Greg Rutherford
Rutherford in 2016 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Gregory James Rutherford |
| Born | 17 November 1986 Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) |
| Weight | 92 kg (203 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Men's athletics |
Event | Long jump |
| Club | Marshall Milton Keynes Athletics Club |
| Turned pro | 2005 |
| Achievements and titles | |
| Personal best(s) | Long jump 8.51 m (Chula Vista 2014) 100 m 10.26 (Gateshead 2010) |
Medal record | |
Gregory James Rutherford (born 17 November 1986) is a retired British track and field athlete who specialised in the long jump. He represented Great Britain at the Olympics, World and European Championships, and England at the Commonwealth Games. Rutherford is the most recent of only five athletes to win the ''Grand Slam" of Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles in the same event and the only one also to win the Diamond League.
A European Junior Champion in 2005, Rutherford first made a mark on the senior circuit with a silver medal in the 2006 European Athletics Championships. Between 2012 and 2016 Rutherford won the long jump gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2014 Commonwealth Games, 2014 and 2016 European Athletics Championships and 2015 World Athletics Championships and topped the 2015 IAAF Diamond League rankings in the event. A bronze at the 2016 Summer Olympics proved his final major medal, as ankle injuries plagued him for the next two years. He retired from the sport through injury in 2018.
From 4 September 2015, when his Diamond League victory was confirmed with a fourth event win in Zürich, until his withdrawal from the British Athletics Championships in June 2016, Rutherford held every available elite outdoor title; national, continental, World, Olympic, Diamond League and Commonwealth.
Rutherford is the British record holder, both outdoors and indoors, for this event with his personal bests of 8.51 m (outdoors) and 8.26 m (indoors). He was a five time national outdoor champion and his British record places him in the top 25 all time.
In September 2021 Rutherford was selected as part of the British bobsleigh team but was injured during preparations to qualify for the 2022 Winter Olympics.