BARELY a month after the euphoria of Rio, Mark Dry’s fortunes seemed to plummet unstoppably to an all-time low. Scans showed the labrum in the Olympic hammer thrower’s shoulder had torn completely from its socket. While the ligament holding his hip securely in place had severed, leaving a damaging trail of destruction behind. Extensive surgery, he discovered, would not cure all ills.
“I got kicked off funding and was told I’d never throw again or amount to anything,” he recounts. The uncertainty for the always-affable Highlander was at times overwhelming. Devoid of the comprehensive after-care available to Lottery-supported athletes, the wilderness was even more petrifying, over a decade’s devotion for the 29-year-old reduced to a diagnosis and a severing of the ties. The end, the advice went, was unquestionably nigh.
Yet Dry was not inclined to bid the circle farewell. Not after the toils and the struggles which are all the more intense in an event which has long been cast into the wilderness by its exclusion from the lucrative Diamond League circuit. Splitting from his UK Athletics-backed coach Tore Gustafsson, the athletics ecosystem around his base in Loughborough lent a collective hand with the likes of Chris Black, once the country’s pre-eminent hammer exponent, and UKA’s jumps guru Fuzz Ahmed among those stepping in to provide a crutch.
It took him all the way to last Sunday. A belated victorious return at the Loughborough International, edging out Scottish rival Chris Bennett by a single centimetre, a result as surprising as it was gladdening. “People were telling me they were having bets at the hotel over what I’d throw and most said between 65 and 68. But I was in a frame of mind where I didn’t want to throw until I could drop the standard.”
Instead, he pulled out 71.73m, a respectable opening gambit. “It’s been a hard couple of months with a short week of preparation. But I thought, ‘Let’s come out and blow the cobwebs away and get back on the circuit’. And I’m happy I’ve got it done and got the confidence boost.”
The blows, nevertheless, have kept on coming. Last week, his mother was involved in a car crash in Moray. It was so nearly the comeback that never was as Dry readied to dash home to the Highlands. “But they told me she’d be fine and I should go and compete,” he recounts. “It wasn’t the best lead-up mentally because there was a small period of time when I didn’t know what was happening. She’s all right thankfully. That’s the most important thing.”
The Glasgow 2014 bronze medallist still has recuperation of his own to conclude. He acknowledges there may be a trade-off between his long-term health and short-term goals, fuelled by the chip that now resides on his shoulder following his funding exit.
Making August’s world championships in London would arguably be a greater accomplishment than landing a berth at the Olympics where his failure to approach his best when it mattered most last August left him wholly and visibly distraught. There are daily stresses now to be overcome. Injuries, cruelly, can inflict hammer blows.
“I just struggle to tie my shoelaces,” he confirmed. “Bending over is a problem, but I’m not in that position when I throw. I can powerlift 170 kilos so I’m as strong as I ever have been. My specific strength is good. It’s just taken time to shortcut everything together. I’m short on time and it’s frustrating to not have speed. But given everything that’s gone on, I’ve done lot in a short space of time. It’s just merely good isn’t going to cut it in London. I need an exceptional job. It’s going to be extremely hard but I’m going to make the most of it.”
Meanwhile Callum Hawkins has pulled out of next Sunday’s Great Manchester 10k. The London 2017 marathon hopeful is still to recover from a hamstring problem picked up during a recent race in California.
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