Zak Skinner talks documentaries, small margins and medal chances ahead of the Paralympics

KentOnline / KMTV

The Para Long Jump competitor and 100m sprinter finished 4th at the Tokyo Olympics in the long jump, missing out on a medal by 3 centimetres.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, very excited. I think it's, the Olympics has made it seem like the last few weeks have

00:06dragged out even further, but I'm just excited to get out there now. I've got a couple more

00:11weeks of prep and then it's all guns blazing for the big competitions.

00:16And it's your second Paralympics now. Does that add more pressure?

00:21Oh, I don't know. I don't think, I haven't felt like it's added more pressure. I think

00:26it's, it's made me more well prepared. And I think because of where I placed in Tokyo,

00:33it's made me probably hungrier and added more fuel to my fire to make sure I don't finish

00:38fourth again.

00:39Yeah, you just missed out on it by a fraction. How did that feel in the moment? Has that,

00:44like you said, just done everything to spur you on now for this Paralympics?

00:48Yeah, I think initially I didn't really process it very well. And I think it probably sat

00:54with me for longer than it should. But I think once, once I got over sort of, and what

01:00I had probably seen as like a huge failure to be that close and still not coming away

01:04with something, for me now it's just, it's made me realise how terrible it feels to come

01:12fourth. So I just want to make sure I get out there and do my best to win the competition,

01:17to be honest.

01:18And it's an important conversation to have, the, the mental effect it can, it can have

01:23on you when you finish just so close to the mark and it can be really heartbreaking to

01:29then and difficult to pick yourself back up and carry on going.

01:33Yeah, it's, sport is brutal and athletics can be really cruel, I think. And unfortunately

01:41it's like this double-edged sword where like the lows outweigh the highs and the highs

01:46outweigh the lows. But then once you achieve that, it's, it's a truly exceptional feeling

01:52and it's one I'm hoping to achieve later this summer.

01:56And you can't really get through the lows without the people around you supporting you,

02:00your team back home, your team here in the county, in Tunbridge in particular. How do

02:05you keep connected to where you're from and keep that support, I suppose, really close

02:10to you when you're in places like Paris?

02:14Yeah, I think it's, without Tunbridge and the athletics club, I wouldn't have even got

02:19into the sport. To have a good athletics club, which I just walked to after school was vital.

02:25I still speak to my first coach, David Hull, and he basically set up everything that is

02:31happening right now. So for him, it's, it's, it's great to keep in contact with him and

02:36still pick his brains on certain things. And that training group is still close friends

02:39and I still feel very well connected to sort of where my athletics journey began. I still

02:46like to do things with them and the support they offer me is great. So yeah, I think it's

02:54coming from such a supportive and well-networked background has really helped craft me into

02:59the athlete I am now.

03:00And that journey is something that's been documented over on Channel 4, The Path to

03:04Paris, a new documentary that you've been part of. How did that come about? Why were

03:09you chosen for that and what did that involve?

03:11Yeah. So firstly, a massive thank you to the National Lottery for funding and making that

03:18documentary possible. For me, I was approached or selected by our head coach because he thought

03:25I would be a good fit. I don't know really why, but I, I think it was because of sort

03:32of, but the amount of sort of injuries and things that I have undergone and had, I think

03:38shows sort of the difficulty of our sport and the difficulty of being in elite sport.

03:44It's brutal at the best of times with, with basically everyone having to manage themselves

03:49just to sometimes get out on the start line can be harder than even winning medals. And

03:54during the documentary, it sort of, the story that I go on really sort of showcases those

04:00sort of journeys that we have to undergo as athletes and hopefully show some resilience

04:05and hopefully I can get the cherry on top in a couple of weeks, but filming it, I think

04:10it should be a great eye opener into what it's like to be in this sport, what it's like

04:14to be an athlete and really what it takes to perform at the highest level.

04:18And that resilience is key in the preparation stages. As you said, you've had some injuries

04:22as well, but also two sports to prepare for the hundred metres and the long jump as well.

04:27How do you go about splitting the training between the two? Is training very similar

04:32and how do you sort of counterbalance if you are getting injuries from training one

04:36or training the other, that must be really difficult.

04:39Yeah, it's, it's a very fine balance you could say probably between them. I think I'm lucky

04:45in the fact that being quicker than a hundred also means that you're going to be quick on

04:50the runway. So they do complement each other. It's not, they're not polar opposites of events.

04:56You have to be similar builds. You have to be fast for a hundred and you have to be fast

04:59for long jump. I think I, well, either luckily or unluckily my main event, which is the long

05:05jump is the one that usually causes more issues just because of the amount of force that has

05:09to go through your body to jump far. So luckily if that, if there is a thing that I can focus

05:16more on, on sort of the running side and the running really complements it, long jump is

05:21all about speed. So I'm lucky in that instance, but for the block starts is probably where

05:29I get the least amount of practice. So it's been going well this summer and hopefully

05:33it will continue.

05:35And something that really intrigues me when I speak to high performance athletes is what

05:40would you be doing if you weren't doing long jump, you weren't competing in the Paralympics,

05:44you weren't running a hundred metres, what would you be doing back in Tambridge?

05:47I've never even thought about it. I mean, I love sport. I don't think I could not have

05:55sport in my life. So I think I would probably be working in sport. I would love to be sort

06:00of maybe an SNC strength and conditioning coach and helping develop and probably programme

06:07for athletes. I think that's where my passion is and it's what I love doing.

06:11Well, you can certainly tell that's what you love doing and what you're passionate about

06:14from, from just talking to you for a few minutes, Zach, best of luck. Thank you so much. I'm

06:18sure we'll be speaking to you when you've got a medal around your neck, hopefully.

06:23Yeah, hopefully next time I'll have some silverware to show off.

06:26Amazing. We'd love to see it here on KMTV. Thank you very much for your time.

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