Editing Colin Jackson (section)

== Athletics career ==
Under coach and close friend [[Malcolm Arnold (athletics coach)|Malcolm Arnold]], Jackson started out as a promising [[decathlon|decathlete]] before switching to high hurdles. He won gold at the [[1986 World Junior Championships in Athletics|1986 World Junior Championships]] and he soon switched to the senior ranks. Following a silver medal in the [[1986 Commonwealth Games]], he won the [[110 metre hurdles|110 m hurdles]] silver at the [[1988 Summer Olympics|1988 Olympic Games]] behind [[Roger Kingdom]]. Although his career as an active competitor in the event would last a further fifteen years, the last ten of these as world record holder, and see him twice crowned World Champion, twice Commonwealth Champion and four times European Champion, this would remain his only Olympic medal of any colour. In [[Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Men's 110 metre hurdles|1992]] he eased through his first round heat in 13.10 s (which proved faster than the gold medal-winning time) but was restricted by an injury he picked up during the next round and could only finish seventh in the final, and in [[Athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Men's 110 metre hurdles|1996]] he came fourth and in 2000, fifth.

He set his [[List of world records in athletics|world record]] for the [[110 metres hurdles]] on 20 August 1993, winning his first [[World Championships in Athletics|World Championships]] gold medal in [[Stuttgart]], Germany in 12.91 s. The new mark (also a [[World Championships in Athletics|championship record]]) shaved 0.01 s off the previous record held by Kingdom and stood for nearly thirteen years, only being equalled by [[Liu Xiang (hurdler)|Liu Xiang]] in the [[2004 Summer Olympics]] and finally beaten by the same man on 11 July 2006 at the [[Super Grand Prix]] in [[Lausanne]] with a time of 12.88 s. Jackson remained the sole holder of the indoor world record at the [[60 metres hurdles]] with a time of 7.30 seconds set in [[Sindelfingen]], Germany on 6 March 1994 until February 2021. At the [[1994 European Athletics Indoor Championships|1994 European Indoor Championships]] he became a double European champion: winning in both the 60 metres hurdles and [[60 metres|60 metres sprint]] race as well. His 60 m dash time of 6.49 s was a [[List of European records in athletics|European record]], as well as a championship record. These records remained unbeaten for 5 years, when [[Jason Gardener]] ran 6.46&nbsp;s in 1999 in [[Maebashi]], Japan.
[[File:Colin Jackson Eupean Cup 2007.jpg|thumb|upright|Jackson at the 2007 European Cup]]

The aforementioned achievements coincided with one of the high points of Jackson's career: he was unbeaten between 29 August 1993 and 9 February 1995. He won forty-four races consecutively in this period.<ref>[[Steve Cram|Cram, Steve]] (2001). [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/static/in_depth/athletics/2001/world_athletics/110_hurdles.stm Colin Jackson captures the world record] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090212060258/http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/static/in_depth/athletics/2001/world_athletics/110_hurdles.stm |date=12 February 2009 }}. [[BBC Sport]]. Retrieved on 1 September 2009.</ref> His winning time at the [[1994 Commonwealth Games]] was a [[List of Commonwealth Games records in athletics|Commonwealth Games record]].

Jackson was a master of the "dip" – the skill of leaning forward at the end of a race to advance the position of the shoulders and improve times (and potentially positions). He was also renowned for being a particularly fast starter, which led to a great deal of success in 60 m events. Jackson's technical hurdling ability distinguished him from his peers whether they were faster than him or not.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

He was the subject of controversy in 1998 when he decided to run for cash in Tokyo, Japan, rather than compete in the [[1998 Commonwealth Games|Commonwealth Games]] for Wales.

Six years after his first world title, Jackson regained his 110 m hurdles crown at the [[1999 World Championships in Athletics|1999 Seville World Championships]]. This was to be his last gold medal at the very highest level, but he added a final, fourth successive European Championships gold in the [[2002 European Championships in Athletics|2002 Munich European Championships]], extending an unbroken reign as European Champion stretching back to 1990.