Hull's British champion Archie Yeo staying open minded about Olympic ambitions in triple jump and long jump

There was no major celebration at achieving the biggest honour of his burgeoning career.

No summit meeting with coaches or selectors to plot the next move in Olympic year.

Just a return to the realities of life for the 20-year-old rising star of Kingston-upon-Hull Athletics Club.

And this is just how Yeo wants it, balancing the furthering of his education with the athletic pursuits he was born to do.

Less than six months out from an Olympics, there won’t be many freshly-minted national champions not dreaming about Paris, but he is one of them.

“Paris is probably way out of the question,” he admits when asked if a late dash to the Olympics is a possible target. “As triple jumpers, we tend to be later in our development, so hopefully by the time of LA in 2028 and even Brisbane 2032, I would still be a good age.

“Look at Jonathan Edwards, he was a late developer, how many events did he go to before he won the Olympics? And I think he broke the world record when he was 32, 33.

“Of course, you see all these young athletes coming out breaking records, but not everybody can be like them you’ve just go to follow your own path and hopefully one day you’ll get to where you want to be.”

The path Yeo is choosing for himself is one in which he is refusing to over-burden himself with pressure. From the outset, athletics has always been something he did for the love of it.

“I just really enjoy the sport, it’s opened so many opportunities over the years, and it’s a case of just seeing how far I can go with it and just trying to better my performances each year,” says Yeo. “I’m not putting any pressure on myself about particular timeframes.”

Growing up in a family of athletes in the village of Elsham just south of the Humber Bridge, track and field was always going to be his sporting outlet.

Yeo’s great grandad was an 800m runner for England, his gran competed in the English Schools Championships and his mother was a long jumper and a sprinter. Even his younger brother Freddie is a combined events specialist.

The elder Yeo brother also started out trying all sports before narrowing his focus on the long jump.

“Long jump was the one that was looking like giving me the best chance of success, and the one I enjoyed most anyway,” Archie, who joined Kingston-upon-Hull from Scunthorpe in 2020, tells The Yorkshire Post. The long jump remains his favourite event, even if he only managed sixth in that final on Sunday, having won the triple jump 24 hours earlier on the back of just two years of training at that discipline.

“To do what I was hoping to do on a stage as big as that was fantastic,” he says of his triple jump achievement.

His leap of 15m55 will not be enough to get him into the British squad for the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in the first weekend of March.

A streamlined, 20-strong squad emphasises just how hard it is for athletes like Yeo to break into the top echelons, and perhaps explains why he is not wasting his energy dreaming about Paris.

“The standards for the worlds are pretty high, I’m a level down from that at the minute, still at the Under-23s level.

“For me it’s looking towards the European Championships in Rome in June, the outdoor seniors, which I might get close to.

“But that’s still an out-there target because there’s only two or three competitions max before the team is selected.

“Mainly I’m looking long term, next year I’ve got European Under-23s, where hopefully I’ll medal in the long jump or triple jump and then take if from there.”

He is even keeping open-minded about which of the jumps he focuses on.

“I’m lucky that I can do both to a decent level,” he says. “It was great that having finished the triple jump on the Saturday in front of a crowd the likes of which I’ve never experienced before and to know I could go out the following day in the long jump, gave the whole experience a bit extra.”

Big crowds for athletics is a good thing for a young man coming to a stage in his life when he has to wonder whether the sport can give him a good living.

“You have to be at the very top to make a good living out of it,” he admits of athletics.

“But I think there’s a good chance that I can do it for the rest of my career before I then move on to other stuff. A lot of the athletes I know - yes they’ve been to Olympics and worlds and whatever - but a lot do have a part-time job on the side that allows them to carry that training on.

"In the very least, I’d hope something like that is possible for me.”