Filed under: Other Sports, Athletics
Teddy Tamgho will put Phillips Idowu's recent Twitter row with GB Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee into sharper focus at the Aviva Birmingham Grand Prix.The World and European champion justified his refusal to take part in the recent European Team Championships in Stockholm, because he is concentrating on his personal schedule for the World Championships in Daegu next month.
It sparked a heated verbal exchange between himself and van Commenee and the hardline Dutch coach will be wanting to see results in one of the final major meets ahead of Idowu's bid to defend his title in South Korea.
One of the showpiece events of the meeting will be Idowu's head-to-head with his main rival for gold in Daegu, young French sensation Tamgho, the World Indoor champion and world indoor record holder.
Idowu is under further pressure to produce the kind of performance to justify his decision to pull out of a third GB event in succession and only an impressive showing will justify the latest withdrawal.
Tamgho, 22, certainly wants to increase the psychological pressure on his main rival by beating him on home territory to back up his recent victory in Lausanne and by unleashing some of the big jumps he believes he has in his locker.
"I feel there's plenty more to come from me. I'm hoping to be jumping some big 18m jumps soon. I have it within me I'm sure, and hopefully I can do this in Birmingham," he said.
"I won the World Indoor title last year and broke the world indoor record earlier this year in Paris. So it would be a dream couple of years if I could win the World Championships."
The star-studded meeting at the Alexander Stadium will comprise 17 events and 15 will contain a World or Olympic champion and more than 40 global medallists are set to take part.
Also in the spotlight, as he puts the finishing touches to his World Championship preparations, will be double European gold medallist Mo Farah who will be looking to break his 10,000m British record of 12:57.94 against reigning Samsung Diamond League champion Imane Merga and Dejen Gebremeskel.
Wesh 400m hurdler Dai Greene will have the added incentive of trying to break Kriss Akabusi's 21-year stronghold on the British record and British athletics fans will get their first chance for a close-up look at Holly Bleasdale since the 19-year-old set a new British record of 4.70m in the pole vault recently.
She will get another good indicator of the standards needed in Daegu against Silke Spiegelburg, World Indoor champion Fabiana Murer and European champion Svetlana Feofanova.
Jamaican Asafa Powell, the fastest man on the planet this year, will be the highlight of a 100m which includes an incredible nine athletes who have run 9.99secs or faster, but Christine Ohuruogu has suffered a blow in her preparations for Daegu by having to pull out with injury as she struggles to recover from a thigh injury.
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