May resumes training

Reigning World Long Jump champion Fiona May of Italy is now back in full training after giving birth to her baby Larissa in July, and is focusing on the next year’s IAAF World Championships in Paris.

“Only five weeks after the birth of my daughter I began a gradual training programme to be fit for the winter preparation for next year, “ confirmed May in Italy today. “At the beginning it was very hard but the motivation is very high now. I am confident I will be able to regain my position in the elite of long jumping and be back stronger than ever. Everything is going better than I had previously predicted.”
 
“My daughter’s name is Larissa because it is the name of Larisa Berezhnaya, second at the World Championships in Stuttgart 1993 in the long jump, and very good friend of mine, a person I and Gianni (May's husband) have always admired."

“The birth of Larissa made me a more mature woman. In the past the only things I thought about were training and competitions. Now having a baby to look after is a new responsibility. Now I see life in a new perspective. Larissa is now at the centre of my life. Everything I do now is for Larissa. I am more motivated now than in the past.”

The British born long jumper became the celebrity of Italian athletics ever since she first captured the World title in Gothenburg in 1995. She followed that up two years later with the bronze in Athens '97, and a silver medal in Seville '99.

After the Long Jump final in Seville, May announced her decision to quit athletics but soon the enthusiasm aroused by many of her fans at the end of 1999 season, convinced her that it was right to continue her athletics career.
 
The decision proved to be inspired. The 2000 Sydney Olympics, where she finished second behind her friend and rival Heike Drechsler, was followed by her second World title in Edmonton last year, with she captured with a windy 7.02m attempt and five jumps over the 6.80m mark.

The gold medal came after a disappointing season according to her usual standards. Few Italian athletics journalists would have bet their money on a medal after seeing her struggle to leap 6.50 in the first meetings of the 2001 season. But one month out of competition in July before flying to Edmonton was enough for her to regain her confidence and return to form.

With her second World Championship in the bag, she immediately confirmed in Edmonton that  “I need a rest after so many years of hard training and competition," deciding then to carry out a long postponed plan of taking one year off to start a family.

Larissa seems now to have given her the motivation to resume her career, despite over a decade on the competitive runway, and with so many medals in her collection.

Her long career began in 1988 when she won the 1988 World junior title for Great Britain in Sudbury, Canada, with a leap of 6.82m. It was at the final party of these championships that she met her husband Gianni Lapichino, the former Italian record holder in the Pole Vault. At the end of the season she took part at the Seoul Olympics, where she finished sixth with 6.62 in the final won by the US legend Jackie Joyner Kersee with 7.40. In 1993 she married Gianni but shifted nationality only in 1994, a few months before winning her first major title as an Italian, with the bronze medal at the Europeans in Helsinki.

The years go by, her rivals change, but she has remained one of the major performers in the women’s Long Jump. Italian athletics fans hope that Fiona will return to her best form next year in time for the European Cup in Florence, and especially to defend her World title at the Stade de France in Paris.

The battle for medals will be stiff, up against the reigning European champion Tatyana Kotova of Russia, the 2002 Grand Prix Final winner Maureen Maggi of Brazil and perhaps even US sprint star Marion Jones, who says she will return to the Long Jump after two years off from this event. Britain’s Jade Johnson, second at the Europeans in Munich and Tunde Vaszi of Hungary, bronze in those continental championships, are other big candidates to have emerged into the arena this summer.

“Defending the World title in Paris will be very tough…but I will try. I am now more relaxed than in the past and this could help me a lot.”

The European Cup, which will take place in Florence next summer, returns to Italy after an absence of ten years (since the Rome edition in 1993), and is an event of special significance for Fiona. She lives in the Tuscan city and her return to competition may be scheduled for that important June event, where she can expect to revel in the local support.

May will miss the indoor season and the World Indoors, which will take place in Birmingham in England, not far from Slough, the town where she was born.

“I would like to compete in Birmingham in front of my family. It would have been my first competition in Great Britain since giving birth to Larissa. But the World Indoors are scheduled too early. I prefer building up my form gradually. I am looking forward to next summer. I really can’t wait. I miss the competitions after a year off. It has been very hard to return to the track at the beginning but I am getting used to it.”

Many star athletes have immediately achieved sensational results after becoming mothers. For instance, Heike Drechsler, who won the second of her four European titles in 1990 after giving birth to her son Tony in the previous year, and Stefka Kostadinova, who won her second World title in Gothenburg, just a few months after her son’s birth.

2003 will mark the return of many other famous mothers to competition. Among the others, Denise Lewis, the Olympic Heptathlon champion, and May’s Swedish rival, Erica Johansson.

“I am really looking forward to seeing how the other mothers, who took 2002 off, will perform after the pregnancy. Combining training and motherhood is a new challenge for me. I am more motivated and confident than ever. This year out of competition was needed to regenerate both physically and mentally.”

Despite being away from the track in 2002, May’s connections with the sport have remained strong throughout the year, with her election as a member of the European Athletic Association's Athletes’ Commission.

“I really did not expect to be elected. It is nice to know that people have not forgotten me in the year in which I was not on the track. I am pleased to represent the field events and give a voice for the athletes.”

Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF