Eliza McCartney and partner Lukas Walton-Keim. Photo: Photosport / David Rowland
There will only be time for a quick text between pole-vault star Eliza McCartney and her partner Lukas Walton-Keim in France on Monday.
Both start their Olympic competitions within 24 hours of each other, with McCartney involved in pole vault qualifying at the Stade de France in Paris and Walton-Keim starting the kite-foiling competition almost 800km away in Marseille.
This is McCartney's second Olympics after claiming a bronze medal Rio in 2016, while it is a first appearance for Walton-Keim.
"It's a little weird that we're competing at exactly the same time," McCartney told RNZ.
"It's pretty wild that we're at an Olympics together, that's a bit of a dream come true for us. We weren't quite sure if it would happen and here we are so it's very cool."
Read more: The full timetable of NZ athletes' Olympic events
Walton-Keim's first race is at 10.13pm Sunday. McCartney's qualification is at 8.40pm Monday, with Walton-Keim also competing in more racing at that time.
The pair have already had a lot of time apart in their build-up to the Olympics, with both in different parts of Europe for their pre-games camps.
"I'm excited about how we will be able to keep in touch without getting too emotionally invested in what the other person is going through because that's a really hard thing," McCartney, 27, said.
"It can be good to just take your focus away from what you're doing for a short period of time and support them.
"We both know that we're there for each other and backing each other even though we can't be in the village together or communicate that easily."
New Zealand's Eliza McCartney competing at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships, Glasgow. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
McCartney said she would not be paying too much attention to her partner's performance on her competition days.
"That would be too stressful for me, but on the days I'm not competing, yeah for sure.
"There is live tracking for sailing and that's the easiest way for me to watch as it takes a lot of the emotion out of it for me."
For now, McCartney said qualifying was the only thing she was thinking about.
Since Rio, she has had numerous injury issues, and even this year has had to manage her competition expectations with the reality of an old achilles injury.
"Qualifiers are strange competitions, you don't know what height you'll have to jump, you don't know how long you'll be jumping for and what it's going to require, so it's a bit of a weird mindset.
"Qualifying requires a lot of respect and not just come in with guns blazing with a high opening height.
"All my focus is on that day and what I need to do to be jumping at my best and that is it."
Olivia McTaggart and Imogen Ayres are the other two New Zealanders in qualifying on Monday.
Walton-Keim's competition in Marseille is scheduled to run for five days.
