Long after Jonathan Edwards lost God, his record leap of faith still stands

Irish Times

4 days ago

God knows how Jonathan Edwards popped up in my Google news feed this week. Especially singing the praises of a round of golf at Royal Portrush. Can your phone, like God, know your thoughts even before you speak?
It had crossed my mind at some point that in this summer of fast-tumbling world records, the triple-jump mark set by Edwards 30 years ago next month remains in a realm of its own. Not once but twice inside 20 minutes Edwards made sure of that, leaping out with near-miraculous faith to 18.29 metres – exactly 60 feet – at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg.
Then just like that, there he was in Google news, in Portrush this week as an ambassador for R&A global development, also helping to keep score at the 153rd Open. Golf being his thing now.
God and Edwards were once very close. Long before pushing the world record to where no mortal had the right to expect to go, Edwards had declared that triple jumping was a mere extension of his devout Christianity, a faith fundamental to his identity. It was what drove him to become a full-time athlete back in 1987.
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Then, four years after his retirement in 2003, came his sudden leap away from faith, Edwards losing his religion in 2007.
Born in Westminster, the son of a Devon vicar, Edwards soon became Britain's most famous advocate of divine intervention, or at least divine inspiration, on the road to sporting glory. If faith can indeed carry the devout, Edwards always looked to God for the courage and strength to take on the world's best triple jumpers, and to beat them.
Such was his devotion, Edwards initially refused to compete on the Sabbath, skipping the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo because his qualifying took place on the first Sunday.
He eventually relented on that stance. 'My relationship with Jesus and God is fundamental to everything I do,' Edwards said at the time. 'I have made a commitment and dedication in that relationship to serve God in every area of my life.'
After winning a bronze medal at the 1993 World Championships, Edwards went to Gothenburg two years later in the form of his life, his annus mirabilis. In July of 1995, he broke his first world record, his 17.98m surpassing by 1cm the mark which had stood for the previous 10 years to Willie Banks from the US. Edwards also jumped a wind-assisted 18.43m that June. A sign of things to come.
British triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards makes his third jump at the World Championships in Athletics in Gothenburg, Sweden, on August 7th, 1995. Edwards' previous jump set a new world record at 18.29m. Photograph:With his first triple jump in Gothenburg, Edwards landed beyond the 18m marker in the sand, clearly a world record even before measured at 18.16m. His second attempt measured 18.29m. The next-best triple jump in history is the 18.21m Christian Taylor from the US landed to win the 2015 World Championships, 20 years after Edwards' record.
When winning his Olympic gold in Sydney 2000, Edwards carried a tin of sardines in his kitbag, symbolising the fish Jesus used in the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, and a reminder that the result, win or lose, was in God's hands.
At his retirement after the 2003 World Championships, Edwards quoted from the Bible: 'A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his step.' Then he began presenting Songs of Praise on BBC.
So it made for shock reading when Edwards told the Times newspaper in 2007 that 'when you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God'.
His new revelations were all personal, and begged another profound question: could Edwards have broken that world record without his belief in God?
'I now realise my belief in God was sports psychology in all but name,' he said. 'Believing in something beyond the self can have a hugely beneficial psychological impact, even if the belief is fallacious.'
Jonathan Edwards celebrates after winning gold in the Men's Triple Jump final at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Photograph: Stu Forster/Allsport/In another interview in 2014, Edwards said: 'Seven years on I don't feel a gap in my life, and I suppose that's the proof of the pudding, isn't it? Had I suddenly thought that life doesn't quite feel right, maybe I'd re-examine that – re-examine my faith. In fact, more than ever, I feel comfortable with where I am in life.'
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There was never any doubting the merits of his triple-jump efforts, the speed Edwards carried through to his final jump phase his greatest ally.
'I was very light, very quick across the ground,' he told Eurosport last year. 'And I maintained my speed, and my technique and my rhythm was very good, so my final jump was a long way ... that was the key for it.'
Talking to National Club Golfer magazine on Thursday, Edwards still believes faith can play a role in sporting success, especially in a high-pressure game like golf.
'In some ways, it becomes part of your psychology for dealing with the pressure,' he said. 'I think subconsciously, your mind finds ways to just ratchet down the pressure a little bit.
'My faith certainly helped me do that, to deal with the pressure ... It's out of your hands. You do the best with what you've got, and the result is separate from that. Winning wasn't the be-all and end-all of those things, and no matter what happened, my worth as a person wasn't the penalty of the result. There was a whole bunch of stuff that the Christian narrative gave me which made it much easier to go out and compete.'
Such words may or may not be a godsend to anyone playing for the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush this weekend, unless of course God has already made plans of his own.