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Phillips Idowu

Below: Phillips - 1995 and 2008

Athletes travelling the long and difficult path to World Championship glory benefit on their journey from the help and support of many volunteers. Phillips Idowu is no different from many others in that he joined his club, Belgrave Harriers, early in his career and advanced step by step along a well established pathway to silver medal in the Beijing Olympics and now gold medal in the World Championships.

Phillips first competed for Belgrave as an under 17 year old in the MacDonald’s Young Athletes League Southern Division (East) at Sutcliffe Park on the 16th July 1995. His debut saw him winning the A string high jump in 1.70m, the A string triple jump in 13.68m and the B string long jump in 5.67m. Two weeks later in a National Junior League Div 3 South match at Southend he improved his long jump to 6.37m and his triple jump to 13.90.

In 1994 at the age of 14 years Phillips had come to the attention of Belgrave’s young athletes’ team manager John Powell who welcomed him into a growing band of excellent young athletes. Also a top sprints and jumps coach, Powell was to invite Phillips to join his Crystal Palace training group and the rest is history. In 1996 Phillips triple jump best had moved out to 15.12m while his long jump stayed at 6.31m. The die was cast; it was the triple which would be his speciality. The following year saw an improved 6.70m long jump but again the triple was proving to be his favourite event with a win in the English Schools and fourth place in the European juniors. He ended the season with 15.86m (16.34m w).

By 1998 Phillips was a regular in Belgrave men’s BAL teams and was selected for the Euro Champion Clubs Cup held in Belgrade on 31st May 1998. The BA flights to Belgrade had been cancelled as the build up to the Balkans war had begun (see footnote). A flight to Budapest and seven hour coach ride to Belgrade was not ideal preparation and Phillips could only manage seventh spot with 14.81m. His tendency to underperform on the big occasions was to be a major problem that fortunately was to be fully resolved ten years on. Three weeks later on 21st June at Watford he increased his best to 16.35m.

The following year Phillips started well improving his best to 16.41m at the Loughborough match held on May 23. A week later he again joined the Belgrave team as it contested the 1999 European Champion Clubs Cup in Athens only to withdraw 20 minutes before his event following an injury in warm up. By this time he had moved coaches to former triple jump record holder John Herbert with whom he was to stay until early 2008 when he moved to Aston Moore. The roller coaster performances under Herbert’s tuition continued during the intervening period. In 2000 Phillips finally won the European Champion Clubs Cup Competition held in Liege on 31st May with a jump of 16.32m. On the 25th July that year he set a best in the long jump in Ljubljana of 7.83m He followed this with a triple jump best of 16.87m in the AAA’s on 12 August 2000 and in September in the Sydney Olympics he improved this again finishing sixth in 17.08m one place behind Larry Achike who jumped 17.29m in an event won by Jonathan Edwards in 17.71m.

Phillips was unlucky to record no jumps in the final of the 2004 Athens Olympics when a valid mark was not measured before it was raked away by an over zealous official. Having therefore recorded three no jumps he was awarded a fourth after protest but again was to foul out.

In his long career spanning 14 years Phillips jumped 16 times for Belgrave in the men’s British Athletics League with a final jumps appearance in 2000. He returned for one last match in May 2006 where he ran the B100m for speed training.

Bill Laws

Footnote. The difficulties surrounding the 1998 Euro champion clubs cup held in Belgrade was typified by the lack of any cage for the men’s hammer. With throwers peppering the 76m mark officials placed themselves in their normal positions risking life and limb. Meanwhile spectators were banished to the nether reaches of the stadium.