Athletics: Olympic high jump hopeful all wired up

By Terry Maddaford

Glenn Howard is not quite the Bionic Man but he is held together by screws and cables.

New Zealand's best-yet high-jumper and Olympic hopeful points to a scar on his back and the x-rays that vividly show two 5cm-long titanium screws and the thin wires inserted by Christchurch orthopaedic surgeon Grahame Inglis in a desperate effort to get the 23-year-old back jumping.

Howard's future came under threat early last year when stress fractures were found in his lower spine - an injury similar to the career-ending injuries of many fast bowlers, ballet dancers and gymnasts.

"Fixing it was a technical procedure involving screws and cables," said Inglis. "Basically, Glenn has been fused up in the way he was before he fractured his back, but at the same time we had to maintain his flexibility and mobility.

"The injury was the result of repetitive stress and it was important to keep surgery to a minimum.

"But, having said and done all that, I was staggered to see him back winning so quickly," said Inglis. "I'm very pleased with the result."

Inglis, who operated on Howard in July, has done about a dozen similar operations.

Complete with his new bits and pieces, Howard, already a five-time national (senior) champion, made other career moves.

He approached Dave Norris with the intention of leaving his long-time Papanui Toc H Club in Christchurch for Auckland's greener pastures and the highly successful North Shore-based Bays Cougars Club.

"I try not to think about the injury," said Howard, who started athletics as a 4-year-old and tried high jumping six years later. "I just want to look ahead. Coming to Auckland has been great."

He had been given an ultimatum by his long-time Christchurch-based coach Terry Lomax to leave Papanui Toc H and join Old Boys United or Lomax would no longer coach him.

"I wasn't going to do that," said Howard, whose father is Papanui Toc H club manager.

Howard is now training under Yugoslav coach Jovica Petrovich - a handy (7.95m) long-jumper - and is talking of improving his New Zealand record best 2.25m to at least the Olympic qualifying height of 2.28m.

Dropped from Athletics New Zealand's high-performance squad early in 1998, Howard receives no funding these days but that would return if he qualifies for Sydney 2000.

"My new coach is real big on strengthening work," said Howard. "I'm working out six days a week with the emphasis on things like sit-ups in a strength-based programme. It will be four months before I start jumping but already I feel confident about that."

And the news gets better. Counties-Manukau - Bays' biggest rival in the club supremacy stakes - has signed a Japanese high-jumper. His best? Coincidentally, 2.25m.

That will give Howard, who also retains the national secondary school record (2.11m), under-18 record (2.17m) and under-20 record (2.23m), his greatest incentive - and some half-decent competition - since former champion and titleholder Roger Te Puni quit.

In recent times, Howard has come in at around 2.15m, by which time his rivals have usually packed up and left.