British long-jump record holder Chris Tomlinson aims to be part of a wide-open battle for medals in Daegu.
Tomlinson confident of World Championship long-jump medal
British long jump record holder Chris Tomlinson is looking to emulate world number one Mitchell Watt and is determined to be involved in a wide-open battle for the silver and bronze medals at the World Championship.
The Middlesbrough-born athlete broke the British record with a leap of 8.35 metres in Paris last month to sit fifth in the world rankings which are dominated by Watt.
That distance puts the European bronze medallist just five centimetres behind the second-longest jumpers of the year.
"Things are going very well at the moment, it's without doubt the best season distance-wise I've had," Tomlinson said.
Perhaps most crucially Tomlinson has found the consistency which has often eluded him in the past, with four of his jumps this summer further than the 8.23m best he has managed over the previous two years, albeit two of them wind-assisted.
Watt is the clear class act in the field with the four furthest jumps of the year and Tomlinson believes he has benefited from learning from the Australian's simple jumping style.
Technique
"If you watch Mitchell Watt he's got quite a simple technique, but it's effective," he said. "And I think people are starting to realise now maybe just being simple but effective can be the way forward.
"I think in the past I've tried to over-complicate things. Ultimately the more you're thinking about when you're running down that runway the less powerful you will be.
"To a degree everybody has their natural ways of doing things and I think it's encouraging when you see somebody jumping in a reasonable style - they run, they take off, they put a very simple hang technique and then they stick their legs out at the end.
"When you see people jumping decent distances with those sorts of techniques then you start thinking 'if they can do it then why can't I?'
"I am somebody who does research the event a little bit and works out what other people are doing, what might suit me and what might not suit me, and I've done that.
"What works for me is basically running and jumping as opposed to lifting lots of big, heavy weights and I've worked out quite a simple technique."
Medal
Tomlinson's new record would have won gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and secured fourth place at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin two years ago - just two centimetres off bronze - so he looks a real medal contender.
"I have a world indoor medal (a silver from 2008 in Valencia) and a European outdoor one (a bronze from Barcelona last year) and I have also made it through to the final eight of both the Olympics and the outdoor World Championships," he added.
"For an 8.20m jumper I achieved quite a lot.
"However now I've started to move further up the rankings and jump longer distances, I'm expected to achieve slightly more and I'm aiming to go and get a medal at the World Championships.
"I've competed against Mitchell Watt twice this year and I've beaten him once and he's beaten me once, but he is jumping better than I am jumping and is head and shoulders above everybody in the world at this present time.
"He's going to be jumping further than 8.35m, but behind that it's pretty much anybody's game."
Joining Tomlinson in the Great Britain team for the Championships in South Korea is the man whose record he took, Greg Rutherford.
The Milton Keynes athlete is also in impressive form, a wind-assisted leap of 8.32m earning him victory in June's Prefontaine Classic, the Diamond League meeting in Eugene.
"Greg and I at the moment are jumping very well and it's nice to have two British athletes who are going out to Diamond League meetings, finishing in the top three on a regular basis and are right up there in the world of long jump," Tomlinson added.
"If we are jumping reasonable distances then naturally people are going to talk about medals."
