Liam's leap of faith pays off

Above: Liam Adcock after winning bronze at the World Indoor Championships this year. Picture: Sona Maleterova

Liam Adcock’s remarkable season will hit new heights next week when the former Redcliffe Little Athlete takes on the world.

The 29-year-old, whose aim was to “scrape” into an elite Diamond League meeting if he “got lucky”, is chasing gold at the World Athletics Championships.

Adcock will line-up in Tokyo for the long jump qualifying round on Monday, knowing he can match - and on his day beat - the world’s best.

He won bronze (8.28m) in March at the World Indoor Championships and was second (8.15m) in China on his Wanda Diamond League debut.

Adcock then had a stunning victory (8.34m) at the Rome Diamond League meeting in June and won bronze (8.24m) at the league final in Zurich last month.

The ex-Redcliffe resident, who has taken more “ownership” of his training after several injury-hit years, now sits joint third in the world rankings.

All this while balancing work, coaching (remotely) other athletes and preparing for the world titles from his European summer base in Milan.

“The event (Tokyo) seems pretty open at the moment and I want to be the one to capitalise on that,” the Redcliffe State High School graduate said.

“There were a few issues with my run up in Zurich, I’d like to try and sort out – mainly I wasn’t happy around the last few strides into take off.

“I was relatively disappointed with the execution in Zurich even though the distances were my best since changing to Puma spikes at the start of July.

“I feel if I can fix that up, I’ll be able to find some extra distance in Tokyo.

“I gained confidence from the consistency of the series in Zurich knowing I wasn’t overly happy with any jumps, so it feels I have much more to give … if I can execute one right.”

Adcock set a career best in Italy with 8.34m to match the 2025 pbs of rivals Tajay Gayle (Jamaica), Simon Ehammer (Switzerland) and Jorge A Odelin (Cuba).

Olympic and World champion Militadis Tentoglou (Greece) leads the way with 8.46m this year followed by world indoor champion Mattia Furlani (Italy) 8.37m.

However, Adcock beat both with his stunning last-gap victory in Rome and is considered a medal threat as he fine-tunes plans for Japan.

“I feel due to my competitive nature, anything less than gold will be initially disappointing,” said Adcock, who went to Scarborough State School.

“But, if I am happy with my preparation (leading up to Tokyo) and the jumps on the night, I know I’ll have given it my best shot. That will ultimately be what I consider a success.

“It was a little interesting finding out that being the top qualifier for the (Diamond League) final really means nothing. I still had to share a hotel room when a lot of other athletes got to go solo!”

Adcock says not all has gone to plan this season on the “big boy circuit” after setting himself up at Diamond League meetings in Xiamen and Rome.

“Winning with a pb in Rome in the final jump of the competition was pretty special,” he said. “Some results after that were part ‘fomo’ (fear of missing out).

“I had always wanted to compete in London (Diamond League) so when the opportunity presented itself I struggled to say no - even though I was carrying some injury issues.

“(In hindsight) I probably would have come back to Australia after competing in Turku, forgoing London, to give myself a good training block and head back a bit more prepared for the final meets in Lausanne and Zurich.”

The World Championships long jump qualifying is on Monday September 15, 8.40pm AEST and final Wednesday September 17, 9.50pm AEST on SBS Viceland and SBS On Demand.