Murphy rediscovers
Australian form in Japan
Athletics Australia
6 May 2001 - Sydney triple jumper Andrew Murphy today (Sunday) rediscovered the form which took him to a World Indoor Championships bronze medal in March and the crown as Telstra Male Athlete of the Year for the recent Australian domestic season.
Competing in the Mito International Athletics Meeting in Japan, Murphy produced a winning leap of 16.97m, to convincingly take victory over his local rivals who were competing for a place in the Japanese Team at this August's World Championships in Edmonton, Canada, for which Murphy has already been selected.
Although aided by a 2.4metres per second headwind, the most encouraging feature of the jump was that it was produced off an exciting 12 metre hop and step. Had Murphy not over-rotated on the jump phase, the outcome would have been considerably better, an excellent sign for later in the year.
He also produced an excellent backup jump of 16.94m (+1.6). Japan's Takanori Sugibayashi was second with 16.65m.
"I am very pleased with this result, especially considering I am in a major training phase at the moment. The great value of coming to Japan each year is that it gives a bit of variety in preparation and lets you know where you are at. I can now be very confident about consistently jumping over 17 metres once I start my European season in early June, " Murphy said after the competition.
Murphy who is very popular amongst the Japanese athletics fans, has earlier in the day surprised them by turning up for competition minus the long golden locks which have been his trademark over the past few seasons. Clearly he was no Samson, with the new sleek look providing no obvious loss of strength.
The two other Australians in action at Mito today, Casey Vincent and Daniel Batman both ran in a good quality men’s 400 metres, also a Japanese World Championships selection race.
Vincent proved the slightly stronger on the day, recording a solid 46.03 to finish second behind local runner Jun Osakada who won in 45.72, equaling the world championships A qualifying mark.
Both Batman and Vincent have been named in the Supplementary Squad for the Australian World Championships Team, meaning that they must run a target time of 45.40 before mid July to confirm a spot for Edmonton.
On today's performances, both athletes will be encouraged about their prospects of doing so.
Vincent missed all of the Australian season except for the National Championships after detaching a pectoral muscle during a weight training session. In Brisbane he was only able to record a heat time of 46.73 and did not qualify for the final. But the more than half second improvement since then will give him real hope that he can mix it with the world's best again in 2001 as he did last year when he made the Olympic semi finals, despite being just out of junior ranks.
Although Batman finished in sixth place today, his time of 46.34 also showed he is not far away from much quicker times, once he moves into full competition mode. Despite maintaining a pretty solid training regime whilst on tour, he produced two runs under 46.50 (the other being 46.43 in Hiroshima last weekend).
Both can now concentrate on solid training blocks before commencing full northern hemisphere competition phases in June.
