Jazmin Sawyers looking to improve on Olympic qualifying performance
‘Ugly’ was how Jazmin Sawyers described her qualifying performance but the long jumper didn’t care as she reached her second Olympic final.
At the Tokyo Olympic Stadium on Sunday morning, Sawyers was out of the qualification spots with just one jump remaining but produced the goods at the third time of asking – leaping 6.62m.
That was enough to put her into 11th spot, with the top 12 reaching Tuesday’s final, and the remaining competitors failed to overhaul the Stoke athlete.
Having finished eighth in the long jump at Rio 2016, Sawyers might have been expected to be used to the Olympic experience but claimed the nerves were still jangling.
“I was so nervous,” she admitted. “I have never been so nervous, I’m not sure what or why I was way more nervous than usual but I was and I don’t know if that’s what came out in my jumps.
“Job done. I don’t care how, it was ugly but we did it!
“Let’s be honest I always do it like that. I wish I didn’t, I was really hoping today would be the day it was one and done, but of course I was waiting until the last jump to see if I made it.
“There’s a lot of positives. I am running really fast, and I’m not quite controlling it, I’m getting thrown into the air which is a great thing but I’ve got to be able to hold it once I get there.”
Sawyers now has 48 hours to prepare for an Olympic final, with the long jump showpiece getting underway in Tokyo at 2.50am BST on Tuesday.
She set a new personal best of 6.90m as recently as June and will likely need to be around that mark, or even better to put herself in medal contention.
And Sawyers is adamant there’s a lot more to come than what she showed in her qualifying performance.
“I’m confident there’s a lot more in the tank,” she added. “To be honest, it can be ugly, as long as I am in the final, that’s what counts.
“We know how finals go, anything can happen, I’ll be back in two days’ time, ready to attack, because when I am in a final I’m there to try take those top spots.”
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