Jade, a real gem

On an early autumn day 13 years ago, a skinny 11-year-old girl turned up at Tooting Bec track in south London and asked the first official-looking person she found there, “Can I join in please, mister?”

The adult who accompanied the young girl, without trying to be too pushy, advised the coach quietly out of earshot of the girl, “She’s mad about athletics, and we think she’s quite quick.”

As any volunteer coach at any small club will know, one of the biggest problems facing them today is two-fold: first, finding talented kids, and second, making sure that they keep turning up for training on a regular basis.

Back in 1991, when Jade Johnson first showed up at one of the Herne Hill Harriers’ Sunday morning sessions for kids, I was the coach lucky enough for the talent effectively to discover herself. Getting Johnson to training was never a problem, either: with Julia Bennett, an international high jumper who taught PE at her school, the difficulty with Johnson usually involved dragging her off the track.

Even then, Johnson had long legs that saw her, gazelle-like, sprinting faster than most other kids. Within four months, she had qualified for the finals of the national SportsHall competition - a special development programme of indoor, team-based events - as a sprinter. She left the event in tears of disappointment that she had not won. She had never lost a race before. She placed second.

Her jumping ability was soon evident, too, and Johnson quickly moved up through the club’s groups, out of the kindergarten to Ivor Northey, the specialist Long Jump coach who guided her to an English Schools’ gold when she was 14.

Johnson, with her one-track mind for track, soon was forced to do less training when injuries halted her progress. Ultimately, Johnson joined her present coach, John Herbert, the former international triple jumper, who has in the past two years guided her to European and Commonwealth silver medals.

With her model good looks, Johnson is the poster girl of the British team. Dubbed “one of the world’s most beautiful athletes” in a London tabloid, Johnson is not that that impressed by such attention. “I don't really think of myself as a sex symbol,” she says. “J-Lo and Beyonce are sex symbols - I'm just an athlete.”

But an Olympic medal here in Athens this week and - as they say in south London - the world will be her lobster.

The celebrity and potential riches which could follow such success will be a stark contrast from her younger years, as part of an extended family, growing up in a small south London council flat not far from where supermodel Naomi Campbell was brought up.

Johnson turned up at Tooting track within a week of the family having returned south from Liverpool, where bullying and racism had made her life a misery.

Jade and sister Jemma, a year her junior, were the only black children at their Merseyside school. “It was really horrible, an awful, awful time - full of painful memories.” Today, Johnson looks back on it as a toughening experience.

“Even though there were many bad moments I learned to be strong. I was more concerned with protecting my little sister.

“There were many times we were in tears. We had been in the area for five years when my mum told us it was time to go back to London. I was over the moon. I couldn’t pack fast enough and I was so excited.”

Johnson has turned those jeers to cheers of support now, and although widely overlooked in Olympic previews - at least as an athlete - she is one of Britain’s few genuine medal chances.

Her event is dominated by Tatyana Lebedeva, the likely gold medallist, but her Russian team mate, Tatyana Kotova, has been below her best since a car crash 18 months ago, while the American champion, Marion Jones, has struggled to find consistent long jumping form.

By contrast, Johnson does perform on the big occasions: after becoming the first British woman for 42 years to win a European Long Jump medal, she followed that up last year with fourth place at the World Championships. There may be some bias here, but Johnson, the little girl who cried when she lost, knows how to compete on the big stage.

She thrives on pressure. After a low-key early season, Johnson was struggling to achieve the Olympic qualifying mark, and went to the British trials in Manchester last month uncertain of a place on the team. “I did think, ‘Why do I have to go through this?’ but it makes me stronger as an athlete,” Johnson says.

“When I won the long jump in Manchester, it did shut up a few people. I seem to have to get myself into a corner before I can do anything. I like the drama.”

Four years ago, Johnson, then barely out of her teens but already jumping a world-class 6.58 metres, was left at home when the British team went to the Sydney Olympics. Without an “A” qualifying standard, her best jump was not considered because it was wind assisted. A dire early season in 2002, when she desperately wanted to be part of the Manchester Commonwealth Games experience but feared she might miss out again, left her anxious, depressed and ready to quit the sport.

“I was in a dark deep hole. It was the darkest period of my life.

“I used to stay in a lot, withdraw from everything, watch stuff such as Ready Steady Cook on TV when I came back from training - just shut out the outside world.

“I used to panic that I'm not doing well early in the season but it always seems to come right - so now I'm trying to learn not to panic and to be patient.”

When there were worries this year that she might not qualify, Johnson’s dark moods returned for a while. “I isolated myself a bit when I knew I had to get the qualifying mark and was getting stressed. But this time I kept on top of things and knew I needed to stay mentally focused. I know it's all about keeping your head right.”

“I'm incredibly bad at being patient, not just on the track.

“I feel as if I've been put on earth to do athletics just to learn how to be patient.

Certainly now she is at her first Olympics, Johnson believes she can be the first British woman since Sue Hearnshaw at the 1984 Games to win an Olympic Long Jump medal.

“I'm in good shape,” she says. “If I didn't feel I could get a medal in Athens, I wouldn't bother going.” And there may, for once, be tears of joy.

Steven Downes for the IAAF