Low-key return for triple-jumper Tamgho

PARIS (AFP) –

France’s Teddy Tamgho competing in the men’s triple jump final during the European athletics indoor championships at the Bercy Palais-Omnisport in Paris March 6, 2011. Tamgho will make his long-awaited return to track and field when he competes in a low-key outdoor long jump competition on Saturday.

French triple-jumper Teddy Tamgho will make his long-awaited return to track and field when he competes in a low-key outdoor long jump competition on Saturday.

Tamgho, who has skipped the entire indoor season this year to concentrate on his preparations for the August 10-18 World Championships in Moscow, has not competed for 20 months.

But he has elected to make his comeback in the long jump at a small meet in the Lyon surburb of Bron in south France.

The road back has been a long one for the 23-year-old who underwent surgery on the right ankle he fractured in July 2011 warming up for the European under-23 Championships and a subsequent bone growth.

Tamgho, who set an indoor world record of 17.92m at 2010 European championships in Paris, missed out on the 2011 worlds in Daegu, when the triple jump title was claimed by Christian Taylor, the American also going on to win Olympic gold in London.

His rehabilitation was thrown up in the air after he became involved in an altercation with an amateur female athlete and two other people at a training session in the southern French town of Boulouris in October 2011.

The French athletics federation suspended him for 12 months, six of which were suspended, and a court ruled earlier this month that he had to pay 5,000 euros in damages.