Jemma Reekie once elevated the leviathans of track and field toward a pedestal, the Olympic champions whose online highlight reels she’d watched through fascinated eyes. Kelly Holmes, Mo Farah, she studied their processes, morning, noon, late into the night, so they might somehow become hers.
Always a runner and nothing else from her first recorded race in Linwood in the June of 2010, Jessica Ennis still fascinated her so. Super Saturday in London, just weeks after the teen had transported the Olympic torch through her native Ayrshire, converted the heptathlete into a heroine too.
But when Sheffield’s super human came to a young meeting and Reekie fronted greatness in the flesh for the first time, it burst a bubble but also inflated an ambition that has taken her all the way to the 800 metres final in Tokyo tonight.
“You realise they are just normal people,” she said. “Like when I joined Laura Muir's group. I've been so fortunate that I've been brought up around elite athletes from a very young age. So I didn't actually think too much about it once I met them. If I'd met them when I was really young, it would have been scary. But I learned that athletes are just normal people.”
With extraordinary dedication and talent, however. Enough that the 23-year-old would not shock herself, or anyone else, if she bolted ahead of the pack to join Ennis in the club of champions. And why not? She won five of her eight races at the distance this year prior to arriving here, all against quality opposition. Even a rare loss, to Muir in Monaco, produced a lifetime best of 1:56.96 that she may need to better for a medal even if the cadence of the final rewards tactics over speed.
“I really want to be up there in the race to win it. Obviously you’ve got to expect that everyone in the Olympic final is amazing. But I want to be up on that podium.”
Three women in the field have dipped below 1 min 57 secs this year, the quickest American teen Athing Mu, one of seven children from a family who emigrated to the States from Sudan a year before she was born.
Two fellow Britons too, with Alex Bell - infuriated when she was denied Lottery funding in 2019 but with point irrefutably proven - adjoining Keely Hodgkinson, a supernova who shot from nowhere to claim the European Indoor title in March and then rocketed past Reekie and Muir to win the Olympic trials.
“It’s brilliant that we've got that strength and depth there,” said Muir, who will be among the most invested in the stadium in the Scot’s success along with their coach Andy Young.
His more unorthodox sessions have been designed to teach his charges to think rapidly on their feet. Reekie believes she can cope with whatever is flung her way and elevate herself above the fray.
“I really want to be up there in the race to win it,” she declared. “Obviously you’ve got to expect that everyone in the Olympic final is amazing. But I want to be up on that podium.”
Meanwhile Katarina Johnson-Johnson insists she can deal with the rigours of her first heptathlon since claiming the world title in Doha 22 months ago. Achilles surgery at the close of 2019 left the 28-year-old in a race against the clock to even line up in Japan with only a small cluster of single-event outings under her belt.
There is an unfortunate sense that, as with the UK’s other reigning global champion Dina Asher-Smith, these Games arrived too soon to properly heal. 12 months too late, Johnson-Thompson offers as an alternative. Sixth in Rio, the Liverpudlian talks up her chances as a championship performer but an understandable failure would not be the end of her world.
“I feel like sport is sport,” she said. “The older I get, the more I realise that sport is so unpredictable and it doesn't go everyone's way all the time. And I can accept that. I'm going to give it my absolute best then, I'm proud of my career so far, I'm proud of what I've achieved this year in getting to the start line, and I'm going to be proud of my performance no matter what.
“Before, I thought I deserved certain medals in the past, or my performance wasn't up to scratch. And I didn't do as well on the day. I feel like now all that matters to me is making sure that I leave the track with no regrets.”
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