London 2012: Phillips Idowu says he is focused and denies injury fears
Phillips Idowu at the GB Olympians Parade of Heroes, 2008. Photo: Nick J Webb
Phillips Idowu has risked widening his rift with Charles van Commenee by insisting he did not pull out of the Olympic trials in Birmingham last month because of injury, as Great Britain’s head coach had said.
“I have not mentioned anything about an injury to be honest,” Idowu said. “No one has heard the words come out of my mouth, or from my coach, or any of my team. So I have let that rumour mill stir itself and it has given me an opportunity to focus on my preparation for the Games.”
This Saturday Idowu will jump in the Diamond League meeting at Crystal Palace. It will be only his fourth competition of the season, and his first since he pulled out of his fourth jump in a meeting at Eugene in the USA on 1 June. “It was precautionary,” Idowu said of his withdrawal there. “I never mentioned or said anything about having an injury. I pulled out because it was wet, it was raining, I slipped on the board. It happens. You hit the board, your foot slips, and it kind of sends the fear of God through you. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
In an Olympic year, Idowu said, it is best to “always err on the side of caution”. Which begs the question, why did Van Commenee say that Idowu was injured? “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know what happened,” was all Idowu would say.
The two have a notoriously poor relationship, having fallen out during an idiotic spat last year when Idowu announced on Twitter that he was pulling out of the European Team Championships. Idowu certainly does not seem to value Van Commenee’s input all that much. “This year I have kept myself to myself. The people most important to me are my family, my representatives and my coach [Aston Moore].That is the small circle of people I work with and who are involved in my preparation for the Games, outside of that no one else needs to be involved.”
Idowu was always sure of securing a place on the Olympic team, but by skipping the trials he was contravening UK Athletics’ official selection policy – which has been rigorously adhered to by Van Commenee. It states that to be eligible for the selection all athletes must “compete at the trials in the discipline in which they wish to compete in at the Games” and that “Permission to do otherwise must be gained in advance from the head coach, which will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.”
The decision to miss the trials, Idowu says, was “precautionary”. “After Eugene I had been working really hard with a 10-day training programme, I had a day off and then went on a solid five-day programme, so physically there was a lot of fatigue in my system and I didn’t want to jeopardise my chances at the Games by competing when I wasn’t in tip-top form.”
He also happens to be an ambassador for the Hackney Weekend festival, which was taking place that weekend. Van Commenee said at the time that “medical confidentiality” prevented him from explaining why Idowu was not competing. Idowu’s own version of the story suggests that Van Commenee could have been covering for the athlete by making sure that he had an excuse for breaking the official selection policy. “I am always feeling aches and pains. It is Olympic year so I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise my chances of performing in the best possible shape that I can be in at the Games, so missing the trials was a precaution.”
It is all as clear as mud, and both Van Commenee and Idowu are doing a disservice to the public by being so opaque. Still on 7 August, when the triple jump competition starts, none of this will matter much. Particularly if Idowu delivers. Van Commenee only cuts him slack because of his track record. “I am confident,” Idowu said. “I have put in so much work and it won’t be until the final two weeks before the Games when we start to drop down and the workload reduces that everything is going to be completely sharp and I can feel completely confident in what I am going to do at the Games.”
He feels he can replicate the kind of form he showed at the world championships in Daegu last year, when his jumps were all between 17.38m and 17.77m. Still, that was only good enough for silver behind the USA’s Christian Taylor. “I have that level of consistency, now it is a case of performing and getting that big jump out.”
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