Hurdles no barrier for Clay
Published Thu 06 May 2021
Seven races, seven wins and seven times under 13-seconds.
It’s the immaculate record of Liz Clay in 2021, with her rise to stardom headlined by a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics. But away from the lights and cameras that have followed her success this season lies the story of a career riddled with bad luck, and the appetite to overcome it.
In 2014 the hardworking junior found herself on the doorstep of transitioning open ranks, spurred on by the incentive the IAAF World Junior Championships. Clay’s performances warranted selection for her first Australian team, yet a broken foot at the pre-departure camp saw her stripped of the opportunity to don the green and gold.
“I remember that camp so vividly, I was so devastated. I came back from an MRI during the middle of the camp, and I walked into the dining hall and just burst into tears because I knew that I wasn’t going and everyone else was,” she said.
“I sat down with one of the staff on the team and she told me not to give up and that I’ve got a big chance in this sport.”
Not disheartened by the cruelty of 2014, Clay charged on towards the next set of hurdles in 2015 – when she clocked a new personal best of 13.63 before MRI’s confirmed stress fractures in both femurs, both tibias and her navicular.
The adversity prompted a fresh start for Clay, who moved to the Gold Coast to train under the tutelage of esteemed hurdles coach Sharon Hannan. The move was quick to pay off, with Clay proceeding to run a new personal best of 13.51 at the Australian Track and Field Championships in 2016 before finishing in fifth place in the final.
Watching on from home as friends Ella Nelson and Annelise Rubie competed at the Rio Olympics, Clay forged the goal of competing at the Tokyo Games – hellbent on putting an end to her injury woes.
“Watching them I knew it wasn’t that far out of reach for me. At that stage I didn’t know how I was going to get there but I knew that I could,” she said.
The 2017 World University Games saw Clay at long last wear the green and gold, over three years after initially earning the privilege. But it wasn’t the fairytale imagined, with a case of the flu upon landing in Taiwan derailing the hurdler’s plans, forcing Clay to spend 10 days in bed before willing herself to the track to finish in last place of her heat.
“When I got over there I was in disbelief. I spent ten days in quarantine. It was so sad because my parents had come over to watch and the race was horrific. It was just a really unfortunate series of events,” she said.
A home Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast witnessed Clay fall agonisingly short of the qualifying standard – 0.06 seconds to be precise. Declaring her fifth-place finish in the Commonwealth Games trials a “choke”, Clay headed to Europe in pursuit of fast times.
Three races into her European stint and a broken foot halted proceedings, with the luckless Clay returning home early - but she wasn’t empty handed.
“I learned a lot over there and reevaluated my whole program and my outlook on everything. I found more balance with life and training and started to stress less. I just took a step back and went with the flow,” she said.
With her newfound attitude, Clay launched out of the blocks in 2019 with a series of swift runs. A hamstring injury interrupted this momentum, before a major fall at training two days out from nationals resulted in yet another fractured fibula.
Once again, Clay was forced to watch on as those around her competed on the world stage.
In typical fashion, the resilient workhorse responded in the only way she knows how – picking herself up and throwing herself at another flight of hurdles. This time she cleared them emphatically, clocking 12.94 in Melbourne for a major breakthrough on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We just worked on my speed religiously for a year and a half and the hurdling was already there, so it just came together in 2020 in Melbourne,” she said.
The year required patience but Clay’s turbulent journey ensured she had it in spades, biding her time behind closed doors before emerging in 2021 in the form of her life. The 26-year-old’s fastest time stands at 12.72 seconds, making her the second fastest Australian woman in the history of the event - only bettered by 2012 Olympic gold medalist Sally Pearson.
Arguably the most impressive element of Clay’s season has been her consistency.
“The whole season has just been a huge confidence boost for me, knowing that the consistency is there and that even some of my worst performances are still world class,” she said.
“Tokyo is going to tough; I want to make the final and I really think I can do it. It’s just a matter of working hard over the next couple of months and leaving no stone unturned.”
Clay is confident that there is more in the tank and that it’s only a matter of time before she shatters the next barrier, relishing the opportunity to race the best hurdlers in the world.
“By hurdle four I’m pretty much out there on my own, so I would love to have that competition in Tokyo,” she said.
“It’s about performing at my best and whether that’s 12.6 or 12.5 I definitely think it’s going to come at some stage.”
When Clay is coiled into the blocks in Tokyo on Saturday the 31st of July, ten hurdles will stand between her and her childhood dream. They will undoubtedly be the most important hurdles of her career to date, but if it were not for her persistence in clearing the hurdles of life in the preceding years then this generational talent may have never blossomed.
Those in Liz Clay’s circle know that she belongs on the world stage, and the rest of the world is about to find out why.
By Lachlan Moorhouse
Posted: 6/5/2021
