Essex-born athlete Jonathan Broom Edwards is ready to beat his personal best in Tokyo
"I've got my game face on, ready for the competition and enjoying the experience"
"Excuse the high jump pun, there's been a lot of ups and downs", was Jonathan Broom Edwards' response when asked about HIS journey to Tokyo 2020. The athlete from Colchester picked the sport up at the recommendation of a friend.
Fast forward several years, Edwards is now heading into the upcoming games as World Champion and hoping to do one better than his Rio 2016 run. But it wasn't always easy. Edwards suffers from a clubbed left foot. He also suffers from instability in his right knee and suffers from muscular imbalance throughout his body.
Despite early successes in his career, serious injuries threatened to throw off his progress, first in 2015 and then for much of 2018-19. Both times, however, he rebounded in style, securing the aforementioned silver on his Paralympic debut in 2016, and then capping a fairy-tale ending to his 2019 by winning gold in the 2019 athletic championships in Doha, earning the right to call himself world champion ahead of the games in Tokyo this year.
The Covid-19 pandemic however threatened to derail his bid to take part in Tokyo 2020. Facing lockdown restrictions and a lack of access to training facilities, Edwards like many other athletes had to think differently, "I began doing my run ups on a basketball court, practicing my jumps in a railway station where there were some ledges I could jump onto and doing some training at home, to adapt as much as I could."
Although he put the work in, it wasn't certain that the games would take place this year. "There were some doubts about whether or not it would happen so to make it here is great", he says. So jubilant was his team that they held a party for him on the plane to Tokyo.
Having finally reached the Olympic Village on Monday, he is hoping to savour every moment. "Now that I'm here, I'm trying to take each moment as it goes, enjoying every second and taking in the experience." Once the competition starts, he promises to have his game face on. Like a lot of athletes, however, he says his biggest challenger is himself.
"My main aim is to beat me, beat my personal best. I feel confident and I'm in the best shape I've ever felt. So who knows, I could be the last man standing", he adds.
The Paralympic games this year, much like the Olympics will take place without fans, and against the backdrop of an unrelenting pandemic in Tokyo. "It's a shame that Covid-19 is here because you can only imagine how well the Japanese would have organised the Paralympics and indeed the Olympics this year. They've been so efficient and so friendly, it's incredible". he says.