Greg Rutherford
Event | Long jump | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Club | Marshall Milton Keynes Athletics Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turned pro | 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal best(s) | Long jump 8.51 m (Chula Vista 2014) 100 m 10.26 (Gateshead 2010)[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Gregory James Rutherford
A European Junior Champion in 2005, Rutherford first made a mark on the senior circuit with a silver medal in the
From 4 September 2015, when his Diamond League victory was confirmed with a fourth event win in Zürich, until his withdrawal from the British Athletics Championships in June 2016, Rutherford held every available elite outdoor title; national, continental, World, Olympic, Diamond League and Commonwealth. Following Linford Christie, Daley Thompson, Sally Gunnell and Jonathan Edwards, Rutherford is the most recent of only five athletes to win the ''Grand Slam" of Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles in the same event, and the only one to have also won the Diamond League.
His Olympic victory has a particularly iconic status in British sporting cultural history as the second of three athletics gold medals, between
Rutherford is the current
Rutherford was widely regarded as the best long jumper in a generation that lacked all-time great jumpers, but his British record placed him in the top 25 long jumpers by distance of all time, and he was highly regarded for his consistency, determination and championship mettle, frequently recording his best jumps when he needed them in championship competition. As a result, he continues to be regarded as one of the great Championship long jumpers in history.
Early life
Rutherford grew up in Milton Keynes where he attended Two Mile Ash Primary School[6] and went on to Denbigh School.[7] He played several sports as a youth including football, rugby and badminton.[8] He had trials with Premier League football club Aston Villa at the age of 14 before deciding to pursue a career in athletics.[9]
He is the great-grandson of footballer
Career
2005–2007
Rutherford became the youngest ever winner of the long jump event at the AAA Championships in 2005, aged 18.[8] He also won the European Junior Championships that year, setting a British junior record of 8.14 m.[9]
Rutherford was selected to represent England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games,[9] where he finished 8th.[4] He won the AAA championships again that year with a jump of 8.26 m.[12] On 8 August 2006, he won the silver medal in the long jump at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg with a jump of 8.13 m.[13]
Rutherford missed much of the 2007 season due to a succession of injury problems, including an ankle injury for which he had surgery in February of that year.[14] He competed at the 2007 World Championships but did not reach the final, finishing 21st in the qualifying round.[15]
2008–2011
Rutherford won the AAA title on 12 July 2008, reaching the Olympic qualifying distance of 8.20m.
Rutherford set a British record of 8.30 m on 20 August 2009 in the qualifying round of the World Athletics Championships in Berlin,[19] improving the previous record held by Chris Tomlinson by 1 cm.[20] He was unable to match this performance in the final of the event, finishing fifth with a jump of 8.17 m.[21]
Rutherford did not compete at the
Rutherford extended his personal best in the long jump to 8.32 m at the Eugene Diamond League meeting on 4 June 2011, although it was not recognised as a British record as it was wind assisted.[24] In July 2011 Chris Tomlinson broke Rutherford's British record with a jump of 8.35 m in Paris.[25] At the 2011 World Championships, Rutherford injured a hamstring during the qualifying round and did not reach the final.[20]
After the 2011 season, Rutherford worked on his take-off technique with his coach Dan Pfaff, adopting a technique based on that of Carl Lewis of making the penultimate step of the approach a lateral step outwards.[26]
2012
Rutherford equalled Tomlinson's British record on 3 May 2012 with a jump of 8.35 m at the OTC Pre-Olympic Series II event in Chula Vista, California.[27] It was also the longest jump of 2012 at the time (later equalled by Sergey Morgunov on 20 June).[28]
At the
Following his gold medal, Rutherford (as with the other British 2012 Olympic champions) was featured on a Royal Mail postage stamp, and two post boxes in Milton Keynes were painted gold in his honour.[35]
2013
Rutherford parted company with Dan Pfaff, his coach, in early 2013, when Pfaff returned to his native United States.[36]
Rutherford sustained a hamstring injury during the
2014
In February 2014, Rutherford said he would trial for the winter sports events of bobsleigh and skeleton, in the hope of competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics. He told The Guardian: "There is something about going down the ice head first that massively appeals to me. I genuinely want to try skeleton and bobsleigh. [...] If I am good enough, my plan will be to continue through to the summer Olympics and after 2016 either switch or spend my winters doing the new sport."[40] In April, at an early season event at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, Rutherford jumped a personal best of 8.51 m, setting a new British record.[41] The new record was disputed by rival long-jumper Chris Tomlinson, who used video evidence to suggest the jump was illegal, but a technical panel assembled by UK Athletics deemed the video evidence to be inconclusive, and the record was upheld.[42]
Rutherford won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in July with a jump of 8.20 m.[43] In August he won gold at the European Athletics Championships with a jump of 8.29 m.[44]
2015
In February 2015 Rutherford won the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix with a jump of 8.17 m, a new indoor personal best.[45] In June he won the Diamond League events in Birmingham with a jump of 8.35 m,[46] and in Oslo with a jump of 8.25 m.[47]
Rutherford won the gold medal at the World Championships on 25 August with a jump of 8.41m, his second-longest jump ever and the furthest he has so far jumped in a major championship. He is one of only six athletes to jump over 8.40m in a world championship final this century. His victory made him the fifth British athlete to hold Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles simultaneously, after Daley Thompson, Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell and Jonathan Edwards.[48]
The following week, Rutherford won the long jump at the final
2016
In February 2016 Rutherford set a new British indoor long jump record of 8.26 m in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[50] In July he successfully defended his European Championship title with a jump of 8.25 m.[51]
Rutherford took the bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics with a jump of 8.29 m in the final round, behind Jeff Henderson who won gold and Luvo Manyonga who won silver. He expressed his disappointment afterwards at not having retained his Olympic title, describing it as a "bitter pill".[52]
At the end of the 2016 season, Rutherford hosted a long jump competition using the pit he had built in his back garden, for members of his athletics club, Marshall Milton Keynes.[53] Although he did not compete in the long jump, he competed in the alternative standing long jump event, reaching a distance of 3.26 metres. There are plans for other, larger competitions in the future, with Rutherford planning to invite many jumpers from the international circuit to compete.[54] The event was held as part of the nationwide "I Am Team GB" sports day.[55]
2017–2018
In July 2017 Rutherford announced that he could not defend his title on home ground at the upcoming World Championships as he had not recovered from an ankle injury sustained the previous month.[56] The following February he withdrew from the 2018 Commonwealth Games, due to be held on the Gold Coast in Australia that April, due to a lack of training following his recovery from the ankle injury.[57] In June of that year Rutherford announced his retirement from the sport due to ongoing pain in his left ankle: he also expressed an interest in taking up track cycling, revealing that he had discussed the possibility of undertaking performance testing with British Cycling.[58] He subsequently returned to the London Stadium to compete at the 2018 Anniversary Games in July, and made his last appearance in competition at the Great North CityGames in Newcastle in September 2018.[59] Following his retirement, Rutherford and fellow athlete Morgan Lake undertook assessments with British Rowing in November 2018, based on their World Class Start talent identification programme: he set a new record for their leg press test.[60]
Sledding career
Having already expressed an interest in competing in bobsleigh or skeleton in 2014,[40] In April 2021 Rutherford announced that he had joined the Team GB bobsleigh setup, having started training again during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. He stated that he had been encouraged to take up the sport by double Olympic bobsleigh champion Kaillie Humphries.[61] Rutherford trained alongside his new team-mates for the first time the following month.[62] In September 2021 Rutherford was selected as part of the British bobsleigh team for the 2021–22 Bobsleigh World Cup and which would attempt to qualify for the two-man and four-man events 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, forming part of a five-man squad alongside pilot Lamin Deen and fellow push athletes Joel Fearon, Ben Simons and Toby Olubi.[63] However, Deen and his crew did not achieve the qualifying standard of three top 12 finishes in the World Cup, resulting in them not securing a slot at the Olympics.[64]
Media appearances
Rutherford has appeared in several popular light entertainment television programmes.
In 2012, Rutherford and gymnast
In 2013, he appeared in an episode of Fake Reaction,[66] a celebrity special edition of The Cube (winning £20,000 for Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and Hula Animal Rescue),[67] and was a panellist on Would I Lie to You?.[68]
In 2014, Rutherford participated in
In 2015, he was a participant in the Channel 4 programme Time Crashers, in which ten celebrities are transported to different historical settings in the United Kingdom where they experience the life of the lower classes and are set tasks relating to that era.[71]
From September 2016, Rutherford was a contestant in the
In 2017 Rutherford worked for Eurosport as an analyst for the channel's coverage of the World Athletics Championships after he was unable to compete in the event due to injury.[73]
In 2019, Rutherford won the 14th season of
In April 2021, Rutherford joined fellow British Olympians
At the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics, held in the summer of 2021 in Tokyo, Rutherford was part of Eurosport and Discovery+'s coverage of the Games as a reporter on the ground in Japan.[78]
Honours
Rutherford was appointed
A metal statue in honour of Rutherford, by artist Clare Bigger, was erected in Milton Keynes, in June 2014.[81]
Personal life
Rutherford lives in Woburn Sands, a town on the outskirts of Milton Keynes.[82] He and his partner, Susie Verrill, have two sons and one daughter.
Rutherford has stated that he was brought up as a
Rutherford is an avid supporter of Manchester United,[26] and is an Athlete Ambassador for the global sport for development charity Right To Play. In August 2014, Rutherford was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[83]
In March 2017 Rutherford revealed that his former agent Gab Stone had embezzled over £40,000 (over £44,800 in 2021)[84] from him to fund a gambling addiction, which he discovered at the beginning of 2015. Stone was subsequently convicted of fraud by deception and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Rutherford stated that he decided to disclose the fraud to warn other athletes who might be taken advantage of in a similar way.[85]
Statistics
Personal bests
Event | Time/distance | Venue | Date | Records |
---|---|---|---|---|
60 metres (indoor) | 6.68 seconds[86] | Birmingham, United Kingdom | 21 February 2009 | |
100 metres | 10.26 seconds | Gateshead, United Kingdom | 18 September 2010 | |
Long jump | 8.51 m | Chula Vista, California, USA | 25 April 2014 | British record |
Long jump (indoor) | 8.26 m | Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA | 5 February 2016 | British record |
Competition record
Year | Competition | Venue | Position | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | European Junior Championships | Kaunas, Lithuania | 1st | 8.14 m |
2006 | Commonwealth Games | Melbourne, Australia | 8th | 7.85 m |
European Championships | Gothenburg, Sweden | 2nd | 8.13 m | |
2007 | World Championships | Osaka, Japan | 21st | 7.77 m |
2008 | Olympic Games | Beijing, China | 10th | 7.84 m |
2009 | European Indoor Championships
|
Turin, Italy | 6th | 8.00 m |
World Championships
|
Berlin, Germany | 5th | 8.17 m | |
2010 | World Indoor Championships | Doha, Qatar | 11th | 7.80 m |
Commonwealth Games | New Delhi, India | 2nd | 8.22 m | |
2011 | World Championships
|
Daegu, South Korea | 15th | 8.00 m |
2012 | Olympic Games | London, United Kingdom | 1st | 8.31 m |
2013 | World Championships | Moscow, Russia | 14th | 7.87 m |
2014 | Commonwealth Games | Glasgow, United Kingdom | 1st | 8.20 m |
European Championships | Zürich, Switzerland | 1st | 8.29 m | |
2015 | World Championships | Beijing, China | 1st | 8.41 m |
2016 | European Championships | Amsterdam, Netherlands | 1st | 8.25 m |
Olympic Games | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 3rd | 8.29 m |
National champion
- Outdoor; five times : 2005, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2015
- Indoor; two times : 2010, 2018
See also
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