“I WAS SO PASSIONATE ABOUT IT,” Claire Bryant says of the decision to keep long jumping after her eligibility at Florida ran out last year. But there were concerns. “I think I was very much a realist about it.”
Over the course of many visits to the office of Gator jumps guru Nic Petersen, she hammered him with questions: “Is this feasible? Am I able to do this? What will it look like if I’m unsponsored? Am I able to train here? I think I was just proceeding with caution, but I knew I wanted to do it.”
Good call. Now the 23-year-old has the World Indoor gold in the long jump, the only individual victory by a U.S. woman in Nanjing. It was the ultimate underdog comethrough, as she had been only ranked No. 8 in terms of PRs.
Her mindset during the competition put her in the place she needed to produce the best jump of her life. “The thing I thought about over and over was that I have the opportunity to live out my dream and reach my goal… I wasn’t going in like ‘I have to win or I need to win,’ or you know, ‘It’s a failure if I don’t win,’ but more like ‘I’m going to take every blessing that’s been given to me and, you know, see how far it can take me.’
“Even during the competition when you’re waiting between jumps, I kept saying, ‘This is awesome.’ And I think when you’re in that mindset of just being so thankful and excited and filled with gratitude, it’s hard to be worried or put pressure on yourself. It’s hard to put pressure on yourself with a gift.”
One major key, she thinks, came from the contrast between her NCAA career and her new life as a pro. An 8-time All-America and 2-time SEC champion for the Gators, she never won an NCAA title individually despite finishing runner-up thrice. She says, “In college, I needed a national title to prove that I was good or show people that I could do it. Having that title, you know, you’re always a national champion. That title doesn’t go away. And so I feel like I needed that.
“But then going into this pro year, I feel like I wanted, obviously, a gold medal or a world title, but I didn’t need it as much. There’s a lot of freedom in that. It allows you to jump with freedom, compete with freedom. And obviously, it pays off.”
That freedom came into play in the fifth round in China. Petersen coached her from Florida, where he sat in front of the TV at 10:30 at night, relaying instructions to U.S. team coach (and high jump Olympic gold medalist) Erik Kynard. “It was a lot of joy for me to watch,” he says.
Bryant explained, “I’d say in the past four or five years now, I’ve only had one meet without [Petersen], which was like two years ago. So this is definitely different. But again, I was like, I can handle this.
“It felt uninhibited,” she says of her big jump. “When you get to this level, long jumps can be scary because it’s so much speed, so much force at the board. And I think I have sometimes been a little hesitant to go full tilt and just allow myself to like fully run through the board and take off. I think at this meet, it was really just a testament to no fear and [being] unburdened. And I think that was the main difference I felt.”
Says Petersen, “She is very fast, and she’s worked really hard to continually get faster. She’s got good bounce, and she’s always had a great takeoff, but doing so with a lot of speed and velocity are the big separators for her.”
“I feel like I kept my feet up a little longer too, which is nice,” Bryant says. “And when I got out of the sand, I looked and I said, ‘Man, that’s pretty close to 7m.’ But you know, it’s hard to tell.”
Then the signboard flashed 6.96 (22-10): “I was very content.”
“She absolutely just ran through the board with just absolute freedom, and that’s why we got the result we got,” says Petersen.
What’s even more remarkable is that Bryant jumped so well despite the specter of possible disqualification hanging over her head. A committed Christian — she works for Athletes in Action on the Florida campus — during the event introduction she flashed a piece of paper that spelled out “Jesus” in Chinese characters.
“I’m getting ready to jump. And a World Athletics official comes to me and says, ‘Hey, what did your sign say?’ And I said, ‘Oh, you know, it said Jesus.’
“And he said, ‘OK, just so you know, World Athletics doesn’t allow religious symbols to be shown during competition, so I have to let you know that you may be disqualified.
“And I said, ‘Oh, you know, I’m sorry.’ And then I was like, ‘Well, I’m not sorry… Thank you so much for telling me. Please keep me updated.’
“You would think there’s this cloud or impending threat going on. But I was just like, God, I just need you to handle that. You know, you handle the logistics. I’ll just jump. That could have really taken over my mental… what’s the point of jumping? I’m going to get disqualified.
“After my second jump, he comes up to me and says, ‘Can I have the sign, please? Because if you do it again, you’ll 100% be disqualified.’
“I said, ‘Please take it, yes, absolutely.’
Another official approached and said he wanted to give her just a verbal warning, but said that others “wanted to almost make a statement of that not being allowed. If you do it again, you’ll be disqualified. But keep going. You’re free to jump and don’t even worry about it.”
Bryant says she was then able to jump with a clear head, though she says her comments to the media afterward were restrained because of concerns that if she said too much, it might jeopardize the medal she had already won. She says now, “I think it was worth it on every level.”
No question, she says, the gold is life-changing. “In the media zone, 15 minutes after winning, I didn’t even want to think about it because I wanted to really live in the moment and just experience the blessing of the win and just the joy that comes from excelling at something you’re passionate about. But after the 12-hour plane ride back to the U.S., I wrote out all of the blessings that have come from it.
“My world ranking went up. There was prize money. I have a gold — I’ll always be a world champion. And I think this will help with sponsorship. This has helped me get into Diamond Leagues, which was maybe going to be more of a challenge moving forward into outdoors. So yes, I think this has changed so many things about my life.”
More importantly, she adds, “It’s so fun to be a part of such an elite community on the world stage with different nations. And it’s so fun to make track feel small, you know, getting to know more and more people and more connections. So I’m just excited for the outdoors to continue to find like-minded people in faith and in sport and just see what happens.”
