Dwight Phillips' victorious jump (© Getty Images)
USA's Dwight Phillips, the Olympic and double World champion, has been the outstanding long jumper of recent years but after three successive second place finishes this season he will be looking to return to his old winning ways when he competes at the Meeting Gaz de France Paris Saint-Denis on Saturday 8 July.
Phillips, 28, currently the IAAF World Ranked number one long jumper, has lost to compatriots Miguel Pate (8.20 to 8.27m in Eugene, 28 May) and Brian Johnson (8.08 to 8.10m, Indianapolis, US Champs, 23 June), and to Panama’s World Indoor silver medallist Irving Saladino (8.21 to 8.53m) at the opening of the 2006 IAAF Golden League in Oslo, Norway on 2 June.
At the second of this season’s IAAF Golden League meetings in Paris on 8 July, Phillips will meet all three of his recent conquerors, and so the chance for redemption will be on hand.
Joining Phillips, Johnson, Pate and Saldino, the current world leader with 8.56m, on the runway in the Stade de France will be World Indoor champion Ignisious Gaisah (GHA), who also took the World silver medal behind Phillips last summer.
Finland’s World bronze medallist Tommi Evilä - present recovery from injury permitting - is also on the starting list, as is France’s World championship fifth placer Salim Sdiri, and another finalist South Africa’s Godfrey Khotso Mokena (7th) to name but a few of the impressive list of starters.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
