Lynsey Sharp plans USA move
Lynsey Sharp plans to move closer to her coach, Terrence Mahon, as she works toward a year in which she’s targeting Commonwealth and European success.
Mahon is stepping down as head coach of the Boston Athletic Association’s performance team at the end of the year and will return to his home state of California with his wife and three-time Olympian Jen Rhines.
Feeling in need of a change, Sharp also plans to move to the western US state where she will be joined by her boyfriend and fellow Scottish athlete Andrew Butchart.
“I just felt that I needed something a bit different,” Sharp explains. “I spent five years in Loughborough and I spent a couple of months at home at the end of the season and just decided that I needed a new atmosphere.
“It’s not going to be that different in that I’ll still be going on camps and to Flagstaff and stuff. I’ll still be travelling around the world but day to day it will be good to spend more time with Terrence.”
The 27-year-old speaks very highly of Mahon, who started working in Boston in 2013 after leaving his lead endurance coach role at UK Athletics.
Sharp won European 800m gold in 2012 and silver in 2014, plus a Commonwealth silver in 2014, and she is targeting both those events in 2018, but not the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham.
On the Commonwealth Games in April she says: “There are a lot of challenges associated with when it is in the season. Obviously, I trust Terrence a lot but I’m a little bit nervous about getting in sub-2:00 shape by April! But again, it’s a challenge and something a bit different, so we’ll see.”
» Read more from Sharp’s interview in the adidas running shoe buyer’s guide available with the November 30 edition of AW here or digitally here
