Missing, one triple jumper. Please call UK Athletics!

Things get lost all the time.

Keys mislaid, glasses forgotten, wallets disappear.

Somehow, with the track competition ready to begin Friday at the London Olympic Games, UK Athletics has lost contact with one of its top medal hopes.

Phillips Idowu, a world and Olympic silver medallist triple jumper, has cut communication with coach Aston Moore and the governing body of British track. No one is even sure if the 33-year-old will turn up at the Olympic village.

Idowu has ''turned his back'' on his coach and all contact "has died,'' Charles van Commenee, Britain's head coach, told The Guardian newspaper.

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"Up until about two weeks ago Aston Moore, his coach and the person I work with very closely, was in regular contact and had seen him in training a number of times. But that contact died. A brief text message about a week ago and that was it. All information we have about Phillips is now coming from the BOA [British Olympic Association]. That information is that he's fit and ready to go."

So it is alien abduction? An injury? Or is Idowu, known for his ultraviolet hairstyles and confident swagger, simply playing mind games with his competitors?

The situation particularly frustrates van Commenee because UK Athletes has spent over $1.5 million developing Idowu.

"UK Athletics has supported Phillips Idowu financially for a big part of 12 years in terms of providing training, accommodation, camps, medical support, psychological support, biomechanical support and coaching support,'' he said. "We pay the salary of his coach, our coach, so I'm perplexed that the last two weeks before the Games he turns his back on us, and I've got no idea why.''

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Idowu recently surfaced on Twitter, posting first-person footage of himself running with the Olympic torch.

Idowu has earned the nickname "the invisible man" by pulling out of four consecutive competitions since June. His biggest rival, world champion Christian Taylor, said Idowu is involved in gamesmanship.

Asked if that's true, van Commenee was lost for an answer.

"You're asking me to look into Phillips's head,'' he said. "That's a challenge. I find it difficult to look into people's heads, but certainly Phillips's. So I can't answer the question."

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