National Triple Jump champion and 2010 Commonwealth Games champion, Tosin Oke will be stepping out for the second time in the IAAF Diamond League series on Sunday in Birmingham.
The triple jumper opened his Diamond League account in Doha, coming 6th with a leap of 16.83m. He competed with a field that had two of the greatest Triple jumpers EVER, with the Top. 2 finishers, Pedro Pablo Pichardo and Olympic champion, Christian Taylor both going above the 18m mark.
Cuba’s Pichardo set a staggering Personal Best (PB), National Record (NR), Meeting Record (MR) and Diamond League Record (DLR) of 18.06m, making him the third greatest jumper ever, before Olympic Champion, Christian Taylor inspired by his performance, also leaped to a PB of 18.04m to become the fifth best jumper in history. Pichardo has since improved on his PB, setting another impressive NR of 18.08m in Havana.
Oke would be hoping for a new Season’s Best (SB) but would have his hands full against Taylor, who would be aiming to go above the 18m mark again. Portugal’s Nelson Evora (17.12m), Cuba’s Lazaro Martinez (17.02m) and European Champion, Benjamin Compaore are also stiff competitors expected in the line-up.
The last time Oke jumped above the 17m mark was in 2012, where he set a new PB of 17.23m at the National Trials in Calabar. Last year he finished 2nd behind South Africa’s Khotso Mokoena at both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the African Championships in Morocco.
