The Electronic Telegraph Thursday 2 August 2001 Tom Knight A ROUND of golf, followed by a steak dinner and a few glasses of red wine does not usually add up to the recommended pre-championship regime for an athlete aiming to win his first global title. But this is no ordinary athlete. When the waitress innocently inquires if he is here for the championships, the 32-year-old giant relaxing in the downtown restaurant merely shrugs. "I'm just a spear-thrower," he tells her. This is Steve Backley on holiday before the serious stuff begins with the qualifying rounds of the javelin on Friday week. "After the weekend, the blinkers will come on and I'll drift off into competition mode," he said, before adding a mantra so beloved by fans of the Star Wars films. "Your focus becomes your reality." If anyone knows how to prepare for the World Championships, Backley does. He has been at it for more than a decade, during which time he can lay claim to have been Britain's most consistently successful athlete. Such has been his level of success, it is often assumed that Backley must have won a world title during his 12 years at the top of the sport, but he hasn't. There have been three European titles and two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. He has been ranked world No 1 and broken the world record on three occasions. He has won minor medals at the last three Olympics. But the big prize has so far eluded him. In Sydney, he thought he had done it when he set a new Olympic record of 89.95 metres in the second round but Backley could only hold up his hands in horror when Jan Zelezny, his close friend and deadly rival from the Czech Republic, responded with 90.17m and demonstrated yet again why he is regarded as the finest javelin thrower of all-time. As Zelezny celebrated his third consecutive Olympic triumph, Backley was left to collect the silver for the second time and ponder on what might have been. Far from showing any bitterness at having his ambitions constantly thwarted by Zelezny, however, Backley only marvels at the Czech's ability. He said: "Jan is a great athlete and I feel privileged to have been around at the same time as him. The journey is what we are about and Jan and I have enjoyed some fabulous times in the sport." The journey continues here. Backley claims to know little of Zelezny's form or state of mind going into these championships, only that his own confidence is sky-high following his best throw for nine years, eight days ago in the British Grand Prix at Crystal Palace. Typically, after a season disrupted by injury, this time an adductor muscle strain sustained when finishing fourth in Athens, Backley came up trumps when it mattered. In the stadium where he has been training five times a week for the last 15 years and where he set his second world record in 1990, the Cambridge Harrier sent the javelin soaring out to 90.81m. "It has been a strange season and I was beginning to think it was slipping away," he said. "I had been stuffed in Oslo a couple of weeks before but Crystal Palace was the last competition before Edmonton and I had to find out where I was. "Maybe there was a comfort thing about competing in front of my home crowd but I took all the strapping off my leg and went for it. "The distance only underlined what I think I'm capable of. I've spent the last 10 years trying to get back to where I was when I was 20 and now everything feels like it is coming together again. "If someone throws 90m in the final here, I won't be perturbed by it. In the past, when guys threw 88 or 89m, it seemed like a long way. "Now Zelezny, Aki Parviainen, Konstadinos Gatsioudis and Sergey Makarov will come into the competition thinking they have to throw 92m to beat me." While Backley's ability is beyond doubt, what remains remarkable about his longevity is that his enthusiasm can match that of any 22-year-old, never mind someone who has been pushing his body to the limit ever since his father John encouraged him to take up running at the age of six. If there is a secret, it lies in Backley's technique, honed through more than 15 years working alongside coach John Trower and his command of sports psychology. He talks about javelin throwing as "a complicated synergy of movement and outside elements," adding: "It's musical, an art not a science, in which tiny little rhythmical changes can have a huge effect. "My technique is simple and easily repeatable under pressure. When I have the javelin in my hand, I totally believe I can tap into an energy or a force I can battle with. If there are moments of self-doubt, they come only when I am being normal. When I go into competitions, the blinkers are on and I assume a different character. It's a character that's taken me 13 years to build up. "The sprinters are the same. I see it in people like Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene. Sometimes though, you see young athletes just pretending to be someone else. They strut their stuff on the track before races but without that total conviction, it doesn't work." It works for Backley and he aims to keep it working at least until the next Olympics. "I'll be 35 in Athens and I reckon 91m will have a very good chance of winning the gold medal." Before Crystal Palace, Backley's indifferent season led many to believe he would not be a factor in Edmonton but it's hard to think of a season when his preparations have not been disrupted by injury. He well remembers winning a silver medal in Atlanta when only five weeks before he had been hobbling around on crutches after an operation on his Achilles tendon. Said Backley: "I'm surprised that I'm written off each year." A gold medal in Edmonton would be the perfect response. Eamonn Condon www.RunnersGoal.com
