British athletics legend talks about his Olympic gold from 25 years ago, the state of play in track and field and why his 1995 world record has stood the test of time
There are few sporting sights as pleasing as Jonathan Edwards in the triple jump. In his heyday, he was the epitome of athleticism. A joy to watch, his lithe frame concealed huge amounts of strength and technical brilliance and he glided gracefully from one phase to another in contrast to the crash, bang, wallop of many of his rivals.
He was often compared to a stone skimming across water and such ability led to him setting the current world record of 18.29m in addition to winning Olympic gold in Sydney. His record-breaking feat celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this summer whereas his Olympic victory took place 25 years ago this month – a silver anniversary of a gold-plated achievement.
When it came to Sydney, it was a case of fourth time lucky. Edwards had finished well out of the running at the Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992 Games, whereas he struggled with the pressure of being world No.1 in 1996 and took silver behind Kenny Harrison of the United States in Atlanta.
In some ways it was appropriate for Edwards to eventually get to the top of the Olympic podium after a lengthy journey. When it came to athletics generally he was, after all, the classic slow developer.
Born in London in 1966, he grew up in north Devon as the son of a vicar and showed little signs of becoming a world-class athlete. The West Country doesn’t traditionally produce many world-class field eventers – partly due to a lack of facilities – and Edwards’ school, despite being better better than most, only had a grass track and a cinder jumps area.
“I went to a very good school in north Devon called West Buckland,” he says, “and they had all the sporting facilities. It was a classic sort of English private school where sport was a major part of the curriculum. That said, I think I did my first triple jump on a sort of slightly downhill cinder track at the bottom of the first XV rugby field. The first time I ever jumped on an all-weather surface would have been in Plymouth.”
He adds: “It wasn’t a sophisticated beginning to my athletics career at all and I didn’t even think about having an athletics career. I just enjoyed my sport. In fact I enjoyed all sports. The big change was winning the English Schools title in 1984 in Thurrock.”
Edwards won the senior boys’ crown that year with a wind-assisted 15.01m although he remembers: “Lawrence Lynch won the intermediate triple jump and he jumped further than me!”
Edwards went to Durham University to read physics. “I jumped 16.35m in 1987 and went to the World Student Games where I finished ninth,” he says, “but I didn’t even jump 16 metres in the final. So even when I left university, I’d only jumped 16.35m.”
He began to be coached by Carl Johnson – and later Peter Stanley and Norman Anderson – and when he left university he decided to take the plunge and take athletics seriously. “I must have been mad,” he says.
Despite missing the 1988 Olympic trials due to his religious beliefs at the time and the fact the competition fell on a Sunday, he was picked for the Seoul Games and finished just 23rd in qualifying with 15.88m.
“I spent some time with Colin Jackson recently,” he says. “We did some stuff with Puma for the 30th anniversary of my world record and, of course, Colin was breaking world junior records and trading various titles with Jon Ridgeon and he won the Olympic silver medal in 1988. So he was always a sort of superstar in the making from the get go, whereas I was very much a late developer.”
After university, Edwards career finally began to take off and he matured into a bona fide world-class performer. At the 1992 Games he had hopes of finishing in the top six and had jumped 17.26m in the countdown to the event, but in Barcelona itself he managed only 15.76m to place 35th. Yet there was some consolation – and also a promise of things to come – when he won his event at the World Cup in Havana at the end of the season with 17.34m.
Around this time he began to start competing on a Sunday and he continued to progress as he built up to his peak season of 1995. At the European Cup in Lille that year he created a sensation when he soared out to wind-assisted leaps of 18.43m (2.4) and 18.39m (3.7m). The distances were so spectacular, some people thought it was a misprint and that the results should have read 17 instead of 18 metres.
In July he succeeded Willie Banks as world record-holder with 17.98m (1.8) in Salamanca but he wasn’t satisfied and went to the World Championships in Gothenburg keen to jump over 18 metres legally.
His first attempt in the Swedish city saw him smash the world record with 18.16m (1.3) . Then he went even further with 18.29m (1.3) – the world’s first 60-foot jump.
He hopped 6.05m, stepped 5.22m and jumped an incredible 7.05m to become the first triple jumper to set two world records back to back. Not surprisingly he scooped almost every award going at the end of 1995 including IAAF male athlete and BBC sports personality of the year. The only downside was that everyone was hanging the Olympic gold medal around his neck ahead of Atlanta.
Partly due to being a slow developer and lacking in success as a junior, Edwards says he struggled to feel he “belonged” in elite athletics and “wasn’t acclimatised to success”. He explains: “It caught up with me a bit in Atlanta in ’96 and I think I found the pressure really quite overwhelming.”
Despite having a 22-competition win-streak coming into the Games, he jumped a more than respectable 17.88m but finished runner-up to an inspired Harrison as the American jumped 18.09m – the third best legal leap in history at that stage behind Edwards’ two world records in Gothenburg.
By the time Sydney rolled around four years later, Edwards was, by now, 34 years old – virtually a geriatric in triple jump terms. He had also had ankle surgery in 1998, which led to a disappointing 1999 season but it meant he was fitter and healthier for Olympic year.
At the Games he leapt 17.71m in the third round – the furthest jump in the world all year although inferior to his best jump from Atlanta four years earlier. Still, it was enough to see off the challenge of Yoel Garcia of Cuba and Denis Kapustin of Russia.
So, what means more to Edwards? The Olympic victory or world record?
“The world record,” he says emphatically. “I think the reason is quite simple – the world record defines me more than my Olympic title. I’m known as the world record-holder and I still hold the world record after 30 years. So I think that trumps winning the Olympics.”
He describes his winning mark in Sydney as “rubbish” but adds: “Look, it was amazing to win the Olympics, don’t get me wrong. And it’s incredibly special to have been an Olympic champion.
“If my world record had been broken after 10 years, maybe that might have flipped things a little towards Sydney. But I still think having done something better than anybody else in your chosen discipline is, for me, by definition a unique achievement. Lots of people can win an Olympic title and you don’t have to be the best in the world to be an Olympic champion.”
Following his athletics career, Edwards has enjoyed a successful career in broadcasting. He presented athletics on BBC, in addition to cycling, the latter of which is a big passion of his. He also presented Songs of Praise on BBC although he is no longer a devout Christian as he lost his faith about 18 years ago.
He still cycles a bit, but he is increasingly more likely to be found on a golf course. He plays with a number of ex-athletes like Kriss Akabusi, Denise Lewis and John Regis. As we spoke for this interview, he was just completing a house move from Newcastle to East Lothian in Scotland, too, partly to be near the great golf courses in the area. “I’m also almost 60 and we just felt we needed a change,” he adds.
How closely does he watch athletics these days? “I’ll keep an eye on the triple jump when a major championship comes along,” he says. “But no, actually, funnily enough since I retired from being involved with the broadcasting side of things when Covid happened, I’ve lost track a little bit. Every now and then I dip in and out. But I’m definitely not an avid watcher of athletics now.”
He feels the sport has lost its lustre in recent years in comparison to its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.
He also feels his talent would be overlooked these days if was a young athlete starting out today. “A lot of my improvements when I first started training seriously just came from physical development and not from any training development,” he explains, “so my kind of talent would be lost to the sport simply because the system would tell you there’s no point in doing this because you’re not good enough.”
Sydney 2000 represented a high point for British triple jumping, with Larry Achike finishing fifth and Phillips Idowu sixth. Idowu went on to win a world title in 2009 whereas in the women’s triple jump Ashia Hansen enjoyed multiple international victories during that period. In comparison, Britain did not have a triple jumper at last year’s Olympics and nor will they have any at this year’s World Championships.
“Athletics has dropped off in terms of popularity and participation for sure,” says Edwards. “I mean, there’s a running boom, but that’s more to do with health and fitness.
“I don’t think athletics has really kept pace with the professionalisation of sport and certainly the rewards aren’t there in athletics in the way they are with other sports.
“It’s a tough sport. There’s no getting away from it. You want to run a fast 800 metres, you’ve got to go out and really break yourself in training to see any improvements. It’s not like going out and having a game of football or a game of golf or tennis or basketball or having fun in a skate park, doing skateboarding, some of the more modern sports that have come into the Olympics.
“I think the opportunities for young people at school are probably minimal when it comes to getting involved with athletics as it does require a lot of expertise. It’s certainly fallen out of fashion. So you just haven’t got the talent going into it. And particularly into field events which are even more demanding in terms of needing facilities and technical advice. I think athletics has lost pace with other sports.”
Could he have predicted back in 1995 that BBC and AW would still be around covering the sport 30 years later?
“I would have, but I would have assumed it would have grown. I don’t think it’s a surprise that it’s there. I mean, back then it was the No.2 sport probably behind football. Now it feels to me like it’s well down the pecking order. You have to really go and look for it. If you want it, it’s not really there front and centre in all the big streaming platforms for sport.”
Is he surprised his world record has stood the test of time?
“After jumping that distance, my immediate thought was that I would break it again!” he smiles. “I thought I’ll become a better athlete. I’ll be faster. I’ll be stronger. My technique will improve and I’ll jump further because it’s always the way when you do something really well.
“It feels very easy and it almost tricks you into thinking that, if I can do it that easily, I can do it again because it proved rather more difficult than that. And indeed, I only jumped 18 metres once more in my career.
“The thought that we’re sitting here talking about it 30 years on is is quite remarkable and quite mind-blowing to be perfectly honest. I mean holding a world record is mind-blowing there’s no doubt about it for me that’s that’s the thing from athletics career which takes my breath away the most is that I’ve jumped further than anybody else in history.
“I think that’s crazy and the fact it’s lasted for 30 years is just as another level of craziness.”
Watch the full interview here…
