Lomu comeback bid gets a leg up from Linford

Former Olympic sprint champion Linford Christie has offered to help Jonah Lomu resurrect his rugby career.

Lomu has identified speed as his major area of concern as he looks to make a meaningful comeback from the shoulder injury that marked his return from a kidney transplant.

He forged a friendship with the Olympic gold medallist in 2002 after racing him over 60m as a promotion for the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

Lomu confirmed that Christie, an athletics coach in the United Kingdom, had contacted him and offered to assist with his training. Christie's most famous sprint pupil has been British sprinter Darren Campbell, who won silver at the Sydney Olympics in the 200m and gold at Athens as part of Britain's 4x100m relay team.

While nothing formal had yet been arranged with Christie, Lomu did say yesterday he had also met Campbell and was planning to do some sprint training with him over the next fortnight.

Lomu wants to recapture some of the speed that, along with his devastating strength, made him the world's foremost attacking player.

Lomu's much-anticipated debut for the Cardiff Blues has been tentatively mooted as the December 10 Heineken Cup match against Italian side Calvisano.

He had hoped to play in this weekend's game against London Irish but was ruled out.

Lomu said he was "feeling great" and "very relaxed".

He couldn't wait to get back on the park and was enjoying being part of a team environment again.

Blues coach Dai Young said he was impressed with Lomu's work ethic and the way he had fitted into the Cardiff set-up.

"Jonah has been working hard on his fitness and we will be picking up the contact levels with him this week," said Blues coach Dai Young. "He might be ready for next week. If he doesn't make the first Calvisano game, he'll definitely make the second one."

The 30-year-old Lomu scored 37 tries in 63 tests and Christie comes with a similar pedigree in his chosen sport of sprinting. He was crowned European champion in 1986 and awarded silver at the Seoul Olympics following Ben Johnson's disqualification for doping.

Four years later in Barcelona he went one better, winning gold ahead of Frankie Fredericks. His Olympic career ended at Atlanta in 1996 when he was disqualified for two false starts and staged a sit-in protest on the track.

Christie's career has not escaped a certain degree of tainting.

His urine sample following the 1988 Olympics was found to have traces of banned metabolites but his explanation was accepted. In 1999 he was banned by the IAAF after testing positive for nandrolone.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY