For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been writing book reviews of the autobiographies and biographies of some of the greatest British athletes. It’s been an awesome journey, learning about the great feats achieved by my countrymen, including:
- obsessive time trialist and genius bicycle engineer Graeme Obree,
- powerful, three-time gold medal winning track cyclist Chris Hoy,
- well-known 100m sprinter Linford Christie,
- five-time gold-medalist Steve Redgrave,
- strongman, shot putter and most capped British athlete Geoff Capes, and
- unfortunate record setting hurdler Colin Jackson.
Many (if not most) of them fit the British stereotype to one degree or another. Many were insanely talented, eccentric and not a little bit introverted. Many trained either too hard or too little. Most (but not all) failed to live up to their full potential, in one way or another. Jonathan Edwards fits this description perfectly.
Olympic Triple Jump champion, Sydney 2000
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Who was Jonathan Edwards?
Jonathan Edwards is a former British Olympic athlete and is the current world record holder in the triple jump, with a distance of 18.29m. He set this record in the 1995 World Championships, 16 years ago!
Jonathan Edwards’ athletic career was short and sweet, beginning in earnest at the World Championships in 1993, where he took the bronze medal. It was only two years later that he produced an amazing jump of 18.43m at the European Cup. Unfortunately, the jump was wind-assisted and did not count as a record.
At the World Championships, later that year, Edwards broke the world record twice in the same meet. On his first jump, he soared past the current record to jump 18.16m. With his second jump, he cleared 18.29m and became the first man to jump 60 feet.
With such incredible performances under his belt, Edwards should have cleaned up at the 1996 Olympics. However, like Geoff Capes and Colin Jackson, Edwards choked at the crucial moment and cool-headed American Kenny Harrison won gold with a jump of just 18.09m.
Fortunately, like Colin Jackson, Edwards pulled himself together after the disaster and set to some serious winning. At the next Olympics, in 2000, he completely dominated the scene from the beginning and won gold. He followed this success with gold at the 2001 World Championships and gold at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. He retired after the 2003 World Championships.
Throughout his career, Edwards was famous for his commitment to Christianity and his early refusal to compete on a Sunday, an eccentricity previously made famous by Chariots of Fire star, Eric Liddell.
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He refused to compete on a Sunday?
Indeed, his strong Christian faith led him to believe that it would not be appropriate to compete on Sundays. However, after conversations with his father, an Anglican vicar, he later came around to the idea.
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Loss of faith
In 2007, after spending some time presenting programmes relating to Christianity for the BBC, Edwards discovered that he no longer had the same belief that he had during his athletic career. He disclosed this in an exceptionally revealling interview with the Sunday Times, saying:
“I never doubted my belief in God for a single moment until I retired from sport… When I retired, something happened that took me by complete surprise. I quickly realised that athletics was more important to my identity than I believed possible. I was the best in the world at what I did and suddenly that was not true any more. With one facet of my identity stripped away, I began to question the others and, from there, there was no stopping. The foundations of my world were slowly crumbling.”
How did Edwards suddenly do a complete about-turn on something so fundamental as life philosophy at such a late age? About the time when he was competing, he says:
“I was so preoccupied with training and competing that I did not have the time or emotional inclination to question my beliefs. Sport is simple, with simple goals and a simple lifestyle. I was quite happy in a world populated by my family and close friends, people who shared my belief system. Leaving that world to get involved with television and other projects gave me the freedom to question everything.”
Once Edwards had been freed from the heavy pressure of competing at the very highest level, he started pulling at the pieces of string that held his belief system in place. It is almost as if he subconciously knew that he needed the psychological support that his philosophy gave him while he was competing. He says:
“I had taken things for granted that were taught to me as a child without subjecting them to any kind of analysis. When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God.”
Reading the Sunday Times article and then flicking back through the book, it becomes clear just how much Edwards related everything back to his faith at the time. It was essentially, as he says elsewhere in the interview, his own sports psychology.
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An insightful book
This biography was written before Edwards had his loss of faith and consequently it relates much of his performance to Christian philosophy and practices. However, I found it fascinating to discover the following snippets:
- Edwards was seriously fast. His 18-step run-ups were routinely in excess of 11m/s, which is just bonkers. If only he had done some shorter track events indoors, like Colin Jackson.
- Not only was he fast, he was strong. He could power clean 135kg and snatch 100kg at a bodyweight of c. 70kg.
- Much of his ability was due to natural talent. He hated practicing and had a reputation for trying new sports out and beating experienced people the first time.
- He was extremely bright and analytical, going to Durham University to read physics (recall that Chris Hoy went to St Andrews to read maths and physics and Graeme Obree was a talented engineer).
- He was acutely aware of the amount of stress he put his body under and he backed off really quickly if he felt he was being beaten down. His training diary in 1995, when he set the world record, shows he took more rest days than he trained.
- When he set his world record, he was completely “in the zone” and wasn’t paying any attention to his opponents. When he let the pressure get to him, however, he went to pieces.
- After he set the world record and received his medal, he received a standing ovation that went on for over 3 minutes. In fact, he had to ask them to stop clapping.
In short, Jonathan Edwards was one of the greatest and most gifted track and field athletes ever to don a pair of running shoes.
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What’s next?
Normally, at this point, I explain why you should buy this book. However, I am more interested in asking a rhetorical question. What will this incredibly talented man do next with his life?
I do not think that the world has seen the end of Jonathan Edwards yet.
