The first was Irena Szewinska. Actually she did win a lot of titles, from sprint
relay, 200m and 400m to long jump, although mostly before I took an interest in her sport. However,
by the Seventies, she seemed to fall below the radar, probably because she was
from Poland rather than the USA, USSR or East Germany. In a fifteen-year senior
career she topped the global rankings more than once in four different events,
holding world records galore. And yet for some reason I remember her as a
battling bronze medallist rather than the frequent champion she really was, maybe because that was how her championship career ended in 1978.
Nevertheless, for a bronze collection, surely no athlete can
compare with Merlene Ottey. In the early Eighties, Jamaica was not the
powerhouse of athletics that it is now, and the young Ottey bloomed like an
exotic flower amidst the shorter, stockier runners from the USA or Eastern
Europe. It’s just that she rarely finished first. I’m sure she treasures her
three World Championship gold medals but it must be galling to take part in
seven Olympic Games, yet bring home three silvers, six bronzes and no golds.
She was particularly unlucky to lose the 100 metres final at Atlanta to Gail Devers by 0.005 seconds. Crap or what?! In the 200, she was narrowly
overhauled by the Frenchwoman Perec. Merlene’s final Olympic medal – bronze
again – was awarded nine years after the race was held at Sydney, after serial
steroid abuser Marion Jones was finally stripped of her title, and Ottey
upgraded.
Sadly, like many top sporting personalities, the Jamaican
was a bit of a diva in her later years. She fell out with her association after
finishing fourth in the national trials, which meant she failed to make the
individual team. Emigrating to Slovenia for some reason, she continued to
compete internationally and even ran the sprint relay in the 2012 Europeans at
the age of 52! No chance of a podium finish but when athletics is in the blood
it must be hard to hang up your spikes.
Frankie Fredericks wasn’t blessed with such a lengthy career
but he packed a load of action into his decade at the top of his game. However,
he won my heart by winning four silvers at the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics.
Representing Namibia, relay success was never on the cards but for several
years he was incredibly consistent in the individual sprint events, regularly
breaking the 10-second barrier in the 100m and 20 seconds for the 200m. At the
1996 Games, it took world record performances by Donovan Bailey and Michael
Johnson to deprive Fredericks of the golds he surely deserved. What endeared him
to me was his sunny disposition, in spite of what the fates – and his rivals –
dealt him.
It was therefore especially rewarding to watch him run the
200 at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. I was fortunate to have been invited, as
part of the BBC Nations & Regions management team, to Manchester for a
couple of sessions, including one memorable evening of athletics finals in the
new stadium, now familiar as the Etihad. Although our seats were high above the
back straight rather than in the expensive positions near the finishing line, I
was struck by the sheer speed of the sprinters, something you can’t appreciate
simply by watching on TV.
There were many great moments to treasure from my first and
only first-hand experience of top-class athletics. The wonderful Maria Mutola
won the 800, England’s Chris Rawlinson grabbed the 400m hurdles and Bahamian
Debbie Ferguson took the women’s 200 at a canter. However, it was Frankie
Fredericks’ triumph which was my highlight. Much of the crowd were clearly
disappointed that the English duo of Campbell and Devonish had been beaten but
I make no apologies for cheering the Namibian.
2002 came several years too early to witness the performance
and personality of probably the greatest and most charismatic athlete of my
lifetime, perhaps ever. I’m talking, of course, about the incomparable Usain
Bolt. Lucky for Frankie Fredericks that he didn’t find himself up against the
Jamaican but, for all the splendid efforts of Rudisha, Ennis, Bekele, Dibaba,
Felix, Semenya et al, the entire sport owes a massive debt to Bolt. It wasn’t
just his jaunty mugging for the cameras before the start or the unique
‘lightning’ pose afterwards. He not only held audiences in the palms of his
hands; he held all his competitors in his pocket. He didn’t just win the major
finals; he did so by smashing world records and slowing down at the tape, just
to rub it in.
However, while those races at Beijing, London and the world champs of Berlin and Moscow were undeniably thrilling, my over-riding memory of
Bolt the champion was from the Rio Olympics. Gatlin gained revenge a year later, inflicting Bolt’s first
championship defeat for a decade, and when Usain pulled up injured in the
relay, the fairytale script was ripped into tiny pieces. It wasn’t just the
shock of defeat; it signified the realisation that the Jamaican wasn’t
invincible after all. The cult of Bolt was over, and the curtain had been drawn
over an entire era of athletics.
There will be new stars, of course. World records will
continue to be broken and there’ll be more sensational races and competitions.
I hope there’ll be no repeat of the Zola Budd palaver, when the Thatcher
government literally bought a young white South African middle-distance runner
with the express purpose of winning gold at the 1984 Olympics. History showed
that neither she, nor the LA favourite Mary Decker Slaney, triumphed in the
much-hyped 3000 metres so even in the
darkest of hours it’s encouraging that sport can triumph.
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