Just about a year ago, at the world Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, Britain's Jonathan Edwards raced down a runway and took a triple jump into the record books. With a leap of 18.16 m he became the first man to break through the seemingly unbreachable barrier of 18 m. Then in another jump that day, he extended the record to 18.29 m.

No sooner did Edwards, 30, begin dumping the sand out of his shoes than everyone wanted to know how he did it. A gentle, slender man blessed with infinite patience, he confessed he didn't know--and he still doesn't. "I don't think I've hit upon a magic formula for the triple jump," says Edwards. "It's all rather straightforward," he says. "You've got to run fast and keep that speed all the way through to your last phase and into the pit." In short: just do it well.

So far, no one has done it better. Edward's record-breaking jumps in Gothenburg won him the world championship in the event. He has been undefeated in his past 24 meets. Yet for all his success, he is still apprehensive about the upcoming Olympics and his chance to win a second, more glorious gold. Says he: "The Olympics is definitely the pinnacle. It excites the world as no other event does."

Why would the anticipated front runner in his event be nervous? The fact is, not everything has been smooth for Edwards since he set the world record. He has been plagued with niggly little injuries. Even more troubling is what he calls "my negative state of mind," the product of pressures created by his very success. He confesses that all his triumphs seemed like "weights around my neck." He feared that he couldn't deliver what people expected of him.

Edwards' problem can be summed up in a single word: fame. By the end of the 1995 season he had become one of the hottest stars in track and field, by virtue of jumping more than 18 m on seven different occasions. The International Amateur Athletic Federation named him Male World Athlete of the Year, while in Britain the bbc gave him the Sports Personality of the Year award. Agents came calling at his Newcastle home bearing lucrative contracts for sponsorships and product endorsements. The press began laying siege to his privacy, hoping to find something provocative in the personal life of Britain's great new sporting hope. "I didn't know how to deal with that," he recalls. "I'd never been there before."

Edwards, his wife and two young children finally fled to Florida last February for 2 1/2 months of winter training and family relaxation. "It was fabulous," he says, "but it did not best prepare me for stepping into the cauldron of a new season and an Olympic year." The biggest pressure came from fans who now expected that he would jump 18 m every time he stepped into a stadium. "That's just not realistic," says Edwards. As if to prove the point, his early jumps in the 1996 season did not come close to 18 m, although he continued to win meets. His competitors got closer: in June he snatched a victory only on his last jump at a meet in Rome. He was suffering from a minor strain in his heel and ankle, but his most serious problem, he admits, was in his head.

Starting in June, Edwards took three weeks off from competition, missing the British Olympic trials (but qualifying for the team on the strength of his later performances). He rested his injuries and tried to clear his mind. Edwards is a devoted Christian, son of an Anglican vicar, and takes his religion very seriously; until 1993 he would not compete on Sundays. During his time off, says Edwards, "I asked God to give me strength to deal with the new situations I find myself in. I needed to put things in perspective and pray it through."

He has known adversity before. Raised in Devon, Edwards began jumping in physical-education classes in secondary school and ended up English Schools Champion in 1984. "My father really prodded me to use this gift God had given me," says Edwards. So after he graduated in 1987 from Durham University with a degree in physics, he moved to Newcastle to train under famed coach Carl Johnson. By 1990 Edwards was ranked among the top 10 jumpers in the world, but he failed to qualify for the finals for Barcelona. "It was a bitter blow," admits Edwards.

Then he picked himself up and started all over again. He left his job at a genetics laboratory to devote himself full time to jumping. His results picked up in 1993, but then mysteriously declined during 1994. A blood test showed that he was infected with Epstein-Barr virus, which causes fatigue-generating glandular fever. He rested for four months during the off-season before beginning his spectacular 1995 run of success. Then he was hit by the malady known as fame.

His three winter weeks off in 1996 served Edwards well. His mind was at rest, even though his fans were not. When he returned to competition on July 2 in Helsinki, he was billed as the star attraction of the meet. Each time Edwards took his position at the end of the runway, the audience began clapping rhythmically. The clamor of We Will Rock You, a numbingly repetitious anthem by the rock band Queen, came blasting from the loudspeakers, jouncing every seat in Helsinki's Olympic Stadium and making it quite clear what was expected of him.

But he resisted the pressure. His second jump was an impressive 17.82 m, more than enough to take first in the weak field that night, and the best jump to that point of any athlete likely to appear at Atlanta. He passed on the next round, but by the time his fourth turn came, Edwards' muscles had begun to cramp up in the unseasonably cold evening. "I shouldn't have jumped again," says Edwards, "but I'd been paid to entertain the fans. So I did." The result was a disappointing 15.25 m.

Edwards decided against further jumps, but walked to the grandstands and stood for more than an hour chatting with admirers and autographing everything handed to him. Finally, he walked across the empty infield to pick up his award and pose for a picture with Helsinki's mayor.

The meet was a turning point "My rhythm and timing were not quite there," he says, "but some of the old spark was back." In four subsequent meets, Edwards did not break the elusive 18-m barrier, but that no longer seems to bother him. He has freed himself of the demons of oppressive expectations. "I can now go out and give my best without the thought of making 18 meters weighing me down," says he.

Even without demons, Edwards faces some tough competition in Atlanta. America's Kenny Harrison jumped a wind-assisted 18.01 m in the U.S. Olympic trials, and Cuba's Yoelvis Quesada had a 17.75-m effort. But Edwards' 17.82 m is still the year's best jump so far. If he can just keep those expectations off his shoulders as he dashes along the 40-m runway to the pit, he may well win gold. After that, fame can do its worst.