Athlete focus: Thomas Hufford Long and Triple Jumper

We love supporting developing athletes, and are honoured to be able to speak with athletes in all sectors of UK sport to understand what motivates them.  

Thomas Hufford is a U17 Long Jumper, whose unofficial PBs places him squarely within the UK100 targets.  He won week three of our Virtual Standing Triple Jump competition, and was placed 5th overall.

What inspires you?

I’m inspired by all of the amazing jumpers who are currently doing what I aim to…. competing in the Olympics and World Championships. 

What are your goals and ambition?

My current goal is to work on consistency and my big ambition is to represent England at the highest level.

What sort of training do you do?

At first my main training was at the school athletics club, but since then I’ve been doing lots of stuff from John Shepherd’s YouTube videos.  I’ve also been doing lots of jumping games with my friends and a ton of climbing as that builds my leg muscles a lot as well as my upper body strength.

What are your plans to achieve your athletics goals?

I haven’t joined Cambridge and Coleridge yet but I intend to as soon as I can.  I want to join a club now since I’ve come to the point where I feel that I’ve capped out the improvement I can get from y own training and feel like joining a club and getting a coach will be very beneficial since they have a ton of experience and would be able to point out very specific details I need to work on and give me tips I would have never thought of.  Another thing is that with a club I’d have lots of people to train with rather than going solo.  This can be beneficial as I can have someone to compare to as my friends are decent but nowhere near my distances.

We wish Thomas every success with his training and competition

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