Paris – Olympic expectations for troubled French triple jumper Teddy Tamgho should be lowered, the France team doctor warned on Wednesday.
Tamgho is bidding to make a comeback after an operation on a serious ankle injury and a ban for a violent altercation with an amateur female athlete that have seen him out of action for 10
months, raising a question mark over his participation at the London Games.
France team doctor Jean-Michel Serra said the soon-to-be 23-year-old world and European indoor champion, who missed last summer's world outdoors in Daegu because of his ankle injury, could not realistically rush back into competition.
“The problem for Teddy is to make a return proportional to the level of expectation,” Serra told AFP.
“There's the whole psychological case surrounding him as well as the medical one.”
Tamgho is set to appear in court in September over the ugly incident in which he lashed out at Glodie Tudiesche. He was also given a three-year probationary period, ordered to pay a 1,500-euro ($1,960) fine and undertake 50 hours of community service.
The Frenchman suffered another hammerblow in the run-up to next month's London Olympics when kit sponsor Asics cancelled their contract, which was first signed in 2007, with immediate effect. He still has no alternative sponsor.
Tamgho now has until July 6, the date of the Paris leg of the Diamond League, to prove his fitness for selection for the Olympics, with federation officials unwilling to comment on whether they thought he'd make it or not. – Sapa-AFP