Can Phillips Idowu retain his title at the IAAF World championships in Daegu?
As the 2011 IAAF World Championships are set to commence in Korean city of Daegu, spectators have started raising some interesting questions about the potential of athletes in retaining their titles. One such athlete whose performance will grab a certain
amount of limelight in the event is Phillips Idowu.
Idowu, the 32-year-old English athlete with Nigerian origin specialises in the Triple Jump category. He is not only the reigning World Champion, but also boasts of titles like the 2008 World Indoor Championships, along with the 2010 EAA European Championships.
Lately, particularly after the Adidas Grand Prix held in New York on Saturday, June 11, where the gold medallist of the 2009 World Championships emerged against archrival, Teddy Tamgho, the 21-year-old French triple jumper, Idowu’s critics had been questioning
his ability to retain the big title in this year’s much awaited world athletic event.
The reasons for this doubt were obvious as since the past many months, though he has been able to retain his position, he has also observed significant decline in his performance.
However, despite of the realisation that he needs to work on his game more diligently, Idowu, who earned the prestigious MBE award along with Jessica Ennis, the British world champion, in the honour of the Queen’s birthday, is of the view that the hard winter
training he had been through will ultimately pay dividends and he will prevail as a victor all over again.
The 2006 Commonwealth games champion has been coached by Aston Moore, the former triple jumper from Jamaica who had been representing Britain for long. For both the coach and his trainee, unlike the European Indoor Championships, where the French rival had
emerged for displaying a world indoor record of 17.92m, it was more important to perform in this big upcoming event.
Dwelling upon his preparation for the event, the formidable athlete said, “We were working on a few technical bit so I missed the indoors this season. What we’ve been trying to do is to improve my speed and my training is going well. I’ve felt an improvement
technically and I’m happy things are coming together.”
Idowu has been enjoying his performance at Birmingham and he also has been rather content with this season’s outdoor start which observed him jumping to the world lead of 17.59m, followed by an equally emphatic performance at Bydgoszcz and finally at the
Icahn Stadium under deteriorated weather conditions.
Comparing the times he marked last year with the aspirations he has for the upcoming events, the formidable athlete concluded, “Last season I opened with (17) 47 in Brazil, but I have jumped very much the same. The previous year I jumped (17) 60 and the
year before that I opened up with 17.65. So anything between 17.50 and 17.60 is roughly what I start my season with.”
All is left to whether Idowu will be able to live up to the expectations to his fans or not, at the upcoming event in Daegu.
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