All athletes have to deal with injuries, but Zak Skinner has found himself getting far too accustomed to the treatment table for his own liking.
Skinner’s journey to this point has seldom been without its obstacles but the Kent-born athlete prides himself on always finding a way to overcome them.
At University, he founded an events company to book himself as a DJ when nightclubs wouldn’t take him and now, despite having ocular albinism, a genetic eye condition that left him severely visually impaired from the age of two, the 25-year-old is preparing for his second Paralympic Games after recovering from the knee injury that threatened to rule him out entirely.
‘I think that the only thing that made it more bearable was the fact that there was nothing you could have done, apart from just get on,’ Skinner reflected, speaking to Metro.co.uk.
‘All I could do was knuckle down but that was the toughest part of this year. Those two or three months after the injury were brutal on the body, but also the mind.’
An avid videographer and photographer as well as a DJ, Skinner leant into his hobbies to distract from the monotony of rehab but also reached out for support from his fellow athletes to keep his spirits high throughout the tough times.
One of the 1,000 full-time athletes funded by the National Lottery, he trains alongside the likes of Katrina Johnson-Thompson and Jazmine Sawyers, two other Brits who have gone through their fair share of injury woes.
‘I think I’m lucky enough to have trained with them both for a couple years now, and I think having seen Kat come back from an Achilles rupture and then become world champion was something super special and something that has really inspired me,’ he said.
‘To have someone which you can confide in that also absolutely gets it is mega and has been there and gone through it and actually come back out on top.
‘Having those sorts of people around you is second to none, especially when you just don’t want to put on a brave face; you want to moan and complain that life is unfair. They get it. They’ve been there, or they are going through it right now.’
Despite the interrupted build-up, Skinner has plenty of reason for optimism ahead of Paris. A double European Para gold medallist in 2021 five years after taking up the sport aged 17, the Brit claimed long jump bronze at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championship and last month set a new 100m national record with a time of 10.84.
Long jump remains his main focus and Skinner is out for revenge at this Paralympics having finished fourth in Tokyo, losing out on bronze to America’s Isaac Jean-Paul by just 2 centimetres.
‘I think they did eat away at me for a while, and then I probably just decided to put it behind me, but use it as a motivator,’ he said.
‘I think I’ve had the experience of winning at European level, and that was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had. But then I’ve had the opposite and come fourth at the biggest event for our sport, the pinnacle of our sport.
‘That sort of pain is nothing you want to repeat, and even in the days where you don’t want to do it, you don’t want to get up, you don’t want to go to training, remembering that is that add a bit of fuel for your fire, just to make sure you give it your all.’
Given his eyesight, navigating the long jump and its precise margins can be a tricky endeavour. Skinner can only see the faint outline of the take-off board when he is roughly two metres away and so relies on the rhythm of his run-up to give him the best chance of landing a legal jump.
‘You can see how many able-bodied athletes foul in their event so it’s definitely the most challenging thing we’ve had to probably overcome, in the sense of my impairment on the sport,’ he said.
‘For my coach [Aston Moore], it’s always about rhythm whether you can or can’t see and so there’s that rhythm and consistency in my strides because I don’t have that proprioception or ability to adjust during the run.
‘For a 20-stride approach, I have six, where I will count in my drive, and then I’ll have four, and by the end of that four, I need to be guns blazing at the board. And then by that point, everything’s probably out the window, and I’m just trying to run as fast as possible.’
Sporting an eye-catching mullet like his dad, former England rugby player Mickey Skinner, the Team GB athlete has left his mum to organise travel for his support group of friends and family but is confident he can thrive in front of what will likely be the biggest crowd of his career.
‘I’m always someone that enjoys the high pressure, high intensity, like big crowd environment. I think it brings out the best in me,’ Skinner said. ‘I think for me, it’s more about staying calm before the competition so that when I get out there, I can just soak it all up and use it to my advantage.’
National Lottery players have transformed athletics in the UK, with more than £300 million invested since funding began, supporting both grassroots sport and elite athletes.
A new documentary – Path to Paris: Paralympic Dreams airing on Sunday 25th August at 4:55pm on Channel 4 – follows five British athletes as they prepare for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and offers a unique insight into how National Lottery players support them on their journey.
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