In a world free of red tape, Shara Proctor would be preparing to fly the flag for Anguilla at the Olympic Games, feted as a national heroine by this tiny Caribbean island of barely 14,000 souls.
At last year’s world championships, such a leap would have secured silver. Yet if Proctor comes up trumps in London, it will be the Union Flag that is raised in her honour, not that of her home nation. As a British overseas territory, Anguilla is not allowed to participate in the Olympics in its own right. Hence, in order to fulfil her own ambitions, Proctor had little option but to assert her right to UK citizenship two years ago and sign up for the cause.
It was perhaps unfortunate that the 23-year-old did so around the same time as Shana Cox and Tiffany Porter, who were both born in America, and Yamile Aldama, previously of Cuba and Sudan but now naturalised through her Scottish husband. The policy of incorporating the so-called Plastic Brits has received largely negative reviews despite being within the rules.
That trio had other options through which to pursue athletics’ Holy Grail; Proctor did not. As she chooses her words carefully, it is clear that she resents any guilt by association with her presumed co-defendants. “Those who don’t understand my situation and don’t know me, or where I come from, will assume, or have assumed,” she says. “I am annoyed. I can’t lie. But I can’t do anything about it.”
Britain remains, Proctor admits, a country she is not wholly familiar with and the sub-zero climes she has encountered of late have been a shock to the system. “Coming from Daytona Beach, this is a horror,” she giggles. Complaining about the weather? Spoken like a native.
Proctor would rather let her performances speak loudest. She will compete in the Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham today before her attentions turn to next month’s world indoor championships in Istanbul. The UK record is firmly in her sights but there are bigger ambitions at play.
It is a matter of grafting all the cogs of jumping together into one perfect motion, she says. “Last year I got faster but this year I got faster and stronger, working on those last few steps before the board. Once I have those together, I feel I have a big jump in me.”
If she delivers in London, the detractors will doubtless fall silent. In Anguilla, where her mother is director of sport, they will rejoice regardless of which flag is on her vest. “They are behind me,” Proctor says. “I want to represent Great Britain well.”
Also in Birmingham, Guy Learmonth and Claire Gibson will have no option other than to go for broke in an attempt to secure qualification for the world indoors. Learmonth, in the 800 metres, will count on the Commonwealth Games champion, Boaz Lalang of Kenya, and Ethiopia’s Mohammed Aman to spur him under the required mark of one minute and 48 seconds. “It’s an incredible field,” said the 19-year-old Scot. “There’s a pacemaker and that’s just what I need to get me under the qualifying time.”
A hamstring injury has forced Tom Holligan, the European Under-18 champion, out of a potential 60 metres showdown with former rugby internationalist Thom Evans at tomorrow’s Scottish Indoor Championships in Glasgow.
