Christabel Nettey won’t be obsessing over numbers when she competes in Rio—at least not exactly. The 25-year-old long-jumper from Surrey, B.C., has her eyes on a medal—it would be Canada’s first ever in women’s long jump—but she doesn’t care whether the distance that earns it for her happens to be especially jaw-dropping. “Championships are all about placing,” Nettey says. “The weather could be shitty, and it could take a shit jump to win it.”
It’s a different approach than the one she uses during the season, when Nettey and her rivals are looking for big numbers to move up the rankings. But the season is a buildup, and this year, Rio is the grand finale.
In 2015, nearly everything went right for the Arizona State alumna. She set Canadian records in indoor and outdoor competition–both at 6.99 metres. She won gold at the Pan Am Games in Toronto. But at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, she came up shy of a medal. “I just didn’t get the job done,” she says of her fourth-place finish.
If everything goes according to plan in Rio, it’ll fall into place before Nettey even jumps. “A lot of people think the jump is the most important part,” she says. “But there’s a lot of stuff that goes on in the runway that’s just as important.” There’s her takeoff position, the speed and consistency of her run, and her penultimate step. Nettey works through mental cues to prepare herself for each part, setting herself up for whatever comes next. “Once you get to the boards,” she says, “you can’t change anything.”
The women’s long jump event gets started on Aug. 16
