Isabelle Pedersen is a fast-rising athletics talent from Norway. At such a young age, Pedersen has won several major age-group titles, the most notable of which are the World Youth and World Junior crowns in the 100m hurdles. In 2009, the Norwegian edged out two American athletes to win the U18 100m hurdles (0.765m) gold, stopping the clock in 13.23s. In Moncton the following year, and competing against older, U20 athletes this time, the compact sprint hurdler again won gold. Her time of 13.30s over the 0.838m barriers was a national junior record.
In the women’s event where the barriers are lower, speedsters tend to get away with glaring technical flaws, relying more on their flat out speed than hurdling form. At such as young age, the Pedersen has developed a fundamentally-sound hurdling technique, comparable to her older compatriot, Christina Vukicevic. To date, Pedersen’s personal best stands at 13.21s – a national junior record and six-hundredths of a second off the Daegu World Championships standard.
Her ebullient personality on the track and the sheer enjoyment she exudes in her races highlight Pedersen’s love for the event. She is every inch the happy hurdler – and happy hurdlers, epitomized by Liu Xiang himself (and most recently, Pascal Martinot-Lagarde) are formidable competitors.
As the World Youth and World Junior Champion matures physically and psychologically, the prospects of success in the senior ranks look bright.
Pedersen takes time to answer this blog’s 10-for-10 feature:
1. How did you get started with athletics?
When I was younger my mom thought I had ADHD, but it turned out I was just a girl with a lot of energy. Doing sports was therefore an easy choice. My first meeting with athletics was at the age of ten. I walked by some teenagers training and I was fascinated by the sport. I remember I asked my mom what kind of sport they were doing and she told me it was the same sport she did when she was younger. Since that day I knew athletics was the sport for me as well.
2. What’s the most memorable moment of your track career?
When I discovered that I have won the final [of the 2010] World junior championships. The last thing I remembered was the starting point, the rest [was] just black.
I had a dream to defend the gold medal from youth world championships the year before, but [I] never thought I’d make it. I was number 15 on the list before the championships started.
3. What’s your life-long dream?
I´m living it now, I’m living out my dream everyday. Track, hurdles [are] my passions. And the dream of everyone else, [to] become as good as possible.
4. Let’s lighten up a bit! What would you rather wear and why? Short shorts or tights?
Hehe, tights is the thing I guess.
5. If you could be a Glee cast member, who will you be? And what song will you sing?
Glee cast? Sorry, honestly I’ve no idea what that is…
6. How I Met Your Mother or F.R.I.E.N.D.S.?
Tricky… both are greats shows! Why choose when you can have both?
7. What’s the best pump-up song of all-time?
I have a new list every season, and there a no favorites, they are all part of the warm up.
8. If you could spend the rest of your days at any place in the world, which would you choose?
I haven´t raveled much to the big cities of Europe, but Paris has inspired me a lot. Would like to live in a city that inspires me as much as Paris to my last breath. Maybe I will movie back to my home town Bergen, I haven´t planned it yet!
9. Name three things you just can’t live without.
I think I will pass this one, I still have the world in front of me ;)
10. Who’s your athletics role model/idol?
I don’t have one. I’ve always just done it because it’s fun. Haha. But Susanna Kallur is a great hurdler.
Before going to be last night, I watched clips Trans World Sport’s features on various track & field athletes. Aside from the regular Diamond League and Athletix Mag airings in Eurosport Asia, we Filipinos don’t get much athletics-related shows. The next best thing is Youtube. In this day and age of HD videos and broadband internet, the live-streaming site is the next best thing!
The aforementioned athletes are quite a combination – even if you take Bolt out of the picture. Hooker is the reigning Olympic, World, World Indoor and Commonwealth Games pole vault champion. Then there’s the versatile Felix, who can excel in all the flat sprinting events. Gill, Barshim and Pedersen are all World Junior titlists from Moncton.
Among all the athletes featured above, I’d have to say that I’m most impressed with Jacko. To be able to throw the 7kg shot beyond twenty meters at such a young age, that’s certainly historic! For a sprint hurdler who has scant knowledge of the throws, seeing a teenager heave the youth shot put beyond twenty-four meters is interesting, to say the least!
Watch at least one clip and you’ll get an instant dose of extrinsic, athletics motivation!
A few days ago, I stumbled upon an excellent feature by Trans World Sports on Norway’s reigning World Youth and World Junior Champion, Isabelle Pedersen. The powerfully-built Pedersen reminds me of a young Susanna Kallur, with her raw sprinting power and technically-sound hurdling fundamentals.
In the clip, Pedersen was doing hurdle walk-overs. I noticed that her trail arm (her right arm) had an open palm ala Carl Lewis throughout the entire arm action. Then it hit me, why not do the hurdle walkovers Pedersen style? Instead clenching my left arm in a loose fist, I could make an open palm to instill the proper relaxed arm swing motion on my left trail arm.
During the formative months of 2005, when I overhauled my entire hurdling technique thanks to Coach Toto, I never corrected this blatant flaw in form. I’ve always had a problematic trail arm. Instead simply swinging backwards and forwards during clearance, my trail arm always jerks towards shoulder (or chin!) height, before the resumption of a more orthodox arm swing. As a result, the path my center of gravity travels during the hurdling motion becomes mildly erratic, instead of being as stable as possible. The arms, after all, are key in providing balance against the enormous torque produced during the hurdling action.
Sprinting-in-between becomes harder, in light of this split-second break in momentum.
Nevertheless, I corrected all the other aspects of my hurdling: (1) lead arm (whereas before, it used to swing from a high arch, I corrected it to mimic Liu Xiang’s sword-like arm swing) and (2) trail leg (the squaring of the trail knee become more forceful, the foot became parallel with the hurdle top bar). Despite my troublesome trail arm, I improved dramatically because of the hours I spent drilling over the hurdles.
At left is my deficient form. At right is the proper trail arm action, courtesy of non-other than Liu Xiang himself!
Photos from Karla Lim and BBC/AP
The flaws of my hurdling technique becomes even more apparent during the lead leg action. By this time, the trail arm had settled beside my hip, albeit quite tensely. As you can see from the photo below, I bring my lead knee up too high. The result is more hang time, as the lead leg needlessly exerts excessive upward force.
Photos from Karla Lim and Xinhua
Mind you, I wasn’t like this before. In the summer of 2006, I remember how my thighs almost always graze the hurdle top bar – a good feeling for a hurdler! However, a spate of injuries (hamstring and a terrible forearm fracture) stunted my hurdling finesse. From then on, I couldn’t seem to replicate the sensation of precise clearing. Even if I ran faster times, the hurdling clearances almost always felt lacking.
Despite the aforesaid flaws, my hurdling technique has some good points too. I am particularly proud of my squared lead leg and parallel trail foot. My lead arm swing is also efficient, enabling my trail leg to smoothly clear the hurdle. Needless to say, I am quite proud of my overall trail leg action!
Photos from Karla Lim and IAAF
I am light-years away from an efficient hurdling technique, much less to even approach Liu Xiang’s form – or any other world- or regional- class hurdlers for that matter!
As soon as I wrap-up the 2010 season and take a breather, I’ll head out to the track again to correct the deficiencies in my technique. I believe that a smoother hurdling clearance can shave off as much as two-tenths of a second from my personal best.
I’ll start with the most basic of hurdling drills – the hurdle walk-overs. Hopefully, an open-palmed trail arm would promote a more relaxed arm action.
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