Naomi Ogbeta on a challenging year
In February Naomi Ogbeta won the British indoor triple jump title and in September she claimed another national outdoor crown. The seven months in between were more challenging.
Her grandma passed away right at the beginning of lockdown. "That was hard to deal with," she says, "with not being able to see the family and with only a few people at the funeral. But we’re a really strong family. Our Christian faith is what has kept up our family so strong."
When the Olympic Games and European Championships disappeared from the 2020 programme, Ogbeta was left wondering if there was going to be a season at all.
"That all resulted in me not having much motivation and not wanting to train," she explains. Then she got Covid herself, quite early on in lockdown, leaving her short of energy and even shorter of motivation.
Her coach, Tom Cullen, encouraged her to take time to recover. That the British Championships were going ahead in Manchester, her home city, helped to give her the motivation that she needed.
"I started back to training in July, eight weeks before the British Championships, after a period of literally doing nothing," she says. "The training facility was just opening when I went back but even when we did get in, we weren’t allowed to use the sand for the first week. But soon I was able to train as normal except that I couldn’t go to the gym at all."
Her summer season lasted four weeks with four competitions in four different countries. Her own assessment of the season is: "I ran out of steam."
She continues: "For my first competition, Paavo Nurmi Games, I was so excited that I was going to Finland and I was going to compete and as Finland didn’t have many restrictions there was a crowd in the stadium.
"I jumped 13.74m. I thought that was a great start and really amazing."
Next up was the Herculis in Monaco, her first ever Diamond League, which was exciting but also a bit flat.
"Monaco was a great experience but equally I feel I didn’t get the real Diamond League experience because I wasn’t really able to speak to other athletes, as we had to keep to ourselves," she says. "And the crowd was quite small as well. But in terms of how they managed to put on the event, they created atmosphere so that it felt like a really grand competition. I definitely enjoyed it but I don’t think it was the same as in a regular year."
In the competition she felt tired, jumping 13.56m for sixth place.
She also recalls a funny incident in Monaco. Ogbeta had worked for the BBC at the 2019 World Championships. One of the athletes she interviewed was world 200m champion Noah Lyles.
"In Monaco I saw Noah and he looked at me as if he recognised me but couldn’t place me, so I said that I interviewed him in Doha.
"He asked if I was interviewing in Monaco and I replied that I was competing which left him completely confused! He seemed to think that I was a journalist who had somehow made it into the Diamond League!"
The British Championships was her last event of the season and her winning jump (13.44m) was her shortest of the summer.
"When I got to the British Championships I felt that every bit of energy that I had had, was gone," she explains. "And I was getting slower and slower. But I am very grateful that I had that opportunity to win in Manchester."
At the time of our interview, Manchester was one of the national Covid hotspots, leaving Ogbeta unsure about the immediate future.
"My plan for the winter is to train hard," she says. "It’s a bit uncertain because it looks as if Manchester could be put into the highest category of restrictions. If that does happen, gyms will close. But this time I know I will be a lot more motivated to train for the indoors.
"I would try to borrow equipment so that I can continue training but that would be hard as gym is such a vital part of triple jump."
Click here for more in a series of 2020 reflection interviews.
(Lead photo by Getty Images for British Athletics)
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