The USA will have high hopes of a gold medal in the triple jump after Phillips Idowu failed to reach Thursday’s Olympic final in front of his home crowd.
Idowu, a silver medallist in Beijing four years ago, finished in 14th place in qualifying, missing out by two places and nine centimetres on a spot in the 12-man final.
America’s Christian Taylor, 4/6 with bookmaker to win the competition, headed the qualifiers with a jump of 17.21m, while compatriot Will Claye qualified in seventh with a leap of 16.87m.
Afterwards, Idowu, whose preparations had been shrouded in mystery due to injury problems, told BBC Sport: “I wanted to battle for gold but now I’ll go home and reassess.
“Conditions were difficult because of the wind and I knew that would be a factor, but that wasn’t me out there. I’ve competed for 12 years and I can’t remember a time I’ve performed that badly.”
