British Virgin Islands athlete Chantal Malone has attributed her poor performance at the Tokyo Olympics, and general dip in form last season, to injuries she sustained in the lead-up to the Games.
The Pan Am Games champion in the Long Jump, began her season in phenomenal form with four straight 7 metres performances, but saw a dip in form as the season went on that culminated with her finishing a disappointing 12th in the Olympic final with a 6.50 metres jump.
Malone, speaking on an episode of SportsMax.Tv’s On Point, said she was having injury trouble up to two weeks before the Games in Tokyo.
“A week prior to Chula Vista in April, I had to get a PRP injection in my hamstring because I found out I had a strain in my hamstring. Two weeks before the games, I strained my hamstring again. Prior to that my knee flared up,” said Malone.
The fact that she never really took a break from training after the pandemic also took a toll on her physically.
“You’re training at this high intensity and your body is like; Ok you’ve got to oil me. You want a Ferrari to run like a Ferrari you’ve got to treat it like a Ferrari. That was just what my body was saying to me after training at such a high intensity for so long because, at that point, it had been 2 years since I’d been training at that intensity,” said Malone.
The 2014 CAC Games champion says she was also affected mentally by her ailments.
“Mentally, that’s what took me out a little bit because I didn’t know if I could trust my body. I wanted to jump, and I knew the kind of shape I was in, but subconsciously you’re being a little hesitant with putting the foot down a certain way or just executing the way you need to. As I reflect on the Games that was one of the blocks that I had,” she said.
The full interview can be seen on the Sportsmax TV YouTube channel.