Derek Redmond
Semi-finalist in the 400m; Barcelona 1992
Derek Redmond’s 400m semi-final in Barcelona will go down in history as one that probably tugged at more heart strings than any other.
Four years previously, in Seoul, Redmond was forced to pull out of the opening heat of the 400m with an injury just 90 seconds before the start. By the 1992 games he had undergone five operations – the most recent being just four months before competing in Barcelona.
His fortune appeared to have turned when he recorded the fastest time in the first round and won his quarter-final heat. When the gun went off in the semi-final, hopes were high as Redmond powered around the first bend. But, 150 metres into the race, his right hamstring tore, throwing him to the ground in agony. As stretcher bearers approached, a sobbing Redmond crawled to his feet and hobbled forward in excruciating pain.
Coming into the final straight, he felt an arm around his shoulder, which he pushed away before realising it belonged to his father, Jim. Together father and son continued until they were close enough to the finish line for Derek to make it alone.
To many, his determination embodied the Olympic spirit and he received a standing ovation from the 65,000-strong crowd.
Don Thompson
Gold in the 50km walk; Rome 1960
Many of Team GB prepared for the heat and humidity expected in Beijing 2008 by training in hi-tech heat chambers based at institutes of sports science, where their progress was monitored by a team of experts. Backtrack almost half a century and one of Britain’s athletes was using the same principles to get ready for the 1960 games in Rome.
Don Thompson, a diminutive insurance clerk from Cranfield in Middlesex, had wilted in the scorching temperatures of the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne and failed to finish the 50k walk. Determined to make amends, he set upon a homespun method of reproducing the conditions of Rome using a paraffin heater with a recently boiled kettle on top in his parents’ bathroom.
Wearing a tracksuit, he would exercise in temperatures of 43C. His mother made him a hat with a handkerchief attached to the back to protect his neck from the sun and, with clip-on shades over his regular glasses, he headed for the start line in Rome.
His ingenuity paid off. After four hours, 25 minutes and 30 seconds of sheer graft, the 1.65-metre (5ft 5in), bespectacled Thompson, who was dubbed Il Topolino (the little mouse), won the event by a 17-second margin to claim Britain’s only track and field gold of the games.
Mary Peters
Gold in the pentathlon; Munich 1972
Britain sent its largest ever team to an overseas Olympics in 1972, but the only gold medal to return was won by a 33-year-old secretary from Belfast.
For Mary Peters, Munich was her last-chance saloon. After 17 years as a competitive pentathlete, this was to be her third Olympics, and although she had impressed with a fourth place in 1964, injury and the altitude of Mexico City saw her finish ninth place at the 1968 games.
Peters’ preparation for Munich was challenging. At the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, she trained at a Belfast gym protected by fortification to keep bombers at bay.
When she boarded the plane for Munich, Peters was considered an outside contender for a medal. Ranked fifth before the games, she had recorded performances well short of those by local favourite, Heide Rosendahl.
Knowing that only a world-class performance would secure the gold medal, Peters excelled in the five events held over two days. Recording clear wins in the shot put and high jump and running the fastest time of her life in the final event, the 200m, she won with a world record score of 4,801, edging Rosendahl off the top of the podium by just 10 points.
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