'I'm going to focus on fun': Shawn Barber happier, healthier in pole vault comeback
5-time Canadian champion, 2015 world gold medallist eyes Tokyo Olympics
Shawn Barber remembers being in a good enough headspace to jump but also on the verge of reaching his breaking point.
On Aug. 31, 2018, the Canadian pole vaulter continued a stretch of strong performances, clearing 5.83 metres for third place at the Diamond League final in Brussels. Barber completed his season nine days later at the IAAF Continental Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic, where he jumped 5.65 to finish third.
"I probably couldn't [have competed] for another month if it was asked of me," Barber said in a recent phone interview with CBC Sports. "I knew I was going to take a long off-season, especially with the 2019 world championships extending into October. I just didn't know [how long] I would need to feel like I could come back and be healthy."
The 25-year-old, who had problems with both ankles late in the 2018 campaign, sat out the entire 2019 campaign before ending a 16-month absence at recent indoor meets in Belton, Texas and Akron, Ohio, where Barber lives and trains.
"I was dealing with some personal issues — injuries, family," said Barber, who was born in Kincardine, Ont., but raised in New Mexico. "There were a lot of personal factors playing roles in my career that I had to re-evaluate and I'm still in the process of managing those relationships.
"For the most part, I'm fairly healthy and it's good to be jumping. It's a lot of fun to have those early couple of meets. Something I'm looking forward to working on is just being able to show up and have fun at a meet without the sense of pressure."
WATCH | Shawn Barber's 3rd at 2018 Diamond League final:
In 2014, Barber set the bar high, so to speak, as a 20-year-old, just a few months ahead of his senior year at the University of Akron when he earned a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. An NCAA outdoor title followed in 2015 and later that summer Barber became Canada's first athletics world champion in anything other than sprinting.
Key is finding rhythm
"There are many, many athletes that perform at the highest level at one point [but] how do they move forward?" said Jeff Hartwig, Barber's manager and part-time coach. "When you win a world championship at 20, you're far from the peak of your career and yet, it's such a monumental task to do it then.
"I think 2016 was probably a letdown year. Shawn had some personal issues that year, but 2017 was a bit of a rebound and 2018 was another step forward. Looking back, it was still two years before the next Olympics and he felt he needed to step away for a mental break."
The key for Barber in his return, noted Hartwig, is finding a rhythm jump-wise, getting into the groove of being back on the track and making adjustments.
Barber was in top shape a few years ago, he knew what pole he needed, how high he needed to hold it and what he needed to feel on the runway to be successful.
I used to be adamant about gym workouts but now I'm more focused on sport-specific and body weight workouts.— Canadian-born pole vaulter Shawn Barber
"It's balancing realism with expectation. Having taken time away [from the sport] you can't jump back to that level and expect the same feel," said Hartwig, a former pole vaulter and member of the U.S. Olympic teams in 1996 and 2008. "You almost have to come in [to competition] with a lot less expectation but use your previous experience to evaluate and make adjustments."
To that end, Barber — the 2015 Pan Am champion and 2018 Commonwealth silver medallist — is taking a conservative approach to this indoor season and using 5.28-metre poles. By comparison, he was jumping on 5.38m poles late in the 2018 season.
"He's been carrying shorter poles which will limit how high he can hold [them] but I've seen him jump over 5.80 metres on 5.10 poles. He's got to find the rhythm, based on what his current level [of jumping] is and build from there," Hartwig said. "He's regrouping and almost starting from scratch.
'Direction I want to work is different'
"We don't have any expectation for what the indoor season's going to offer. It's pretty low-key. It's more of an evaluation to see where he's at and what he needs to work on. The big push is for this summer [and the Tokyo Olympics]."
First, Barber will need to meet the 5.80 qualifying standard by June, a mark the five-time Canadian champion reached and surpassed five times outdoors in 2018, including a season-best 5.92. His outdoor personal-best is 5.93, set in July 2015. Barber has progressed quickly this month, with a 5.50 SB indoors achieved on Wednesday at the International Springer Meeting in Cottbus, Germany.
"The short-term goal would be to get consistent jumps over 5.80, with an end goal of jumping as high as possible and doing it consistently at the big events," said Barber, who was building toward March and the indoor world championships, which were postponed by a year on Wednesday amid growing concern about the coronavirus in China that had killed 132 people.
"The desire to improve is the same but the direction I want to work is different," added a lighter Barber, who is taking better care of his body these days and will spend the next month competing in Germany and France. "I used to be adamant about gym workouts and now I'm more focused on sport-specific training and body weight workouts [like trampoline work and swinging exercises].
"I could have been better [in 2018] about a sleep schedule. I sleep a lot more now. I probably could have cut out some of the heavy grease. I would have eaten less the day of an event, less caffeine, less everything. I would have got my nutrition in the days before the meet."
WATCH | Consistency crucial to Barber winning world gold:
In July 2016, after breaking his own national mark and becoming the youngest man to join the six-metre club indoors at the Pole Vault Summit Reno, Nev., Barber tested positive for cocaine at the Canadian championships/2016 Olympic qualifier in Edmonton, where he won and set the Canadian record at 5.71. He was able to avoid a two-year suspension after successfully arguing he'd ingested the drug through kissing someone who had used it.
Favoured to win a gold medal at his Summer Games debut in Rio de Janeiro, Barber barely advanced through the qualifying round and finished 10th overall.
"I would just like to be there [in Tokyo] and make the final," said Barber, who pegged his chances at 50/50. "It depends if I can maintain fitness, avoid injury and how I compete indoors. If I can just show up for two days of jumping, I'll feel like I've travelled to Tokyo for good reason.
"I'm going to focus on fun this year and hope the other things come together."
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