Athletics: Jacko Gill heading overseas for training camp

Jacko Gill. Photo / HB Today

Jacko Gill will trade in his parent's basement for southern Sweden later this year as he builds towards August's athletics world championships in Beijing.

The decorated junior shot put champion has made only steady improvements since jumping to the senior ranks, but at 20, he has time on his side.

Accustomed to training by himself - some of which is done at home in a private gym that was showcased in a popular YouTube video - Gill said he would travel to Sweden in a few months to link with some other elite shot putters.

"I'm really excited to train with other people because I haven't trained with other people before," he said. "So it'll be good to have someone pushing me along."

Details were hazy around the dates but it will likely be in the middle of the year before he heads to Beijing.

Gill said last year he wasn't a big fan of travelling internationally, which is why he often competed in Auckland. But he has warmed to the idea recently and said he enjoyed going to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where he finished 11th.

A trip to Rarotonga last June, where he set his personal best of 20.70m at the Oceania Athletics Championships, was also a highlight.

Gill claimed silver on the final day of the New Zealand Track and Field Championships in Wellington yesterday with an effort of 20.33m.

"It was a good performance, I'm going in the right direction," he said.

Canterbury's Tom Walsh took gold - his sixth-straight national title - with a put of 20.73m, which easily cleared the world championships qualifying standard of 20.45m.
"It was about time I got that out of the road wasn't it," the 23-year-old said. "It was good to get both the national title and the qualifier."

Walsh will compete in Melbourne in a fortnight before returning to his day job as a builder for a month. He will head to the US for a training block later this year before competing in Europe ahead of the world championships.

Gill eclipsed the world championships qualifying mark in Auckland last month with a 20.58m showing and will next compete in Brisbane at the Australian Athletics Championships at the end of the month.

After revamping his coaching team 13 months ago, Gill said he felt comfortable under the tutelage of Kirsten Hellier who is best known for her work with Valerie Adams from 1998-2010.

"She's great. We get along really well," Gill said of Hellier. "My technique's improving and it's really, really awesome. She's a wonderful lady and she's helped a lot of people and I'm just one of them. So I'm really grateful."

Hellier's work commitments won't allow her to join Gill when he travels to Sweden for his training camp.