Great Britain’s Greg Rutherford is looking to go even further than he did when he broke the British long jump record with 8.51m in Chula, San Diego, on Thursday 24 April.
“It’s a great feeling, a lot of people had a level of expectation, so it’s nice to finally put it to bed and hopefully now build on it,” Rutherford told theguardian.com.
It seems that he is back to the form that allowed him to claim the Olympic title in front of the British crowd in London 2012.
With this performance Rutherford became just the third man to clear 8.50m since 2010.
“I did not expect the 8.51m but I caught a few good angles and positions and a decent distance came,” he revealed.
Such a strong statement shows promise for things to come, as this season he aims to conquer gold at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich.
“It’s well and good getting it done this early in the season but it’s all about jumping further and winning some more titles,
“We’ll see how the summer goes and hopefully there’ll be some bigger distances and I can re-establish myself as one of the best jumpers in the world,” he continued.
With Rutherford’s current form, a strong showdown is to be expected between the Britain and Aleksandr Menkov of Russia who dominated 2013 from start to finish, with gold at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Gothenburg followed by a World title in Moscow.