European Athletics (EAA) – News – Rutherford gets back in to his rhythm in Melbourne

Great Britain's London 2012 Olympic Games long jump gold medallist Greg Rutherford flew out to an early season European leading distance of 8.10m at the first of this year's IAAF World Challenge meetings in the Australian city of Melbourne on Saturday.

Australia's Olympic Games silver medallist Mitchell Watt jumped 8.01m to again finish second while his fellow Australian and reigning Commonwealth Games champion Fabrice Lapierre was third with 7.99m.

Rutherford opened his account with a ragged effort of 6.19m before reaching 8.09m in round two. The rest of his series was a foul, 8.10m, 7.81m and a pass to close.

"It's good to get back into it, and it's good to be out there with Mitch. The past few days we have been trying to keep each other as relaxed as possible but in the long run we obviously want to beat each other," said Rutherford.

"From here I am headed to the States and I will do some work with my coach Dan Pfaff. It will be good to get over there to prepare for the first Diamond League (meeting). I don't know if I will jump over there but I might run a couple of track races, we will just wait and see."

"Every competitor always wants to win. Mitch is a friend of mine, so it is not like a bad competition ever. Ultimately, he wants to beat me and I want to beat him but we are always still mates.

"An 8.10 isn't anything massively special but blimey we are in the early part of the year, and, waking up this morning, I didn't expect to be able to jump that well so early," added Rutherford.

A second European victory in the southern hemisphere came from The Netherlands' 2008 SPAR European Cross Country Championships under 23 gold medallist Susan Kuijken, who has been based in Australia in recent months.

Kuijken led from a long way out to win the women's 1500m in 4:10.53, just shy of her European time of 4:09.66 which she ran in February in Hobart.

Australian champion Kaila McKnight closed quickly down the home straight to finish second in 4:10.78, and briefly threaten the Dutch runner, but. Kuijken had enough in hand to hold her off.