Greg Rutherford hints at World Indoors doubts after Glasgow
Greg Rutherford has admitted ‘it doesn’t look good’ when it comes to his chances of competing at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham.
The former Olympic and world long jump champion leapt out to 7.89m to finish fourth at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow on Sunday.
It may have been an improvement on the 7.80m which won him the British indoor title a week ago, but he had previously insisted only a jump of over eight metres would be enough to tilt his decision towards competing in front of a home crowd in the coming days.
Rutherford, who is coming back from ankle and groin surgery, will analyse his performance at the Emirates Arena and talk with his coaching team before making his final call but he said: “It was better than it was last week, but it’s not where I want to be. I wanted to go over eight metres today, which would’ve solidified my decision to go to the World Champs, so I have to debrief, figure out if it’s a possibility and go from there.
“I’m a good couple of months behind where I need to be," he added. "The two surgeries I had were quite big so I’m glad that within a week I’ve had about 11 jumps which is a lot for me. It’s good for training but, equally if I go to a major championship, I go to win or at least win a medal and I’m not sure if that’s a possibility.
“I need to get back to where I’ve been. I’ve come and done two competitions off of a month of jumping, usually I have a few months of jumping. I want to get back to winning ways and to do that I need to work on the issues.
“It doesn’t look good at the moment, to be totally honest.”
The long jump competition was ultimately won by China’s Yuhao Shi with a stadium record of 8.13m. Jamaica’s Damar Forbes was second with 7.99m with another Chinese athlete, Changzhou Huang, third with the same distance. Britain’s Dan Bramble was fifth with 7.88m.
» See the March 1 edition of AW for further coverage from Glasgow
