Greg Rutherford set a new British long jump record of 8.51 metres in Chula Vista, San Diego.

Sean Ingle/The Guardian


Greg Rutherford insists there is “definitely room for improvement” despite demolishing the British long jump record by 16cm with a leap of 8.51m in Chula, San Diego.
Rutherford, the 2012 Olympic champion, did not expect to make such a staggering statement in only his second meeting of the season but, after soaring over the record that he shared with Chris Tomlinson, the 27-year-old believes he can jump further in 2014 and add more gold medals to his collection.
“It’s a great feeling,” Rutherford said. “A lot of people had a level of expectation of when it was going to happen, so it’s nice to finally put it to bed and hopefully now build on it. That’s the big thing for me  it’s all well and good doing it this early in the season but it’s all about jumping further and winning some more titles.”
Rutherford, who became only the third man to jump over 8.50m since 2010, started with two fouls before jumping 8.18m on his third attempt.  Everything came together on his fourth jump. Yet while he was delighted to break the record and beat the US indoor champion Tyron Stewart and the London 2012 bronze medallist Will Claye, Rutherford also spotted a few errors which leads him to believe he can go even further.
“I did not expect the 8.51m but I caught a few angles and positions and a decent distance came,” he said. “Will Claye’s coach said that there’s definitely room for improvement and from what I’ve seen from the video, there is as well.”

Injury concerns
Rutherford struggled for much of 2013 and failed to qualify for the final of the world championships in Moscow after struggling to fully recover from a ruptured hamstring. He has been revitalised since moving to a new coach, Jonas Tawiah-Dodoo, under whom he has focused on sprinting alongside the European under-23 100m silver medallist, Deji Tobais, and the European junior 100m champion, Chijindu Ujah. He has felt faster in training.
Even so, he was unsure what to expect from his first outdoor event of 2014.
“I haven’t had many competitions this year so I knew it was going to be tough,” he said. “I was struggling with the run-up but once I got it right in the third round [8.18m] I knew there was something half good there.”
Rutherford will return to Britain in the next fortnight to compete in the Great City Games in Manchester on 17 May and has also signed up for the Glasgow Grand Prix at Hampden Park on 11-12 July but his major aims this year are to win gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the European championships in Zurich.
“It’s all about doing it in a big scenario and competition,” he said.  “Hopefully I can get multiple distances out there and re-establish myself as one of the best jumpers in the world. We’ll see how the summer goes and hopefully there’ll be some bigger distances.”