A year of niggles meant his coach kept him away from the rigours of the long jump runaway, but last night (June 11th) he made his comeback at last and jumped straight into the UK top 30!
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| Reon in Long Jump action at Norman Park |
"It's been frustrating not being able to get back on the runway and see what I can do," he said after the event, "but it would have been foolish to risk an annoying niggle in my hip with such an explosive event. I could manage with simple running, but it has been a very stop-start winter, so I need another year to get back in event-specific shape."
Reon has been around since he was 13, but not really broken through in the sport but now, with plans for a full winter programme ahead of him, both he and coach John Powell are convinced he can convert at last to a real threat nationally.
"Reon lacks strength and is not particularly fit compared with where he should be," said John. "He worked hard in our pre-season US training camp, but he needs to start from scratch, get fit and strong, avoid further injury, and we could have a bit of a star our hands next year."
As for the rest of this season, Reon intends to keep it reasonably low key with open meetings and more training just to see what he can achieve before the summer break. He'll get back into preparatory training for winter in September.
Reon follows in the footsteps of several top horizontal jumpers produced in the past through Trackspeed-UK. They include internationals Phillips Idowu, Darren Thompson and Onen Eyong.
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| Chaka Maillet (far left) and Daryl Thomas (right) were other trackspeed1-UK athletes in action at Norman Park - here setting off over 200 metres |
