Olympics 2012 - Men's Triple Jump

The men’s triple jump was expected to be one of the main medal hopes for Britain with the enigmatic Phillips Idowu, but sadly injury and a loss of form sees us without the Lononder even in the final, although the writing had been on the wall for some time.

Idowu – who had suffered a bad muscle injury and not competed since the end of May - opted to arrange his own treatment on a trapped nerve in London rather than attend UKA's training camp in Portugal, even though Moore and UK Athletics' medical experts were there, starting a prolonged saga that had been one of few downsides for the UK team before the games. With that in mind, it was no suprise to see him fail to make the final, sad as it was to see an athlete of his quality in such poor form at his home games. The absence of Idowu leaves an outstanding favourite in American Christian Taylor, who beat Idowu in the World Championships last year, has won the US Championships and the London Grand Prix and produced four of his six best ever jumps this year. It all looks set for him to win gold, but that’s reflected in just 8/13 for him to do so and 1/8 to be on the podium.

 

With France's Olympic gold medal prospect Teddy Tamgho, who holds the world indoor record, having been suspended for six months and injured on top of that, his main danger looks set to be team mate and Long Jump bronze medallist Will Claye, who defeated Taylor to take World indoor gold with a leap of 17.70m and looks on good terms with himself judged on Saturday’s result. He’s 4/5 with Hills for a medal of any kind, yet he’s shown he has the potential to beat Taylor and take gold.

Italy’s Fabirizio Donato has never made the final in 4 appearances at the games, but his personal best recently won the European title with 17.63m and he only needed one attempt (with difficult conditions compared to some) to get into the final. He’s a real medal contender at 2/1, and so is Russian Youngster  Lyukman Adams, who goes into this unbeaten outdoors this year, posted a good mark despite fairly poor assistance from the wind,  and is a very tempting 11/4 for a medal despite having the third best time in the world this year.

Advice

3 pts Will Claye to medal (4/5 Hills)