Guyana’s 400m sprinter, Aliyah Abrams, will approach competing at the Tokyo 2020 Games with fresh zeal after taking full advantage of the enforced break from the sport the coronavirus provided last season.
Like many others, the national champion found herself upended with heavily disrupted training sessions, the majority of meets cancelled, and even eventual postponement of the Olympics. Still, she endeavoured to make the best use of the situation and found unexpected benefits.
“Despite the Games being cancelled and a whole lot of meets being cancelled it was the reset that I needed,” Abrams told SportsMax.TV.
“Sometimes you just need to step away from the track and pursue and do other things that you enjoy. When you come back to doing it, you can rekindle that flame that you had,” she added.
“A lot of things of things were shut down but I got a chance to spend some time with the people I love and recover my body and my mind.”
For the 24-year-old, Tokyo will represent her second appearance on track and field’s biggest stage, and in addition to being in a better frame of mind, she is also feeling in better physical shape.
“It’s been five years from 2016 to the 2021 Olympics, I was able to compete internationally and do well at Worlds and at Pan-Ams, so I have more experience, I’m in better physical shape as well. I’ve also run faster than I did heading into the first Olympics,” Abrams said.
The quarter-miler, who has a personal best of 51.13, has targeted cracking the 50-seconds barrier in Tokyo, but in a highly competitive field that may not be enough to earn a place among the top eight women in the world. Win or lose though, the plucky athlete certainly intends to give it her best shot.
“I haven’t been running the third 100 of my race the way that I want to this season, so I have been working on how to better execute that. The problem has been the second part of my race. Once I set that up, I’ll be in good standing,” Abrams went on.
On her Olympic debut in Rio, Abrams exited the competition in the first round, she has much higher targets this time around.
“My ultimate goal this time around is to make it to the final that would be a success for me.” (SportsMax)
