British triple jumper in focus for World Championships despite failure to meet with Charles van Commenee after Twitter row
The triple jump final at the World Championships may be only nine days away, but the petty feud between Phillips Idowu and Great Britain's head coach Charles van Commenee is no closer to an end. Their spat has been running for more than 10 weeks and it may get to the point when the two cannot even remember what they were rowing about in the first place. For the record, it was that Van Commenee accused Idowu of using Twitter to announce that he would not be competing in the European Team Championships.
"My main focus is competing for these champs so even talking about this is just a waste of my time," said Idowu from GB's training camp in Ulsan, South Korea, before going on to talk about it at some length. "Your interest at the end of the year is not going to be in whether I had a conversation with Charles, you're really going to care if I win that gold medal or not. That's what is going to make the headlines, not that fact that we have sat down and spoken."
There may be truth in that, but Idowu is mistaken if he thinks that no one is going to dwell on the dispute between one of Britain's most successful athletes and their head coach. Especially when, as Idowu said himself, the two men still have not spoken. "I've only been in the camp for a couple of days and I've just been trying to get over jet lag and I've been working," he said. "So I haven't had a chance to meet up face to face with anyone other than my coach."
Despite his jet lag and workload, you imagine that if either man were really keen to resolve the row they would have found an opportunity to do so by now. Asked if he thought reconciliation could take place in Daegu, Idowu replied bluntly: "Maybe you should ask him." No doubt someone will when Van Commenee holds his pre-championship press conference tomorrow. In the meantime it seems Idowu is still waiting for the apology he has demanded from the coach for the slight.
Otherwise Idowu's mind is fixed on other things, which can only be right. Besides which, he seems not to give a damn what people outside his immediate circle think of him. "My coach knows I am a great champion. My children do. My family do. My friends do. And that's the most important opinion to me," he said.
His inspiration in Daegu is not drawn from the idea of proving a point to Van Commenee or the idea of defending the world title, but his desire to repay the support his family and friends gave him through the "hard, hard slog" of winter training. "I've had the support of all those people who have made massive sacrifices in order to get me here in the right state of mind and the right physical state. They are what inspires me."
Idowu does not set target distances for himself. He has no time for talk of breaking 18 metres. "My main priority is to win. If I need a PB to do it then I make sure I've done the work so I know I have that capability. If I don't need a PB then whatever I need to win is what I will jump. So that's the plan, win first."
By his own assessment Idowu is in excellent shape, and is apparently as unflustered about the pressure of starting as the favourite as he is unconcerned about the opposition.
"Just another competition" is how he describes these championships. And as for everyone else" "I really don't focus on my competitors, regardless of how good or how bad they are. I've just got to go out and do the job on the day. And I've done that the last couple of years regardless of whether I am ranked No1 or ranked No2."
This year four men have jumped farther than Idowu and the world leader, Teddy Tamgho of France, is out injured with a broken ankle, so he is actually starting ranked No5. But Idowu has a crucial advantage ? he has been in this position before and won. "I went into Berlin ranked sixth [in 2009] and ended up coming up with a world-lead and a personal best, and winning that world title. In Barcelona [at the European Championships] last year I came out ranked second or third, and I came out with a PB and won that title."
The Ukrainian Sheryf El-Sheryf and the USA's Christian Taylor have jumped farther than Idowu this year, but both are young and inconsistent. His main threat may be Cuba's Alexis Copello. But in truth none of the men who have leapt farther have come close to matching Idowu's consistency. He has five of the 15 longest jumps of the season.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/aug/24/phillips-idowu-charles-van-commenee
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