mettle, frequently recording his best jumps when he needed them in championship competition. Early life Rutherford grew up in Milton Keynes where he attended Two Mile Ash Primary School and went on to Denbigh School. He played several sports as a youth including football, rugby and badminton. He had trials with Premier League football club Aston Villa at the age of 14 before deciding to pursue a career in athletics. He is the great-grandson of footballer Jock Rutherford, who won three Football League First Division titles with Newcastle United and 11 England caps, and is also the oldest player ever to have played for Arsenal; his grandfather, John Rutherford, also played for Arsenal. Career 2005–2007 Rutherford became the youngest ever winner of the long jump event at the AAA Championships in 2005, aged 18. He also won the European Junior Championships that year, setting a British junior record of 8.14 m. Rutherford was selected to represent England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he finished 8th. He won the AAA championships again that year with a jump of 8.26 m. On 8 August 2006, he won the silver medal in the long jump at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg with a jump of 8.13 m. Rutherford missed much of the 2007 season due to a succession of injury problems, including an ankle injury for which he had surgery in February of that year. He competed at the 2007 World Championships but did not reach the final, finishing 21st in the qualifying round. 2008–2011 Rutherford won the AAA title on 12 July 2008, reaching the Olympic qualifying distance of 8.20m. He also won the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace two weeks later with a distance of 8.16 m. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Rutherford qualified for the final in third place with a distance of 8.16 m. In the final, he had two no-jumps in the first two rounds, and recorded a distance of 7.84 m in the third round. This was not enough to place him in the top 8 who would continue to the final three rounds, and he finished in 10th place. Rutherford set a British record of 8.30 m on 20 August 2009 in the qualifying round of the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, improving the previous record held by Chris Tomlinson by 1 cm. He was unable to match this performance in the