Shaw has the world at her feet, and sights set on the stars

The instant before Erin Shaw starts her sprint to catapult herself over the high jump bar, she leans heavily on her back leg like a theatrical stage magician preparing to say ‘abracadabra’ to produce a rabbit from her hat, and then, in a flurry of long limbs and blatant determination, she drives forward at pace to attack the jump.

While the 18-year-old New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship athlete, who came fourth at last year’s World Under 20 Athletics Championships in Columbia, is in France and preparing for a senior meet in the Normandy region on July 7, there’s high hopes she’ll continue to build on her significant achievements to . . .  in time, . . . conjure some very special sorcery in the field event.

For Shaw, who counts world champion Eleanor Patterson and Tokyo Olympic finalist Brandon Starc among her training partners in the Alex Stewart-coached squad at Sydney Olympic Park, the annual International de Sotteville-les-Rouen meet represents yet another important leap in her burgeoning career.

“I like the challenge, every day is different . . . some are good, some are bad,” Shaw said of the sport that leapfrogged surf lifesaving, swimming, basketball, netball, touch football and dancing as her passion. “It’s exciting and I think competing in Europe will be a lot of fun.

“My build-up has been good, but also a bit up and down. I had a bit of a foot injury, but Alex and I were able to manage that so we could keep training.

“What I’m learning is the way to deal with the pressure of a high jump contest is about focussing on you. You can’t change anything else but yourself, and the key is trying not to over think things. Focus on the basics . . . run . . . jump.”

Shaw faces an adrenaline-charged baptism of fire in her first European international senior meet. The International de Sotteville-les-Rouen is ranked among France’s top five meetings, and it also holds the European Athletics Silver label.

Over the past 30 years the meet has hosted a brigade of Olympic medallists, including French pole-vaulter Renaud Lavillenie, French discus thrower Melina Robert-Michon, and Kim Collins, the Kittian 100m world champion.

When Shaw leans back dramatically on her leg before executing her jumps in front of the expected crowd of 5500 passionate athletic devotees crammed into the Jean-Adret Stadium, she should expect them to make a ‘magnifique’ din with their loud cheering and calls.

Competing in this meet at just 18 years of age represents a continuation of Shaw’s progress, which included clearing 1.77m as a 15-year-old, and last year’s stellar performance in the final of the World U20 Championships when she equalled her Personal Best of 1.85m on her first attempt.

While Shaw cleared 1.88m on her second attempt, the ensuing increase – 1.91m – proved too high and the teenager from Sydney’s northern beaches finished in what was described by Athletics Australia as a “brilliant fourth”.

And, just as Brandon Starc’s 2.35m jump at the Tokyo Games would have guaranteed him a medal at every Olympics that had been staged over the 20-years prior, Shaw’s effort to clear 1.88m – the best by an Aussie at the World Juniors – would’ve allowed her to stand upon the podium at eight of the previous 10 championships.

“It was a great competition – a very high level – and it was great to compete against high quality athletes,” said Shaw of Columbia. “It was a great way to transition into opens [seniors]. The championships gave me a taste of high level competition in an intense environment.”

Since joining Stewart, Shaw, who lived in Germany as a primary school student for two years after her father was sent there for work, described herself as fortunate to be able to absorb all she could from Starc and Patterson. Indeed, she shyly admits that once she focussed on high jump, Patterson – whose resume includes a world title, a world indoor silver medal, Commonwealth Games gold and silver, and a host of other titles and records – became the athlete she admired most of all.

“I’m learning everything I can,” she said of her training sessions. “Brandon and Eleanor are great to train with, and it’s also beneficial for me to see how they conduct themselves at training, outside of training, and in contests.

“It’s all very good, and I don’t take any of it for granted. I did different sports growing up, and while I looked up to other [athletes], when I got into high jump I looked up to Eleanor.”

Patterson, who’ll return to competition from a foot injury when she lines up at the Silesia Diamond League in Poland on July 16, conceded she saw similarities between herself and Shaw, who, outside of a heavy training schedule, is studying Exercise Science at Sydney University.

“Training alongside Erin in our training squad has been incredible to see her coming along, and it does feel like in some ways I’m looking at my younger self going through the process,” said Patterson. “We are similar in a lot of ways . . . though, she might not be happy with that [laughs].

“First and foremost, she’s an incredible person and has high expectations of her herself, but the biggest thing for Erin is she has the world at her feet. There’s no doubt she going to do incredibly well in her career because she has so many things in her headspace. She’s cool, calm and collected, and she’s able to handle herself well because she’s quite mature for her age.

“My only advice for Erin is to appreciate the little wins. It’s so easy within your athletic mindset to continually want to push for more and more and more so that you never really sit in the moment and feel gratitude for ‘hey, that was pretty cool, I need to pat myself on the back for that’.

“[When I was her age] I would think: ‘oh, that was cool, but whatever’ and I’d push forward thinking ‘now more, now more, now more’. Even though I had a hiatus from athletics, I feel as though I’m a veteran in the athletic team having been at Games since I was 18, so I think it’s important for Erin – or any athlete – to take the little wins and to appreciate how far you’ve come and to realise it is epic.

“You need to do that because it’s so easy to be carried away with that feeling of ‘I want more’ or even comparison. [I advise people from comparing themselves to others because] comparison is the thief of joy.”

When coach Stewart speaks of Shaw’s traits – which included her fight back from a broken wrist four weeks before the 2022 nationals, and then two weeks before claiming the title she rolled an ankle badly – he speaks of an athlete who possesses the qualities needed of an elite athlete.

“The physical traits need to be there,” said Stewart. “They need to have a certain mental and emotional resilience about them, which Erin has.”

And her resilience will be tested in that first meet in France having landed in Paris only three days before the competition.

“It will be interesting to see how she goes because she’s only a few days off the plane,” he said. “She’ll be jumping at 8pm in the evening, so she might be a little bit sleepy [due to jet lag]. Then she’ll compete in Dublin on the 14^th, another event on the 22^nd in Madrid and then the Heilbronn High Jump meet in Germany that Brandon and Eleanor will compete in on August 5^th and 6^th.

“Erin is going well. she has the traits you want to see in an athlete – and she’s going to be good.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS