Greg Rutherford

Rutherford became the second British man to win Olympic gold in the long jump, the first was Lynn Davies in 1964.

Although his winning distance of 8.31 m was the shortest since 1972, it was 15 cm ahead of silver medallist Mitchell Watt and his second-best jump of 8.21 m would also have been enough to win the gold.

Gregory James Rutherford MBE (born 17 November 1986) is a retired British track and field athlete who specialised in the long jump.

He represented Great Britain at the Olympics, World and European Championships, and England at the Commonwealth Games.

In September 2021 Rutherford was selected as part of the British bobsleigh team but was injured during preparations to qualify for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

A European Junior Champion in 2005, Rutherford first made a mark on the senior circuit with a silver medal in the 2006 European Athletics Championships.

Rutherford became the youngest ever winner of the long jump event at the AAA Championships in 2005, aged 18.

He also won the European Junior Championships that year, setting a British junior record of 8.14 m.

Rutherford was selected to represent England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he finished 8th.

He won the AAA championships again that year with a jump of 8.26 m. On 8 August 2006, he won the silver medal in the long jump at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg with a jump of 8.13 m.

Rutherford missed much of the 2007 season due to a succession of injury problems, including an ankle injury for which he had surgery in February of that year.

He competed at the 2007 World Championships but did not reach the final, finishing 21st in the qualifying round.

Rutherford won the AAA title on 12 July 2008, reaching the Olympic qualifying distance of 8.20m.

He also won the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace two weeks later with a distance of 8.16 m. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Rutherford qualified for the final in third place with a distance of 8.16 m. In the final, he had two no-jumps in the first two rounds, and recorded a distance of 7.84 m in the third round.

Rutherford set a British record of 8.30 m on 20 August 2009 in the qualifying round of the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, improving the previous record held by Chris Tomlinson by 1 cm. He was unable to match this performance in the final of the event, finishing fifth with a jump of 8.17 m.

This was not enough to place him in the top 8 who would continue to the final three rounds, and he finished in 10th place.

Rutherford did not compete at the 2010 European Championships due to a foot injury.

On 18 September he set a personal best for the 100 m of 10.26 seconds in the invitational event at the Great North City Games.

At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, he won the silver medal with a jump of 8.22 m.

Rutherford extended his personal best in the long jump to 8.32 m at the Eugene Diamond League meeting on 4 June 2011, although it was not recognised as a British record as it was wind assisted.

In July 2011 Chris Tomlinson broke Rutherford's British record with a jump of 8.35 m in Paris.

At the 2011 World Championships, Rutherford injured a hamstring during the qualifying round and did not reach the final.

After the 2011 season, Rutherford worked on his take-off technique with his coach Dan Pfaff, adopting a technique based on that of Carl Lewis of making the penultimate step of the approach a lateral step outwards.

A golden period between 2012 and 2016 saw Rutherford win the long jump gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2014 Commonwealth Games, 2014 and 2016 European Athletics Championships and 2015 World Athletics Championships, and top the 2015 IAAF Diamond League rankings in the event.

His Olympic victory has a particularly iconic status in British sporting cultural history as the second of three athletics gold medals, between Jessica Ennis-Hill and Mo Farah, and the fifth of six golds in total, from Super Saturday, the high point of the host nation's achievement at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Rutherford is the current British record holder, both outdoors and indoors, for this event with his personal bests of 8.51m (outdoors) and 8.26m (indoors).

He was a five time national outdoor Champion and two-time national indoor champion, his main domestic rival being the five-time national outdoor champion Chris Tomlinson.

Rutherford was widely regarded as the best long jumper in a generation that lacked all-time great jumpers, but his British record placed him in the top 25 long jumpers by distance of all time, and he was highly regarded for his consistency, determination and championship mettle, frequently recording his best jumps when he needed them in championship competition.

Rutherford grew up in Milton Keynes where he attended Two Mile Ash Primary School and went on to Denbigh School.

He played several sports as a youth including football, rugby and badminton.

He had trials with Premier League football club Aston Villa at the age of 14 before deciding to pursue a career in athletics.

He is the great-grandson of footballer Jock Rutherford, who won three Football League First Division titles with Newcastle United and 11 England caps, and is also the oldest player ever to have played for Arsenal; his grandfather, John Rutherford, also played for Arsenal.

Rutherford equalled Tomlinson's British record on 3 May 2012 with a jump of 8.35 m at the OTC Pre-Olympic Series II event in Chula Vista, California.

It was also the longest jump of 2012 at the time (later equalled by Sergey Morgunov on 20 June).

At the 2012 Olympics in London, Rutherford reached the final with a jump of 8.08 m, qualifying in fourth place.

In the final, he took the lead in the second round with a jump of 8.21 m, improving to 8.31 m in the fourth round which proved to be the winning jump.

From 4 September 2015, when his Diamond League victory was confirmed with a fourth event win in Zürich, until his withdrawal from the British Athletics Championships in June 2016, Rutherford held every available elite outdoor title; national, continental, World, Olympic, Diamond League and Commonwealth.

Following Linford Christie, Daley Thompson, Sally Gunnell and Jonathan Edwards, Rutherford is the most recent of only five athletes to win the '' Grand Slam" of Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles in the same event, and the only one to have also won the Diamond League.

A bronze at the 2016 Summer Olympics proved his final major medal, as ankle injuries plagued him for the next two years.

He retired from the sport through injury in 2018.