ATHLETICS: Nathan Douglas said he was "massively disappointed" after failing to make the top eight in the triple jump at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona as teammate Phillips Idowu landed gold.
The Oxford City AC athlete could only muster a best of 16.48m from his three jumps, while World and Commonwealth champion Idowu added the European title to his CV with a personal best leap of 17.81m.
Just being in the final was a minor miracle in itself for Douglas given his horrendous run of injuries over the last couple of years – but the 27-year-old said he was not around just to finish tenth.
He said: “For some people, a championships is fine but when I get to a championships, I then want to medal. If I don’t get one, I’m disappointed. If I’m not in good shape I don’t care, I still want to medal. It’s going to disappoint me massively. There isn’t really much to say in these situations. I’ll try and put it into perspective now.
“Three weeks before the trials for the Europeans, I didn’t even have a season so if I look at it now, I’ve done well but for me that is never going to be enough.”
Having sailed into the final with a first-time jump of 16.80m on Tuesday, hopes were raised that Douglas might be able to match his podium finish in Gothenburg when he took silver behind then Olympic champion Christian Olsson. But Douglas, perhaps pushing himself too hard, failed to find his rhythm under the lights in the Olympic Stadium.
After being red flagged in his first attempt, Douglas could only produce jumps of 16.48m and 15.53m.
“I’m massively disappointed,” he added. “I knew that if I wanted to do well here, I would have to catch something and jump a lot bigger than in qualifying. I knew I would have to gamble as well – I put more into it and in the first jump the speed just seemed to catch me out a little.
“For the second jump I thought, just go back to qualifying because if I had a nice comfortable speed, I should have enough to get me into the top eight but I didn’t even touch the board. For the last one I just had to go for it, gambled again and just didn’t get things together.
“It’s disappointing but it shows where I am – I’m not in a position to get out of those situations. It shows what my preparation has been like I suppose.”
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