Edwards fears Idowu can't win

Triple jump record holder Jonathan Edwards expects Phillips Idowu to be upstaged in his bid for Olympic gold.

Idowu is one of Team GB’s best bets for victory inside the Olympic Stadium this summer but Edwards fears his successor as Britain’s leading triple jumper will just miss out.

Edwards, who won Olympic gold in 2000, said: “My gut instinct would be, if I were to put a bet on it, I’d go for Christian Taylor. If you’d asked me before the World Championships I’d have said it was Phillips’s gold medal to win at the Games but that changed in Daegu.”

American Taylor produced a career best 17.96metres to beat Idowu to the title in Daegu and the pair go head-to-head for the first time in 2012 at the Diamond League meeting in Shanghai, China, tomorrow.

Edwards said: “I’ve not seen as good a jumper as Taylor for a long time. It’s the fluidity he has throughout the jump. It wasn’t a case that his jump in Daegu came from nowhere. I get the impression he could do that all day long.”

Edwards’s leap of 18.29m in 1995 has never been bettered — Idowu’s best is 17.81m — but he believes Taylor and Frenchman Teddy Tamgho have the ability to break it. “They’re capable of something huge but I also think Phillips can jump over 18m,” he said.