Zak Skinner talks documentaries, small margins and medal chances ahead of the Paralympics
The Para Long Jump competitor and 100m sprinter finished 4th at the Tokyo Olympics in the long jump, missing out on a medal by 3 centimetres.
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00:00Yeah, very excited. I think it's, the Olympics has made it seem like the last few weeks have
00:06dragged out even further, but I'm just excited to get out there now. I've got a couple more
00:11weeks of prep and then it's all guns blazing for the big competitions.
00:16And it's your second Paralympics now. Does that add more pressure?
00:21Oh, I don't know. I don't think, I haven't felt like it's added more pressure. I think
00:26it's, it's made me more well prepared. And I think because of where I placed in Tokyo,
00:33it's made me probably hungrier and added more fuel to my fire to make sure I don't finish
00:38fourth again.
00:39Yeah, you just missed out on it by a fraction. How did that feel in the moment? Has that,
00:44like you said, just done everything to spur you on now for this Paralympics?
00:48Yeah, I think initially I didn't really process it very well. And I think it probably sat
00:54with me for longer than it should. But I think once, once I got over sort of, and what
01:00I had probably seen as like a huge failure to be that close and still not coming away
01:04with something, for me now it's just, it's made me realise how terrible it feels to come
01:12fourth. So I just want to make sure I get out there and do my best to win the competition,
01:17to be honest.
01:18And it's an important conversation to have, the, the mental effect it can, it can have
01:23on you when you finish just so close to the mark and it can be really heartbreaking to
01:29then and difficult to pick yourself back up and carry on going.
01:33Yeah, it's, sport is brutal and athletics can be really cruel, I think. And unfortunately
01:41it's like this double-edged sword where like the lows outweigh the highs and the highs
01:46outweigh the lows. But then once you achieve that, it's, it's a truly exceptional feeling
01:52and it's one I'm hoping to achieve later this summer.
01:56And you can't really get through the lows without the people around you supporting you,
02:00your team back home, your team here in the county, in Tunbridge in particular. How do
02:05you keep connected to where you're from and keep that support, I suppose, really close
02:10to you when you're in places like Paris?
02:14Yeah, I think it's, without Tunbridge and the athletics club, I wouldn't have even got
02:19into the sport. To have a good athletics club, which I just walked to after school was vital.
02:25I still speak to my first coach, David Hull, and he basically set up everything that is
02:31happening right now. So for him, it's, it's, it's great to keep in contact with him and
02:36still pick his brains on certain things. And that training group is still close friends
02:39and I still feel very well connected to sort of where my athletics journey began. I still
02:46like to do things with them and the support they offer me is great. So yeah, I think it's
02:54coming from such a supportive and well-networked background has really helped craft me into
02:59the athlete I am now.
03:00And that journey is something that's been documented over on Channel 4, The Path to
03:04Paris, a new documentary that you've been part of. How did that come about? Why were
03:09you chosen for that and what did that involve?
03:11Yeah. So firstly, a massive thank you to the National Lottery for funding and making that
03:18documentary possible. For me, I was approached or selected by our head coach because he thought
03:25I would be a good fit. I don't know really why, but I, I think it was because of sort
03:32of, but the amount of sort of injuries and things that I have undergone and had, I think
03:38shows sort of the difficulty of our sport and the difficulty of being in elite sport.
03:44It's brutal at the best of times with, with basically everyone having to manage themselves
03:49just to sometimes get out on the start line can be harder than even winning medals. And
03:54during the documentary, it sort of, the story that I go on really sort of showcases those
04:00sort of journeys that we have to undergo as athletes and hopefully show some resilience
04:05and hopefully I can get the cherry on top in a couple of weeks, but filming it, I think
04:10it should be a great eye opener into what it's like to be in this sport, what it's like
04:14to be an athlete and really what it takes to perform at the highest level.
04:18And that resilience is key in the preparation stages. As you said, you've had some injuries
04:22as well, but also two sports to prepare for the hundred metres and the long jump as well.
04:27How do you go about splitting the training between the two? Is training very similar
04:32and how do you sort of counterbalance if you are getting injuries from training one
04:36or training the other, that must be really difficult.
04:39Yeah, it's, it's a very fine balance you could say probably between them. I think I'm lucky
04:45in the fact that being quicker than a hundred also means that you're going to be quick on
04:50the runway. So they do complement each other. It's not, they're not polar opposites of events.
04:56You have to be similar builds. You have to be fast for a hundred and you have to be fast
04:59for long jump. I think I, well, either luckily or unluckily my main event, which is the long
05:05jump is the one that usually causes more issues just because of the amount of force that has
05:09to go through your body to jump far. So luckily if that, if there is a thing that I can focus
05:16more on, on sort of the running side and the running really complements it, long jump is
05:21all about speed. So I'm lucky in that instance, but for the block starts is probably where
05:29I get the least amount of practice. So it's been going well this summer and hopefully
05:33it will continue.
05:35And something that really intrigues me when I speak to high performance athletes is what
05:40would you be doing if you weren't doing long jump, you weren't competing in the Paralympics,
05:44you weren't running a hundred metres, what would you be doing back in Tambridge?
05:47I've never even thought about it. I mean, I love sport. I don't think I could not have
05:55sport in my life. So I think I would probably be working in sport. I would love to be sort
06:00of maybe an SNC strength and conditioning coach and helping develop and probably programme
06:07for athletes. I think that's where my passion is and it's what I love doing.
06:11Well, you can certainly tell that's what you love doing and what you're passionate about
06:14from, from just talking to you for a few minutes, Zach, best of luck. Thank you so much. I'm
06:18sure we'll be speaking to you when you've got a medal around your neck, hopefully.
06:23Yeah, hopefully next time I'll have some silverware to show off.
06:26Amazing. We'd love to see it here on KMTV. Thank you very much for your time.