Colin Jackson entered 1994 with the confidence one would expect of the
World Champion and World Record holder and sure enough he swept all
before him. His season began with several indoor meetings the highlight
of which was the European Championships in Paris where he not only won
the 60mh (7.41 secs.) but the 60m sprint (6.49 secs.) ! His quest for
the season was to retain the two titles he had captured four years
earlier - the European and the Commonwealth. Unlike 1990 the European,
which that year was in Helsinki, was the first of the two. Jackson set
his stamp on the event during the semi-final when he stopped the
electronic timer at 13.04 secs for a new Championship Best Performance.
In the final itself he was fractionally slower winning in 13.08secs.
from Germany's Florian Schwarthoff (13.16 secss.) (Colin is pictured above winning the final).
He then moved across the Atlantic with his fellow British athletes for
the Commonwealth Games where the venue was Victoria, Canada. He duly
retained that title repeating his 1990 championship best performance of
13.08sec. which, of course, was exactly his winning time at the
Europeans.
The second-placed man was Jackson's perennial shadow, Tony
Jarrett, with a time of 13.22sec. They had thus repeated their 1-2 of
the World championships the year before. Colin then returned to the more
'mundane' Grand Prix circuit during September when he ran two sub-13sec
times. In Tokyo he clocked 12.98sec. and then in Madrid a 12.99sec.
time to round off another successful season which once more saw him
ranked as the World's No.1 high hurdler. (George Herringshaw) |