Delivery day for talented Phillips
Bird’s Nest Stadium, Beijing
On Wednesday evening Beijing time, Phillips Idowu will walk out into the Bird’s Nest stadium as hot favourite for triple jump gold.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling for Phillips. After jumping to sixth in Sydney eight years ago as a fresh-faced 21-year-old, he’s struggled to convert that talent into big medals.
This season, however, he’s dominated from the World Indoors onwards, cementing his world number one ranking with a first round jump of 17.44m in qualifying on Monday.
Idowu has been almost scarily confident this summer, going as far as describing himself as “bullet-proof” last month.
But former Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards, says self-belief was never the problem for the the 29-year-old from Hackney.
“Phillips has always been very good at talking himself up, but he hasn’t always backed it up,” he says. “That’s the harsh reality.
“He’s hugely physically talented, but there’s always been a question-mark over his mental capabilities.
“He’s never won a global outdoors title. He’s won a World Indoors, he’s won a Commonwealths, but he’s never performed at a Worlds, and only finished sixth at one Olympics.
“As he’s come through with an expectation from the outside that he can win a medal, he hasn’t done so, even at Osaka last year.
“The difference this year is that he’s jumped consistently far all summer, and I’ve never seen him do that before.
“He’s always had the confidence. What I look at is how he’s performed – that’s all that matters. And this season outdoors he’s looked fantastic.”
Edwards went to two Olympic Games as favourite for gold, in Atlanta the year after smashing the world record and then again in Sydney, as a 34-year-old veteran.
By his own admission he struggled to cope in 1996, to the extent that he could “barely put one foot in front of the other, let alone triple jump”.
That year he ended up with silver, only becoming Olympic champion as an older, wiser and more philosophical athlete.
The absence of reigning Olympic champion Christian Olsson means Idowu is now under the same sort of pressure.
“I would sit here and say it’s really hard being favourite – there’s a fear of failure,” says Edwards, who was Idowu’s GB team-mate from 2000 to 2003.
“Phillips wouldn’t do that – we’re very different personalities. On the surface, he’ll love being favourite, with the eyes of the world on him.
“In terms of his conscious thought processes, he really likes being the centre of attention. He’s got red hair and piercings. This is a man saying – look at me, I’m the real deal.
“But it’s got to have an effect, knowing that a silver medal will be seen as a failure, and Phillips has shown himself to be susceptible under pressure in the past.”
Idowu looked untroubled in qualifying, but it was the same in Athens four years ago – and he followed that up with three no-jumps in the final.
“I’ve always said with Phillips that if he doesn’t do it in the first two jumps then he’s not going to do it,” says Edwards.
“That’s been true until this summer. At the European Cup he went poor first jump, okay second jump, great third jump. After a bad start at Crystal Palace, he produced big jumps in both round four and five.
“The Phillips Idowu of previous years wouldn’t have done that. He would have kept on going downhill and downhill.
“I would still be nervous if we got to round three of the final here and Phillips had only jumped 17.20 and the lead was 17.60.
“I still believe that if he’s going to jump really big, he’ll do it in the first few rounds. That’s the kind of athlete he is.
“We shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t win it, because he’s never won a major title outdoors. It would be a huge disappointment, but it wouldn’t be the massive shock it was when I lost in Atlanta.
“But the way he’s looked this summer, with the technical consistency, I wouldn’t be in the last bit surprised if he opened up with 17.80m.”
