News10 Mar 2003


Time rather than rivals, prepares to catch up with Jackson

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Colin Jackson (GBR) (© Getty Images)

The 9th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics which begin this Friday 14 March in Britain, will bring the current international indoor season to a spectacular close with an array of world class athletics stars competing in Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena. Most poignantly the weekend will also witness the end of one of the most illustrious of athletics careers, that of Britain’s Colin Jackson, the World indoor and outdoor record holder at the sprint hurdles.

Jackson’s proudest possessions are not his major championship medals – he has given all 25 of those to his parents – but his collection of wrist-watches. “I’ve got more than 70 of them now,” he says. “Some people like cuckoo clocks. Some people like trains. I like watches. I just have a fascination with them.”

When the watch the Welshman chooses to wear on Sunday 16 March reads 4.45pm time will have finally caught up with the Peter Pan of the sprint hurdles. When Jackson crosses his final hurdle and passes his final finish line at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham - be that in heat, semi-final or final - it will bring an end to 18 years in the international fast lane.

It was at the European Junior Championships in Cottbus back in 1985 that Jackson first made his mark at international level. He took the 110m hurdles silver medal behind his Great Britain team-mate Jon Ridgeon,.

It just so happened that Ridgeon was the in-field master of ceremonies at the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham on 21 February. Before Jackson got to his marks for the 60m hurdles, his old rival cued a video clip on the giant screen in the National Indoor Arena of the high hurdling master’s World record 12.91 second 110m hurdles performance at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. He also happened to be followed around the arena by a television crew filming a documentary tribute to him, commissioned by another of his many former rivals, Nigel Walker, now Head of Sport at BBC Wales.

“I was just thinking the other day, actually,” Jackson says, “about the people I’ve raced against and competed with and what’s happened to them. So many of them have come and gone and now, all of a sudden, it’s time for me to go.”

It says much for the impact Jackson has made that he will go with his World record still intact – his two World records, in fact. His indoor record has stood unchallenged at 7.30sec since 1994 but his outdoor standard is approaching its tenth anniversary. Renaldo Nehemiah was 110m Hurdles World record holder for 10 years and 4 months in total, but with three separate clockings. Jackson’s 12.91sec is already the longest surviving single performance in the history of the event.

“Yeah, I’m kind of pleased about that,” he says. “And also, if you look at it, there’s only 0.02sec between the time Renaldo set in 1981 and the time I set in 1993. That’s something like 10cms. So it’s obviously a difficult thing to hit through that ceiling, otherwise people would have done it.”

Not many athletes of any era have done what Jackson has done. He has won more major championship medals than any other British athletes and won more international vests than any other male British athlete – he will collect his 71st in Birmingham, fittingly enough as captain of the Great Britain team.

He has won two World titles outdoors, plus one indoors, as well as four European outdoor titles and two Commonwealth crowns. The only prize to have eluded him is Olympic gold. The silver he won behind Roger Kingdom in Seoul in 1988 remains, curiously, Jackson’s only medal from the Games. He was seventh in Barcelona in 1992, fourth in Atlanta in 1996 and fifth in Sydney three years ago.

“Of all the Olympics, Barcelona was the biggest disappointment,” Jackson reflects, “because I was most probably in the best shape of my life in 1992.”

Injury masked that shape in the Catalan capital but in 1993 Jackson won his first World title and broke Kingdom’s World record, and in 1994 he was undefeated, completing a European Indoor double (60m and 60m hurdles), setting his World indoor record and winning European and Commonwealth titles outdoors.

“Of course I enjoyed that World record race in Stuttgart in 1993,” he says, “but I have to say the whole of 1994 was the high point for me. It was just a great feeling: training, competing and not losing. I really enjoyed that.”

Now, one month past his 36th birthday, Jackson is looking forward to new horizons. He plans to enter television production, has a fitness and lifestyle project in the pipeline, and will become a member of BBC television’s athletics commentary team.

“I also want to do some travelling,” he says. “I want to see the places I’ve been to but haven’t had a chance to look at. The whole of my adult life, everything I’ve done has revolved around track and field. It’s kind of like finishing school or university. You just finish and move on to something completely new. I’m looking forward to that.”

First, however, comes the final hurdle in Birmingham. With a valid 7.51sec clocking to his credit this season, and an invalid 7.49sec (removed from the result sheet after his belated disqualification in Karlsruhe on 28 February), Jackson is certainly a medal contender. Judging by Allen Johnson’s 7.39 and Terrence Trammell’s 7.42 at the US Trials, though, the odds must be against him finishing with a golden flourish.

“It would really mean a lot to me to win,” Jackson says. “I’ve done the World indoors five times and I’ve only won it once. And I’ve never won a major gold medal at home, in Britain.

“I’m in great shape at the moment and if I were a betting man I’d put some money on myself. I’ve looked at the all-time rankings for the 60m hurdles and not many people have achieved the time I’m looking to run. I’d give myself an even-money chance.”

Simon Turnbull for the IAAF

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