Erica Bodman (centre) on the water in the Homerton College VIII (0653472)
THREE-TIMES Island Games high-jump champion Erica Bodman has raised the bar on her sporting ambitions.
The 20-year-old has her eye on a place in the Great Britain team after being accepted into the World-Class Start rowing programme.
Her short-term goal is to trial for the 2009 GB under-23 team, but long term it is to win an Olympic gold, although the 2012 London Olympics is likely to come around too soon.
And Mary McLachlan, her coach on the WCS programme, believes she has a realistic chance of achieving the short-term goal of a trial for next year’s GB under-23 squad.
‘We are always looking out for people who we think can make the Olympics. Erica did particularly well in the endurance tests. It suggests she has got we call a big engine, big lungs and big VO2 max.’
Bodman said having to give up athletics – she was forced to quit due to bunions – had left a huge hole in her life and she was grateful to have such an exciting new sporting challenge.
‘I’m lucky to have the physical specifications for it,’ said the 182cm-tall (nearly 6ft) gold medallist at the 2003, 05 and 07 Island Games.
‘I retired from athletics a couple of months before my 20th birthday [she will be 21 in January] and was finding it hard to know what to do with myself.
‘The doctor suggested I take up either cycling, swimming or rowing and as I always had the [Homerton at Cambridge] college rowers after me, I had a go. Luckily I was fairly fit from my years of athletics and have the basic physical criteria for rowing – tall with long levers.’
McLachlan can see a lot of potential in her new recruit and said winning a spot in the GB under-23s is within the reach of the trainee teacher in her final year at university.
‘She should definitely be aiming for that. I think it’s a very realistic goal but if she’s doesn’t make it, it should not be seen as a big failure.
‘It really takes six years to make an Olympian.
She has an outside chance in 2012 but it’s much more realistic for 2016.’
Erica Bodman’s new career is featured in depth in next week’s women’s sport pages.
Article posted on 11th October, 2008 - 9.30am
Most Commented: