There have been many other absorbing relay finals over the
years. As a means of concluding championships on a high, relays are nigh
perfect, although they don’t necessarily guarantee close finishes. For more
years than I care to remember, the Americans would spoil the occasion by taking
dominance to new levels, especially the women. However, in men’s 4 by 4 races,
the Soviet Union, Bahamas, Nigeria and Jamaica have done their bit to give me
something to cheer. Nevertheless perhaps some of the most enthralling relays I
can remember have involved the Brits.
There may have been closer finishes but for sheer
edge-of-the-seat-scream-at-the-screen drama, few can match the 1991 World championships 4x400 metres and the 2004
Olympic sprint finals. The former, hosted by Tokyo, followed a feast of fast
times aided by a super-duper track and almost certainly a pantechnicon full of
steroids. Ben Johnson may have been banished following the 1988 Olympic disqualification but other drugs cheats like Carl Lewis and Dennis Mitchell had
been allowed to continue, and Lewis duly broke the world 100m record. He was
also involved in a tremendous battle for the long jump title, which was
snatched from his grasp by Mike Powell, who had to overhaul Beamon’s
‘unbeatable’ world record to do so.
Lewis was also a member of the American men’s sprint quartet
set a new world mark shortly before the 400 metre event drew down the curtain
on the men’s events in the championships. The Yanks were hot favourites as
usual but in Roger Black we had the individual silver medallist and three
others who had the potential to see off the rest. Even commentator David
Coleman was surprised to see Black lining up in the blocks on the opening leg
instead of his normal role as ‘anchor’. It proved a master-stroke. Black, then
Derek Redmond and John Regis held on to the Americans all the way to the final
handover. Hurdler Kriss Akabusi stayed on Antonio Pettigrew’s shoulder until,
on the last straight, somehow found the legs to overtake and breast the tape
first. The look on Akabusi’s face (and that unforgettable laugh) was priceless,
and the Americans seemed stunned. Hardly surprising, given it would be their
only defeat in a twelve-year period. For that reason alone, those three minutes
were pure sporting gold but for a British foursome to apply the coup de grace
made it extra special.
Fast forward thirteen years to the Athens Olympics, and the
Men’s 4x100 relay.
Once again, the Yanks were expected to win but, despite Dwain Chambers being
banned for life because of illegal performance-boosting drug intake and none of
our sprint stars reaching an individual final, Britain had high hopes for
silver. If only we could avoid another bungled baton change! Mind you, we’d
skirted with another disqualification in the semis and then, spirits pumped by
Kelly Holmes’ 1500m success, when the starter’s gun fired, Jason Gardener was
too quick out of his blocks. These days we would have been shown the red flag
and kicked out. In 2004, you had a second chance, and Britain took it. Luckily
it all came together late that evening.
This time, it was the Americans who bodged a couple of
changeovers. Gardener, Darren Campbell and Marlon Devonish were up there with
USA and Nigeria but Maurice Greene would surely prevail on the last leg. He
didn’t. In what proved to be his finest hour, 21 year-old Mark Lewis-Francis
somehow held on to win by the thickness of a vest, or 0.01 seconds. Weeks
later, I skived off work for an hour to watch the Olympic and Paralympic parade
pass along Oxford Street, the highlight for me being the glistening golds and
gleaming smiles being worn by the relay squad who had pulled off such a
thrilling victory in Athens.
In more recent years, it has been the joyful Jamaicans, men
and women, who have been the scourge of Team USA and the source of such delight
for me. When Usain Bolt brought them home for a new world record in London,
2012, the whole world outside the States erupted with joy. More on Mr Bolt
later…
It hasn’t all been about the relays, of course. I recall one
Friday evening towards the end of the school year in July 1973 when I watched
the shambling, shaggy-haired, moustachioed figure of David Bedford break the
world 10,000 metres record at Crystal Palace. That was the first time I felt
compelled to go straight outside and run around the close. At 12 years old, I’d
no facial hair but for a few glorious minutes I felt like Britain’s new long
distance superstar. For all his efforts, he never managed a global title and
was eclipsed by Brendan Foster in the medals stakes. That record, too, has been
eclipsed many times. Obliterated. By well over a minute! However, for three
years, Bedford’s record stood proud.
In the past two decades, the rise to long-distance supremacy
of African-born athletes has changed the world order completely, giving us new
heroes like Mo Farah and the little Ethiopian maestro Haile Gebrselassie not
only on the track but also on the streets. Until the first London Marathon was
organised in 1981, I paid little attention to the grand-daddy of all distances
In those days, when at university, I used to buy The Observer on Sundays and
the ‘paper really went to town on the event. Founder and journalist Chris Brasher
would set out training plans each week for the intrepid few who had booked a
place and I would wonder what it would be like to have a go myself.
Of course, I decided that slogging around Billericay in the
cold, wet winter months was too arduous a training regime so I’ve never
ventured into the world of fartlek (I
love that word – it’s a sequence of sprint-jog-sprint-jog), hitting ‘the wall’,
being overtaken by a rhinoceros or donning a cape of silver foil. Instead, like
just about every other athletic event, I would in the Eighties and Nineties
resolve to get up a bit earlier than usual on the requisite April Sunday
morning to enjoy the atmosphere on TV.
It’s not just London; there are many top city marathons
taking place each year, from Berlin to New York, but for us Brits, London’s is the Marathon. It’s quaint to recall the
moment when Dick Beardsley and Inge Simonsen linked hands to cross the line
together in that first men’s elite race. Britain’s own, Joyce Smith, also won
the women’s event that year, at the age of 43. We had some top-class marathon
runners in the Eighties. Steve Jones’ winning time from 1985 endured as a
British record for 33 years before being improved by Mo Farah in 2018.
The Marathon was also the first opportunity to see women long-distance
runners in action. Until the Eighties, the fairer sex were deemed by the IOC
and IAAF too fragile to participate in anything longer than 1500 metres but
there was nothing weak and feeble about the Norwegian pair of Grete Waitz and
Ingrid Kristiansen who won just about everything in that decade. A couple of
times I made the trip up to Liverpool Street, joining the crowds near the Tower
to cheer the elite and fund-raising so-called ‘fun’ runners. I remember
Kristiansen looking remarkably small surrounded by male lanky beanpoles who
struggled to keep pace with her. Boy, was she tough! She won world titles on
track, streets and cross-country, and was also a Norwegian ski champion, no
mean feat.
For me, the London Marathon no longer has sufficient appeal
for me to sit and watch. Not since Paula Radcliffe’s heyday have I made any
real effort to watch, perhaps hanging on towards midday in an attempt to pick
out a friend or work colleague amidst the multi-coloured hordes negotiating the
cobbles around the Cutty Sark or shuffling across Tower Bridge. I wouldn’t want
to ’diss’ the event. It remains a magnet for athletes around the world, with
enormous prize money to attract the big names from Kenya and Ethiopia and the
cache for 40,000 ‘ordinary’ runners to put their bodies on the line, whether
for pride or charity. I salute them all.
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