Athletics: Olsson goes from fan to nemesis

At 15 a young Swede idolised Edwards. Now he is hunting him down around the world

Christian Olsson had finished his duties for the day as a programme seller in the Ullevi Stadium when he settled down to watch the men's triple jump final on day four of the 1995 track and field world championships in Gothenburg. "Yeah, I was sitting about 15 rows up in the stand, just above the 18m mark," he recalled on Friday, sitting in a corner of the breakfast room at the Moat House hotel in Glasgow. "I watched the competition from the beginning to the end." So what did he think when Jonathan Edwards shattered the world record not once but twice, jumping 18.16m in the first round and 18.29m in the second?

"Well," Olsson said, drawing a reverential breath, "even if I hadn't become a triple jumper and come up against Edwards it would have been a memory for a lifetime. It was such an atmosphere... and the way he did it... twice in the same competition... the whole arena just exploded."

It must have been a disorientating memory to recall. Back in 1995, when those world championships were held in his home city, Olsson was a 15-year-old high jumper, a member of the local Orgryte club. On Friday he was in Glasgow preparing for his first competition of the year as the main threat to Edwards' eight-year domination as the No 1 of world triple jumping. In 2001 and 2002 Olsson was the world No 2. The lanky 6ft 4in Swede has beaten the smooth-bounding great Briton on six of the fifteen occasions they have met since the Sydney Olympics. Last August in Munich he relieved Edwards of his European championship title.

Their meeting in the Norwich Union International at the Kelvin Hall this afternoon is a prelude to their clash at the world indoor championships at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham from 12 to 14 March. Edwards, the world, Olympic and Commonwealth champion, has never won a world indoor title. The entire Swedish athletics nation has only ever won three, all courtesy of high jumpers – Patrik Sjoberg in Paris in 1985 and Kajsa Bergkvist and Stefan Holm in Lisbon in 2001. Personal history beckons for Edwards, national history for Olsson. It might have been different, though.

"No, I couldn't have imagined in 1995 that one day I would be a rival of Edwards," Olsson mused. "Back then I was still aiming for the high jump and Patrik Sjoberg's trainer was my coach. We were waiting for the high jump, actually, when we watched the triple jump final at the world championships."

Viljo Nousianen was the Finnish coach who guided Sjoberg – like Olsson, a native of Gothenburg – to two high jump world records (2.38m and 2.41m), three Olympic medals and an outdoor world title (in Rome in 1987). He also guided Olsson for six years until his sudden death early in the summer of 1999. Two months later Olsson won the high jump title at the European junior championships in Riga, clearing 2.21m. Last February, competing at an indoor meeting in Gothenburg, he high jumped 2.28m. It placed him 16th in the world indoor rankings for 2002. The best height by a British jumper indoors or outdoors last year was 2.26m.

"I was actually really close with the last of my three attempts at 2.31m," Olsson recalled. "If I'd got over, it would have broken Patrik Sjoberg's arena record. He was a little pissed off that I almost beat his record, being a triple jumper." Olsson may high jump again sometime in the future but strictly "for fun".

The triple jump has been the serious focus of his attention since 1999. He improved what was then his secondary event from 14.48m to 16.27m that summer and would have added the triple jump gold to his high jump title at the European junior championships had Britain's Tosin Oke not overtaken him with the last jump of the competition.

In 2000 he failed to survive the triple jump qualifying rounds at the Olympics in Sydney but in 2001 Olsson broke through with a vengeance, improving to 17.49m and taking the silver medal behind Edwards at the world championships in Edmonton. He also served notice of his potential as heir to Edwards' throne, beating the Gateshead Harrier in Helsinki and Yokohama.

Last year the Swede jumped 17.80m indoors in Gothenburg, missing the Cuban Aliecer Urrutia's world indoor record by a tantalising 3cm (Edwards' best mark indoors is 17.64m). He also beat Edwards outdoors in Monaco, Brussels and Paris, as well as in the main competition of the year for both, the European championships in Munich. Edwards, though, retained the world No 1 spot, with a 5-4 win record in their meetings, and a 17.86m jump in winning the Commonwealth title.

The battle for the No 1 spot in 2003 starts in the Kelvin Hall today, though Edwards might not have been competing there – nor anywhere else, for that matter. He was seriously considering retiring at the end of the 2002 summer season, until he was in the throes of losing his European title to Olsson in Munich. "I looked up in the stadium and saw a group of girls who were cheering my name and encouraging me," Edwards recounted, "and I just smiled and decided if I couldn't enjoy the experience at this stage of my career, why was I bothering to do it at all? Had I not had that revelation, I would have been more inclined to give up and end my career."

For his part, the 23-year-old Olsson is glad that the 36-year-old Edwards is still around. "I'm very happy that he's continuing to jump," he said, "because he brings something to the triple jump that no one else has done for a long time. As long as Edwards is there it will never be a problem to be able to prepare for a competition. You know the result will be a very high standard, just because he is competing."

Not quite as high, though, as the standard the 15-year-old Olsson saw from his seat in the stand at the Ullevi Stadium on that unforgettable August day eight years ago.