[Written by Stephen Wright]
long jump Tyrone Smith wait for one last hurray at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this summer after coming out of retirement.
The three-time Olympian marked the time in his athletics career 12 months ago, despite meeting the Birmingham standard, after failing to make it to the Tokyo Olympics.
However, the 37-year-old has made a U-turn, admits the competitive fire still burns deep within him and believes he owes himself the opportunity to retire on the big stage.
“I haven’t said anything publicly yet, but I’m looking to compete at the Commonwealth Games,” Smith told Bernews.
“I thought that if I don’t take advantage of the opportunity of a young athlete, why not try.
“I have no doubt that I can still do it physically. I jumped eight meters at the end of last season”.
The Bermuda Olympic Association, which named a team of ten athletes for this week’s Gameshas challenged Smith to prove he still has the ability and fitness to compete at the highest level before considering him for one of the six available spots.
Smith said he has been juggling his new role as a business consultant with training since the new year in his quest to reach his fourth Commonwealth Games.
“The challenge is that my new job is incredibly demanding,” said the Atlanta-based athlete. “I’m putting in 55 to 75 hours a week.”
“It’s interesting when you retire as an athlete, and your whole identity is tied to sport, you tend to struggle with things.
“When I started this new job and had a lot of new responsibilities, it was a sanity check for me to get out on the court and train.
“I thought if I put a big goal in front of me and push myself to achieve it, at least I’ll be healthy and happy to try to compete in one of the biggest games.”
Smith has devised a training schedule that allows her to juggle her work commitments and still devote hours to the track and gym to prepare for elite competition.
He has also enlisted the help of former American long jumper Dwight Phillips, a four-time world champion, as he heads into Birmingham.
“My trainer has created a similar plan for me as Greg Rutherford [the former British long jumper] he has been training for the last two years of his career, running three days a week.
“So I’m on Greg Rutherford’s plan, and he won a gold at the World Championships in 2015 and a bronze at the Rio Olympics in 2016, so he can’t be too bad.”
Smith said the achievements of his wife, Sandi Morris, a U.S. pole vaulter who won gold at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia last month, have inspired him to continue competing .
“I couldn’t do this without her,” Smith said. “You start to realize that more and more, the longer you’re with someone.
“She’s been helping me get back into shape when she’s like, ‘OK, I’m five pounds heavier than I ever wanted to be!’ Just watching her compete keeps the fire alive in me.”
Smith was hoping to wear Bermuda’s colors for the last time at the Tokyo Olympics and has questioned the qualification process, which he believes was unfair.
The qualification for Tokyo consisted of more demanding qualification standards and a world ranking system. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith was unable to travel to the European meetings where he could have claimed valuable world ranking points.
“World ranking points favored the European meetings, so those who could compete in Europe had an unfair advantage,” he said.
“If I had jumped the same sequence of jumps in Europe as I did nationally, I would have been in Tokyo.”
Smith continued: “They also said, ‘Well, you can qualify straight away.’ [by meeting the long jump standard]’. But to give you some perspective, Beijing was 8.05 meters, London was 8.10, Rio was 8.15, you can see the trend here, and the ranking for Tokyo was 8, 22.
“So you had this astronomical standard that requires perfect conditions, perfect preparation, everything right or an unfairly weighted world ranking system for European meetings.”
Should Smith be selected by the BOA to represent Bermuda one last time in Birmingham, he believes it would be a fitting end to a career he had loved and found difficult to leave.
“That would be a great way to call it,” he said. “It was nice in Bermuda last summer when I was given a trophy and recognized at the National Championships in what I thought was my last meet.
“It was amazing to have all that support at home, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But to finally get the chance to compete for Bermuda on the big stage, make a final and have some fun would be a poetic ending for me. I feel like I owe it to myself.”
