http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/story.jsp?story=615277
European Indoors: Triple jumper who felt a loser in Athens can be a
linchpin in Madrid
By Simon Turnbull, Athletics Correspondent
27 February 2005
It remains to be seen whether Dame Kelly Holmes will continue her
grand winter tour by treading the boards in the Palacio de Deportes in
Madrid on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The star of the Athens Olympics
has yet to decide whether her exhausting round of the celebrity
circuit has blunted her racing edge too much for her to enter the cut
and thrust of the European Indoor Championships.
Should she decide against putting her golden reputation on the line,
the great irony would be that Great Britain's hopes of finding a Midas
touch in the Spanish capital would be largely pinned on a young man
who sneaked away from the spotlight in Athens and spent the next five
months avoiding the limelight.
The night before the future Dame Kelly struck her first gold in the
Olympic Stadium, in the women's 800m final, Phillips Idowu sank to
rock bottom in the men's triple- jump final. The Belgrave Harrier
started the competition as a strong contender for a medal but crashed
out after registering not three but four no-jumps. (Controversially,
his second-round effort had to be retaken after pit-side officials
discovered that his foot had not in fact marked the plasticine on the
take-off board, en route to a mark of around 17.40m that was
immediately wiped from the sand because of the red flag that was
prematurely raised).
I felt like a loser, Idowu said, reflecting on his state of mind as
he walked out of the Olympic Stadium while the eight top-ranked
jumpers each took another three attempts to determine the medal
placings. I'd flown to Athens to try to win a gold medal and I was
out after three rounds of the final. I just wanted to get back home
and forget about the whole thing. It took me a while.
When he got back to his home in north London, Idowu packed away his
Great Britain kit and spent the next two weeks drinking and
partying. I travelled up and down the UK, just trying to go places
where I wouldn't be recognised, he recalled.
Given his distinctively kaleidoscopic range of dyed hairstyles, it is
difficult to imagine Idowu donning a cloak of anonymity, although he
evidently achieved it in Chesham. I think that was the most obscure
place I went to, he said. I kept away from the athletics scene. I
didn't go to the end-of-season dinners and awards ceremonies. I just
wanted to do my thing and keep away from the spotlight. I felt like
I'd let down myself and the nation. I was a medal hope and it just
didn't work out.
It might just work out for Idowu in Madrid, though. He heads there as
the clear leader of the European rankings after his first serious
venture at indoor competition. Back in his days as a student at Brunel
University, he remembers taking one jump at an indoor college match in
Birmingham, wearing basketball boots and a baseball cap. Two weeks
ago, sporting a striking gold-streaked mane at the Norwich Union AAA
Indoor Championships in Sheffield, Idowu jumped 17.30m in the final
round, temporarily to head the world rankings for 2005.
Walter Davis of the United States has since achieved a mark of 17.62m,
but the brightly topped Briton remains unchallenged at the summit of
the European rankings - 19cm clear of the Belarus athlete Dmitriy
Valyukevich.
Gold in Madrid would appear to be beckoning Idowu - particularly as
the Swede Christian Olsson, the reigning Olympic, world and European
champion, is resting an injured ankle this winter. Not that a medal
would fill the void that opened up for the 25-year-old in Athens.
Nah, it won't make up for that, he reflected. The only thing that
will make up for that is me going to Beijing and rectifying the
mistakes I made in 2004.
Nevertheless, a European indoor title would be a first international
championship success for the richly talented if occasionally erratic
successor to Jonathan Edwards as Britain's standard-bearer in the
triple jump. With his hair dyed in the red and white of the St George
flag, Idowu came tantalising close to claiming Commonwealth gold ahead
of Edwards in Manchester three years ago. He led the final with a
mighty second-round jump of 17.68m, only to be relegated to the
silver-medal position when Edwards uncorked a 17.86m in the last
round.
Now, with his former rival scrutinising from the BBC television
commentary box, Idowu is attempting to match the footsteps of the man
who hopped, stepped and jumped to Commonwealth, European, world and
Olympic gold - and to a trio of world records. The distance Idowu
jumped in Sheffield was bettered by Edwards in indoor competition on
just four occasions. And in Madrid he hopes not just to match the one
title that Edwards secured in his career on the boards - at the 1998
European Indoor Champion-ships in Valencia - but also to eclipse the
UK indoor record held by the Gateshead Harrier: 17.64m.
