Gwent | Archive | 2001 | August | 7
From the South Wales Argus, first published Tuesday 7th Aug 2001.
TRIPLE jumper Jonathan Edwards won the first British gold at Edmonton 2001 with the biggest jump of the year - before adding he could have broken his own world record.
While his third leap of 17.92m was enough for gold, the Olympic champion insisted his second attempt had been further, despite being a foul jump, and he had been confident of breaking his own 18.29m record.
His foul attempt looked to have passed the 18m mark with his foot overstepping the board by the narrowest of margins, but the gold medalist was confident he could have threatened the record.
Edwards took the medal in dramatic fashion, pulling up in his next two attempts with cramp, but he had done enough to regain the title he first won at Gothenburg in 1995. He said: "I am delighted, but more so because I was in the territory for the record, the second jump was huge, it felt further than the winner.
"It gave me confidence, it was such a relief to get the third jump in. "I saw a replay of the disallowed jump on the BBC unit and it looked nice. "Unfortunately after that there were a few interruptions and the competition lost its impetus.
"It was difficult to win because the wind was all over the place.
"I didn't get one positive wind reading out there, my first jump was minus 1.1 and the second one was minus 1.7 and I didn't adjust my jump enough, I wondered if it wasn't going to be my day."
Edwards was never seriously threatened by second placed Swede Christian Olsson and Russian Igor Spasovkhodskiy.
With fellow Brits Larry Achike (7th) and Phillips Idowu (9th) unimpressive, Edwards said he was not contemplating retiring and he plans to compete at next year's Commonwealth Games, a title he has never won.
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