“I was probably a bit unprofessional both away from the track and at the track,” said Grabarz. “It was nothing major but I just wasn’t focused enough on what I wanted to do.
“It was a difficult year. I had a few things in my personal life that changed and I let it affect me at the track and it showed all season. But after the end of the season I just sat down and thought to myself that I was really disappointed with my performance in 2011 and it was my fault and nobody else’s. I said to myself, ‘You’re not going to let this happen again’.”
Since that watershed moment, Ahmed says he has seen a transformation in the way Grabarz approaches training and competition.
“People say he’s improved massively physically, but he hasn’t,” said Ahmed. “He’s had a tiny improvement physically but a massive improvement mentally.”
The test of Grabarz’s new-found mental strength will come at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March, where he hopes to show his rivals that his 2.34m clearance, a height that qualifies him for the London Olympics and would have earned silver at the 2008 Beijing Games, was no flash in the pan.
“It’s exceedingly important for me to back it up,” said Grabarz. “I’m going there to make the final and be competitive and learn as much as I can ahead of London. I do need to prove that it was not a fluke.”
Another opportunity to cement his new status as a potential Olympic medallist will come on Saturday when he competes for Britain against the United States, Germany, Russia and a Commonwealth Select team at the Aviva International Match in Glasgow.
At the same meet last year, Grabarz finished last with a jump of just 2.14m but has considerably higher expectations this time. “I’m feeling good and looking forward to competing again,” he said. “I want to be battling for first place.”
