Athletics: Lamb to jump to it in Europe

Liz Lamb Photo / Doug Sherring

The Germans are masters of the quirky sporting festival. Think stone-lifting championships, an annual plastic duck regatta and the Mud Olympics.

Since 1979 that desire to do things a little differently has extended to high jump. The town of Eberstadt (population 3150) near Stuttgart in the south-west hosts the annual Internationales Hochsprung meet. Next to an Olympic gold and a world championship, it is arguably the third most coveted high jump title in the world.

Men's world record holder Javier Sotomayor of Cuba is testament to that - he won the title five times in his career. Put simply, local organisers lease a couple of the town's tennis courts for the week, build stands around three sides and place a mat and bar at the open end.

Some of the sport's top practitioners then leap to their favourite music mixed with the backing of a packed crowd of high jump aficionados. Kiwi jumper Liz Lamb will have perused her musical back catalogue for that reason overnight. The 20-year-old is nearing the end of her first track and field tour of Europe and has been invited to compete in the open women's event.

Lamb set a new personal best of 1.86m in February, won the English under-23 nationals with a jump of 1.82m last month and finished second at meets in France and Ireland. However, her PB leaves her six centimetres short of the B qualifying mark for the world championships and nine centimetres short of her nearest competitor's PB in the Eberstadt field.

Lamb knows it is a challenge but recognises it is a privilege to be asked to attend, given her invite was upgraded from the under-23 to women's open division in the last few days.

"I'm told the whole town flocks in to watch. I'm not that much of a student of the sport but my friend William Crayford [the New Zealand senior men's national champion] says it is the creme de la creme of the high jump world. I suppose you could draw a parallel with the Henley rowing regatta in England as a title which is not an Olympic or world championship prize but sought after nonetheless."

Lamb is undecided what music she will spring to, although one imagines the Eberstadt townsfolk are fairly familiar with the lyrics to Van Halen's Jump, U2's Acrobat and the Foo Fighters' Learn To Fly.

Another option could be David Hasselhoff's Looking For Freedom which spent a remarkable eight weeks at No. 1 on the West German charts in 1989. Lamb is more concerned with trying for a personal best: "One of the progressions on the bar at this meet is from 1.84m to 1.87m which could be a crucial step after a best of 1.82m so far this tour."

After sixth at last year's Commonwealth Games, Lamb says it will again be great competing against athletes who are better than her, something which has helped her this tour. "It's my first European season so getting these chances to prove myself against those who are the same or better has been a real driver."