Finishing tenth at the European Championships should have been a career high for British long jumper Jahisha Thomas. Instead, it left her furious. Thomas opens up about the unseen mental recovery that follows a performance error – the anger, isolation and mindset shift.
To most people, finishing tenth in a European Championship final is peak success; something you could only celebrate. For British long jumper Jahisha Thomas, it was the furthest she’d ever got in her career.
Yet she walked away feeling only one thing: anger.
The European Athletics Championships in Munich took place over the summer of 2022. This was the second Europeans Thomas had qualified for in her career, and the first final.
The 31-year-old told Back in Action about the impact her mindset had on her performance that day, starting in the qualifiers.
“My first jump, I remember I thought, ‘Jahisha, you’re here.’”
After fouling that jump, she wasn’t worried. “I knew it was decent, I just needed to land it. That’s what I was saying: ‘Just land it and you’re in. Land it and you smash it,’” she says.
Her second qualified her to finals, at 6.57 metres.
“I remember seeing my name rise on the board. I thought, yeah, sounds about right. I did exactly what I knew I could do.”
Her third jump was around seven metres but was a foul. It didn’t matter – she’d already done enough.
“Going into the final I was like: ‘Okay, I’ve made it. Cool. Excellent…and then it was like I ran out of jumps. They were getting better, but they weren’t what they needed,” she says.
Thomas’ first jump in the final was 6.37m, followed by a 6.35m, then a foul.
“I knew I didn’t hit it right, or take off right. Nothing went into place that should’ve; it was really annoying.”
Thomas ultimately placed tenth – a frustrating outcome because she knew she was better than that.
“I thought, ‘are you actually having a laugh?’ I can’t believe I did that. I was very disappointed.”
She recalled the rain and the darkness affecting her mentality, though she admitted they weren’t excuses.
“It was frustrating ‘cause I wasn’t using my nerves, it felt like they got me.”
Turning frustration into fuel
Afterwards, Thomas called her coach in America. When asked whether she jumped well, she felt certain that if she jumped again at that moment, she’d do better.
“Everyone said, ‘well, it’s the furthest you’ve got in your career!’”
But the achievement was clouded by disappointment. She hadn’t jumped as far as in training.
With her coach still in America, she’d trained alone, spending all day at the track, controlling everything she could.
“I was that friend who’d go into Nandos with tupperware! I hadn’t done all this for nothing.”
Thomas’ agent secured her a meet the following week, so she returned to training the next day.
“There wasn’t much downtime to get settled, which was good ‘cause it kept me wanting to win, to beat these other girls. It wasn’t the energy I used in the European final, it was the energy I used in qualifying.
“My mentality was: ‘I’m so ready to hit that board, it’s actually rude!”
Coming back from a performance error is a process rarely considered as recovery. You walk away with no visible injury, from an event entirely within your control.
It’s a commonly underestimated mental process athletes like Thomas work through.
“At the next meet, my first jump was probably the best I’ve done in my entire career,” she says. “It was everything anyone ever said about how to do a long jump. It felt like nine metres! But I’d fouled. But at that point, I was so ready.”
Thomas described feeling overwhelming adrenaline, like everything was flying.
“I felt like the European final was a semi-final, and this was the final – like I’d needed a warm-up.
“In that space, in that competition, I knew none of those girls were beating me. I remember how I felt in the warm-up. I’d woken up, eaten my breakfast, and everything was aligning. Everyone else was going to be fighting for second.”
From sports day talent to European finalist
Thomas’ career progressed naturally up until this, from the age of 11. She first noticed her talent, back in primary school.
“It was a sports day, year four, just a Tuesday afternoon. Everyone was jumping two metres – literally just jumping… and then I jumped four, and everyone stopped, like, ‘whoa’.”
Her school later phoned home and told her parents to put Thomas into training because she’d broken the school record by over a metre.
“If that was even a thing – do they have records at nine?!”
She didn’t realise how good she was. She went to training because her mum said so, and stuck with it as she moved up age categories, reaching nationals for the u11s, u13s, and eventually the u15s.
“It was funny ‘cause I remember everyone cheering for the girl before me when I was still waiting to jump. Everyone was thinking, ‘Whoever that girl on the runway is, forget it. She’s not beating that’.
“That was fuel to the fire. I ran, smashed it. Her face, oh she was fuming!”
Thomas became the u15 national champion for the first time that day.
“That’s when I realised I was a force to be reckoned with. After that, I was like, ‘what’s next?’.”
After school, she went to the University of Iowa on a full athletics scholarship, competing at NCAA level at competitions like Big Tens. In her senior year, she became the first athlete in the state to win four golds in a year in indoor and outdoor long jump and triple jump.
Following graduation, Thomas moved back to London to begin her professional career.
“It was a really exciting journey! Some random long jump at sports day led me to the European Championships.”
Her place on the British team in 2022 didn’t come easily. She’d not been chosen for the Commonwealth Games, and had to fight for her spot at Europeans.
“I knew I deserved my spot. I’d been militant in my preparation – in food, in training, in stretching. There was no way you could look me in the eyes and say I wasn’t making the final. I was in top shape – I knew I deserved to be in it.”
So when finals didn’t go to plan, she was furious.
“I was like: ‘get me back on the track now ‘cause I’m fuming.’ That was the energy I had. Initially it was sadness, and then it changed to fuming.”
She knew she had to go in with that energy to make it happen. She hadn’t trained so hard for so long for nothing.
“I’d trained alone the entire year. It had to amount to something. That was my attitude: I deserved it, so I wasn’t losing.
“I told myself, ‘Jahisha, you know what to do.’ I was doing the clap with the crowd, which got me pumped, so I moved back a little.”
It worked. She sprinted strong, was clean on the board, and jumped 6.40m, taking her competitors aback.
“I remember all those girls turned and looked like, ‘Oh. Didn’t realise you were a contender.’”
Thomas continued her meet with more clear jumps, ultimately taking first place with 6.60m on her fourth go, marking her first professional win.
“It felt like vindication because I jumped better than before. It marked Europeans as a situational thing, not my ability.”
She put her success 100% down to her mindset, emphasising the link between mentality, attitude, and performance.
“I knew if I did Europeans again, it wouldn’t go wrong because every time I competed, I improved.
“I once got advice about coming back from bad performances: ‘You can be sad, feel it, absorb it, but then lift.’”
The common misconception is people shake off a bad run and move on, but Thomas said it’s good to feel the lows. She put her success following Europeans down to feeling the weight of disappointment in herself, and not wanting to go through that again.
“That was trash. Hated the feeling. Hated the whole thing. It sucked.
“It’s important to actually be in it, to feel sad and understand it hurts. It’s the name of the game. Because then you make the changes to not feel like that again.”
If she could speak to her tenth-place self now?
“I would say you’re better than this. Did that suck? Yeah. Was it great? No. But, you’re healthy, and you’re not injured.
“You’ll get to do this again. Take some plusses: you got further than before, and you’ll do better next time because you feel this now. Learn from your mistakes.
“Focus. You were behaving like an outsider that day. Remember your name is Jahisha Thomas, and people fear that name when they see you in the lineup because you carry that energy, so carry that energy.
“Keep your work ethic up. Keep the whole thing moving on trajectory, and if you slip, don’t slide.
“This is life. The bounce back is just as good as the comeback.”