Field: British triple jumper achieves golden ambition

Only once in the course of winning Britain's second athletics gold medal of the Games on Monday did the triple jumper Jonathan Edwards give a glimpse of the interior fire required of Olympic champions.

Scrambling to his feet after a third-round effort of 17.71 metres, the furthest achieved in the world this year, the man who had once remarked that all he did was jump into a sandpit betrayed another attitude to his vocation.

His right fist pumped the air. His eyes burned.

Could this possibly be the nice Mr Edwards who had agonised over the years about whether God wanted him to compete on Sundays, or to own Mercedes cars?

One and the same. And what he achieved in the packed, 110,000-capacity Olympic stadium here at the age of 34 offered conclusive evidence that he is one of British athletics' greatest competitors.

Four years ago in Atlanta, if common knowledge was to be given credence, all Edwards had to do was fetch up on time to win the Olympic title.

The previous year his extraordinary upsurge in form and technique had transformed him from a good triple jumper to a great one.

A world title in Gothenburg, secured with successive world records of 18.16 metres and 18.29, confirmed his new status.

But his experience in 1996, when despite performing well he was beaten by the home competitor Kenny Harrison, put that standing in jeopardy.

Now, thanks to one third-round jump, it is his to enjoy – even if his dazed demeanour at the point of victory hardly suggested a man who had just achieved his ultimate sporting ambition.

"I was just overwhelmed," he said, his boyish face incongruously topped by greying hair.

"I was on the point of crying on a number of occasions and had to choke back the tears. I couldn't believe what was happening – this awesome arena, the Olympic Games, and I was the champion. It was almost too much."

Such an outcome seemed unlikely indeed three months ago, when Edwards – his early season preparations disrupted by an ankle injury – made the controversial decision not to compete at the European Cup in front of his home crowd at Gateshead Stadium, electing instead to train abroad.

However, a steady run of form, culminating a month ago in what was then the furthest triple jump of the year, 17.62, offered rising hope that Edwards could land the Olympic gold.

His arrival on Australian soil was not a smooth business, disturbed as it was by an overheated row over comments about British swimmers attributed to him on a website, and then by the news that his wife's mother had died after a long illness.

In the past, such circumstances might have distracted Edwards, but his mental approach as he has prepared for these Games appears to have been far steadier.

He may have been four years late, but this time he was here to win.

And, in an atmosphere energised by the home victory of the 400m runner Cathy Freeman, that is what he did, seeing off the challenge of Britain's early leader, Larry Achike, who jumped within a centimetre of his best at 17.29, but was displaced from third to fifth in the last of the six rounds as Yoelvis Garcia of Cuba, with 17.47, and Dennis Kapustin, with 17.46, claimed silver and bronze.

The 25-year-old Londoner paid tribute afterwards to Edwards' inspirational effect on a rising generation of triple jumpers, of whom the 21-year-old Phillips Idowu, whose personal best of 17.08 earned sixth place yesterday, is another key member.

In future, perhaps, these two will know what it is like to travel more in expectation than hope, as Edwards has these past five years.

"Every championships since Gothenburg I have been going in as the main contender," Edwards said with a grin.

"I haven't got a very good success rate, and so it is nice to finally do it. I wanted to go back to my two boys, Nathan and Samuel, and show them the gold medal. So I took the pressure on me and it was very tough.

"I thought that if I was going to win the Olympics it was going to be in Atlanta. To come here at 34 and get the gold has been fabulous. Thankfully, God has blessed me."

As he stared down at his medal before stifling his tears at the sight of the Union Jack rising, there was a sense of a man who was re-living experience as in a dream – this time wish-fulfilment decreed he stepped back on to the middle of the podium rather than the edge.

- INDEPENDENT