Greg Rutherford sports discipline competed in long jump
Career
2005–2007
Rutherford became the youngest ever winner of the long jump event at the AAA Championships in 2005, aged 18. He also won the European Junior Championships that year, setting a British junior record of 8.14 m.Rutherford was selected to represent England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he finished 8th. He won the AAA championships again that year with a jump of 8.26 m. 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.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. He competed at the 2007 World Championships but did not reach the final, finishing 21st in the qualifying round.2008–2011
Rutherford won the AAA title on 12 July 2008, reaching the Olympic qualifying distance of 8.20m. He also won the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace two weeks later with a distance of 8.16 m. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Rutherford qualified for the final in third place with a distance of 8.16 m. In the final, he had two no-jumps in the first two rounds, and recorded a distance of 7.84 m in the third round. This was not enough to place him in the top 8 who would continue to the final three rounds, and he finished in 10th place.Rutherford set a British record of 8.30 m on 20 August 2009 in the qualifying round of the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, improving the previous record held by Chris Tomlinson by 1 cm. He was unable to match this performance in the final of the event, finishing fifth with a jump of 8.17 m.Rutherford did not compete at the 2010 European Championships due to a foot injury. On 18 September he set a personal best for the 100 m of 10.26 seconds in the invitational event at the Great North City Games. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, he won the silver medal with a jump of 8.22 m.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. In July 2011 Chris Tomlinson broke Rutherford's British record with a jump of 8.35 m in Paris. At the 2011 World Championships, Rutherford injured a hamstring during the qualifying round and did not reach the final.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.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. It was also the longest jump of 2012 at the time (later equalled by Sergey Morgunov on 20 June).
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