Maria Mutola, Kelly Holmes and Stephanie Graf (background) (© Getty Images)
They shared the medal podium in Sydney and now Mozambique’s Olympic 800m champion Maria Mutola and Britain’s bronze medallist Kelly Holmes have become training partners.
Holmes, who took the Commonwealth Games 1500m title on 31 July 2002, just two days after Mutola had been similarly successful over two laps in Manchester, has revealed that she has made two of the biggest decisions of her athletics life by leaving England for South Africa and changing her long time coach for the guru who has taken Mutola to the highest level.
“I had lost my motivation and I needed something to bring it back,” said Holmes. “I have done that. I could have retired a few times but I don’t think about it anymore – at least not until I am not good enough. Everything is now geared towards next year’s Olympic Games as a long-term target and I am really excited about the challenge.”
Holmes’s response to her motivational loss has been immediate. She is planning to complete an indoor season for the first time in her career, and started with an indoor personal best 1500m run of 4:12.51 when she beat Russia's Yuliya Kosenkova in Glasgow last Sunday (2 February). She will appear regularly on the indoor scene in Europe and take part in the World Championships in Birmingham in March – before returning to South Africa to plan for the summer.
At the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000, Holmes was third when Mutola took gold in the 800m, but it was last summer that the Briton thought of perhaps training with her Mozambique rival; a friendly rival at that.
“I had asked Maria’s manager if I could do some training with her, I went over there in November and have stayed ever since. Maria has so much experience, she has won so much that you cannot fail to become a better athlete by being with her. I feel I am stronger than ever. When I first went to South Africa I was just getting back into training, I was doing all that Maria was doing and progressing even more.”
They train together at the altitude setting on the outskirts of Johannesburg and during her time with Mutola, Holmes has been taken under the wings of her coach Margo Jennings. American Jennings has been working with Mutola for 12 years since she was based in Oregon.
“I was talking to her on the telephone and I asked her about the chance of her coaching me. She agreed and Margo is now my coach.”
Holmes has ended her coaching relationship with Dave Arnold, even though she still speaks to him regularly.
“I tell him what sessions I am doing but he knew my motivation had gone down and it has been hard on him. He has been the one who has tried to lift me every time I have been down.”
“I have so much respect for him but he realises that you do not always get chances like I have. It is not like I am coming to train with anyone. I am going to someone who has proved themselves year in, year out. Dave has been fantastic for me but I needed a change.”
“It is going much better than I could have expected. I have adapted to the altitude conditions which must help and as it is hilly out there, my strength will improve naturally. It could, though, have gone either way.”
"I am training with an Olympic and World champion and I might not have been up to her standard. But she has given me so much confidence. The running sessions we do are tough but you know you are looking to match the standards of one of the best athletes in the world.”
“Margot said that if I want to achieve my targets I need to stay in Johannesburg -- and I plan to.”
At present Holmes lives in Mutola’s house and adds: “It is so big that she wouldn’t even know I am there! But as I don’t have too many years left in athletics, when an opportunity arrived like this one, I had to follow it."
By an IAAF Correspondent