when he referred to as time on his aggressive profession, Grabarz had been bodily and mentally damaged. He wanted to get away from the game that had consumed him. So, after just a few months consuming, ingesting, pottering and tending to his backyard, he started working together with his brother-in-law manufacturing and putting in luxurious staircases.
Solely after about 18 months did he even begin to watch athletics once more, primarily simply conserving tabs on the buddies and coaching companions he had made alongside the way in which. Lake was certainly one of them.
When an understandably upset Borthwick requested if Grabarz was accessible to assist out with some pre-Olympics teaching, he felt couldn’t say no.
“I simply thought I’d assist for just a few weeks and that may be that,” he says. Two-and-a-half years later, he’s nonetheless right here, sitting among the many college students and worldwide sportspeople.
To explain the hastily-established Tokyo set-up as unsatisfactory can be an understatement. Sleeping downstairs at his Birmingham house on the opposite aspect of the world to the motion, Grabarz would set an alarm for the midnight and watch a stream of Borthwick and Lake competing which was beamed to him reside through one other Staff GB coach sat within the Tokyo stands. Grabarz would feed again his ideas and recommendations, which had been then relayed to the athletes. “It was really loopy,” remembers Lake.
Morgan Lake (Getty)
Trying again on it now, Lake can not imagine how she managed to endure such a tricky interval of uncertainty that dragged on for greater than 18 months till the affirmation of Caan’s three-year ban for misconduct having admitted mockingpara-athletes and utilizing abusive language.
“There have been days after I didn’t need to come to the monitor as a result of, each single time I did, everybody would ask what was taking place with Fuzz,” says Lake. “I skilled in San Diego for a bit and felt a bit higher simply being out of the state of affairs. It was fairly a hostile setting in Loughborough with nobody understanding what was taking place and us not likely having a correct set-up.
“However the 2022 season didn’t go to plan and I form of reached a breaking level the place I used to be questioning whether or not to even stick with it. I used to be so unsettled. It was most likely a warmth of the second factor, however there was some extent the place I believed: ‘I can’t actually see previous this.’”
The turning level arrived in Munich in late August 2022. Dissatisfied to solely end seventh on the European Championships, Lake sat down with Grabarz and the 2 of them requested one another the identical query: ‘Lets do that correctly?’ A proper coaching set-up with structured coaching days, an organised group and a settled setting. No half-measures.
Morgan Lake (Mark Shearman)
They each determined to commit. With Borthwick opting to maneuver to Australia, Lake was quickly joined in Loughborough by Joel Clarke-Khan and Tom Gale: Britain’s No.1-ranked feminine excessive jumper coaching alongside the No.1 and No.2-ranked male excessive jumpers. It was Grabarz’s job to supervise them. Nicely, kind of his job.
You see, it has all occurred in levels. The primary was the serving to out part, purported to final only a matter of weeks however which dragged right into a second yr till the Munich chat with Lake. The second stage adopted, when he dedicated to teaching the group as a lot as his time would permit. And now, as of the beginning of 2024, we now have stage three, the place Grabarz, 36, would love nothing greater than to do that full-time. However there stays the query of cash.
Having unexpectedly studied for his teaching licence, all of Grabarz’s preliminary work with Lake and Borthwick was solely voluntary; a buddy serving to different buddies. However all the pieces had to slot in round his day job in staircase building.
“It was like: ‘Okay I can fit your needs in for 3 hours on Thursday,’” he remembers. “It was chaos for everybody, however we didn’t have a lot alternative. The one different alternative was for me to not assist in any respect.
“I had one job in Birmingham the place I got here to Loughborough to take coaching for 2 hours, drove to the positioning, did the staircase after which got here again once more. However I wasn’t positive how lengthy I might stick with it. It takes over.
“It actually wasn’t the plan in any respect. I made them conscious that I didn’t actually have time for it, however they stored making me keep by way of what I used to be seeing and what they had been giving me.
“I’ve needed to get my head round the truth that I’m having fun with it and it’s going properly. It’s sucked me again in.”
Firstly of this winter, Grabarz had one other dialog with Lake that concluded with him deciding to offer teaching his full focus. Small quantities of funding from Puma and UK Athletics imply he intends to pare again his day job to the naked minimal, and he now aspires to educate Lake – an athlete that he skilled alongside for 2 years on the again finish of his profession – for the remainder of her time within the sport.
Their hope is that she’s going to comply with his lead on to international podiums. At 26, Lake is certainly one of British athletics’ youngest veterans, having competed at worldwide senior championships since 2014. To this point, her medal tally consists solely of a Commonwealth silver, however after breaking the British file with a leap of 1.99m indoors final February, she narrowly missed a world medal in the summertime, when she managed 1.97m to complete fourth.
“For me, that 1.99 leap was the second I realised I might do it,” she says. “My confidence constructed from there. Going into the out of doors season I actually wished to be constant. Getting my common up in order that after I wanted to carry out the massive jumps I might.
Morgan Lake (Hustopečské skákání)
“Having buy-in from Robbie helped my confidence a lot. Having the yr earlier than [2022] the place I used to be floating round to then Robbie saying he believed in me was fairly good.
“My massive purpose for final yr was to get a medal in Budapest. Not successful a medal was actually onerous, however after I stripped it again I noticed how a lot I had achieved.”
Given all her big-stage expertise, she is unequivocal about what motivates her to maintain going: “I really feel like I’ve been within the sport for a very long time and all the time been superb at making myself match for championships and making finals. However I need greater than that now. I now need to get medals.
“Having that final yr made me need extra of it. The tip a part of that competitors was so thrilling. That’s my massive aim for the subsequent few years.”
The primary alternative got here at Glasgow’s World Indoor Championships in March (she positioned sixth) earlier than the European Championships and Olympic Video games this summer time. That closing occasion will probably be her third Olympic expertise, though she insists she has solely actually carried out “one-and-a-half” after damage prevented her from taking her place within the Tokyo closing, having certified in 1.95m.
This time, Grabarz will probably be in Paris in particular person as an alternative of watching grainy footage from his couch. It was by no means what he supposed, however he’s relishing his new life again within the sport. The Olympic medalist and her unintended coach; it sounds good.
» This function first appeared within the January challenge of AW journal. Subscribe right here
