Teddy Tamgho

About Teddy Tamgho

At 13 years old, Teddy took his first steps in athletics under the influence of his sister, an athlete. It was at the Dynamic Aulnay Club that Teddy started with the pole vault and simultaneously, the long jump, and then, in Minime 2, he tackled the high jump. In 2004, he joined the Eaubonne training center. There, Jean-Hervé Stievenart and Stéphane Grelut introduced him to the triple jump. From his first outing, the young prodigy made a remarkable jump of 13m91.

The following year, Teddy faced his first “failure”, missing the qualification for the cadet world championships. That same year, he improved his record to 15m16. The next season, he became a double French champion indoors in long jump and triple jump with respective jumps of 7m21 and 15m35. At the end of April 2006, the member of the Dynamic Aulnay Club underwent partial meniscectomy surgery on his knee. He made a quick return for the youth French championships, which he won in the cadet category, improving his mark to 15m38. A month later, during a match for juniors, he jumped 15m58, just missing the junior world championships qualifying mark by 2 small centimeters.

At the beginning of the following season, Teddy joined INSEP. In Junior 1, he improved his record to 16m11 indoors and went in the summer to the European Junior Championships. He finished 4th there, after the last attempt, with a jump of 16m35, having led throughout the competition. The 2007-2008 season marked his entry among the “greats”. In his first outing under the colors of CA Montreuil, Teddy broke the junior indoor French record in Eaubonne with 16m53. He also obtained his first elite French champion title in Bordeaux in February, achieving a new junior French record (16m94) while recording the second-best indoor performance of all time among juniors.

For the start of his summer season, Teddy only had one outing below 16m50. He arrived confident for the Junior World Championships in Poland. By qualifying directly for the final with a first attempt of 16m30 during the qualifications, Teddy achieved the expected feat by claiming the world title with a fabulous jump of 17m33. In this competition, he made two jumps beyond the Olympic qualifying mark (17m13), but the wind was too strong to validate them.

During the elite French Championships in Albi, not everything went as planned for Teddy, who was unable to surpass the 17m13 mark. A few days later, at the Herculis meeting in Monaco, he achieved 17m19 with a slightly unfavorable wind, setting a new junior French record and meeting the Olympic qualifying mark, unfortunately achieved too late. It would sadly be impossible to select Teddy for the 2008 Olympic Games.