By Tim Hutchings

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Jonathan Edwards can get strike gold in the triple jump for Britain in Edmonton later today.

He's done it before. He's won world titles before back in 1995 when he set the world record and he won the Olympic title last year.

He was beginning to develop a bit of a reputation as a choker after the Atlanta games, where he was beaten by Kenny Harrison of the USA back in 1996.

To be fair to Jonathan he's dismissed that now and the word out here in Edmonton is that the only way that Jonathan can be beaten is that if he beats himself.

By that I mean if he fails to produce the goods when it's patently obvious to everyone and Jonathan that he can produce the goods.

It's a little bit like Eunice Barber in the heptathalon.

If Jonathan did that in the final and the first three efforts were no-jumps he would count himself out because he wouldn't make the cut and he wouldn't go on to make three further jumps like the top eight do.

I suspect one problem for Jonathan at the moment is that he is almost too relaxed, he's too happy and contented with life.

He's made a tremendous amount of money out of the sport in the last couple of years, he's got all the medals and maybe he went into the qualifying allowing himself to think 'I've just got to turn up and produce the qualifying distance', which was just over 17 metres.

You can't do that. You've really got to still focus on the technique and the job in hand to be done.

Maybe he let that waver. It's interesting that when the pressure was on and he had to really focus on the third jump, having produced two no-jumps, he did come out and produce a big, big jump way beyond 17 metres and way beyond what anyone else did in qualifying.

Having said that, Christian Olsson from Sweden produced a 17.15 with his very first jump, which was enough to qualify for the final, and he has got a very smart head on his shoulders.

Olsson is young and is relatively inexperienced, but his one strength as I have heard from the principal Swedish stats man is that he is a very strong competitor.

He's got a great head on his shoulders and will be a tough opponent for Jonathan.

If you look at the results from the Stockholm Grand Prix I think the lead changed five times swinging backwards and forwards between Olsson and Edwards and to an extent that challenge from the youngster pulled out the best from Jonathan Edwards.

However, Olsson did beat him earlier in the season in the rain at Helsinki.

He is only 21-years-old, he's got a long way to go yet in the sport and it may just be that the excitement and freshness of being in the World Championships final will be his advantage over Edwards - who has been there and done it again and again.

Edwards might be guilty perhaps of feeling he just has to turn up and the gold medal is going to be his.

To an extent I think that might have been the case in Seville two years ago.

Olsson is that sort of audacious talent that is so dangerous because he probably doesn't know his limitations.

I went to school with Larry Achike so I know him pretty well, although he's a few years younger than me.

He's an incredible natural talent. He made the grade at the Olympics last year, he got over an important threshold mentally, having won a world junior title in 1994.

He's got a good championship temperament, Sydney confirmed that last year when he made the top six, and he looked pretty good in qualifying as well.

I certainly feel that Achike, perhaps over the other Briton Phillips Idowu, has a better chance of getting among the medals.

As for a 1-2-3, well we had one in the 20km walk with Russia so it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.

If people are offering reasonable odds for it then I think it's a pretty good shout myself and I'd probably put a few quid on it.

Idowu to be fair has been consistently over 17 metres this year and outside the top four or five in the world there aren't a great number of men who can threaten athletes of that sort of calibre.

If you're jumping in the 17.20s, 17.30s you've got every reason to believe you can get a medal.

Jonathan has been a great mentor for the other two Britons so I suspect we will see a better performance than last year when we had first, fourth and sixth in Sydney.