Standing at 6ft 5ins with his mop of blond hair British long jump record holder Chris Tomlinson is one of the country’s most popular and recognisable athletes.
Born in Middlesbrough the youngest of four children, he showed an aptitude for athletics from the age of 10 and started life as a sprinter and high jumper with his local club, Mandale Harriers. He went to the same school (Nunthorpe Secondary) as Tottenham and England centre back Jonathan Woodgate, but concentrated on the long jump rather than football, winning his first English Schools’ title at Bury St Edmunds in 1999.
Coached by Peter Stanley, Tomlinson’s first taste of international competition came at the 2000 World Junior Championships in Chile, where he qualified with the third longest jump but finished 12th in the final. In early 2002 he broke both wrists after an accident while lifting weights but shrugged off the disappointment to smash Lynn Davies’ 34-year-old British record just three months with 8.27m in Tallahassee, Florida. He maintained his form to win the European Cup for Great Britain in France and in his first two major championships finished sixth at the Commonwealth Games and European Championships later that year.
At the Athens Olympics he enjoyed one of his finest ever competitions, finishing fifth behind American Dwight Phillips with a best leap of 8.25m. Injuries wrecked much of his 2005, though, and more frustration followed in 2006 when he finished sixth at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and ninth at the European Championships in Gothenburg.
During the autumn of 2007 he moved from his north-east base to live in Hampstead, London and the move has paid off. Earlier this year he advanced his own national indoor record by 0.01 in Stuttgart and landed his first major championship medal, winning a silver at the World Indoor Championships.
Tomlinson is a passionate Middlesbrough football supporterand tries to attend at least 10 games a season. His older sister Katie is a model and an actress and starred in the film Goal. In May this year he married Lucia Rovardi, star of the West End musical Buddy, in Italy. Despite the glamour surrounding him, he remains one of the most down-to-earth members of the British team.