As the former sprinter turns 50 this month, he looks back to the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur where he won 400m silver in 50.71.
Now the BBC Radio commentator overcame sweltering heat and a kit mishap to take silver ahead of Jamaica’s Sandy Richards in 50.17, a Scottish mark that still stands today.
I grew up in the North East of England but my father was born in Scotland because my grandfather refused to have children in England. I think he only lived in Scotland for a year. When I started competing indoors there were only two indoor tracks, RAF Cosford in the Midlands and Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. When I was about 15 I went up to do the 400m and won and some official told me I was Scottish qualified. When I received my medal, they took me aside and asked me about it.
I never thought about it at the time, but this was the love of my mind. “This could have been brilliant.” I had grown up watching Liz McColgan and seeing what the Commonwealth meant to Scotland, so I quickly decided to take part heading into the 1994 Games in Canada.
They moved me into the development team like Ian McKee, Sinead Dudgeon and Lorna Jackson. Mel Niff was around and I hit it off with him and joined the Edinburgh Woolen Mill club. I knew they were going to pick one development athlete (for the Games) and I was hoping it would be me, but I was shocked at the British Champs. I don’t even think that I reached the finals and I found out via Teletext that Yan was being taken away.
I sat there and thought. “1998. it has to happen.” And over the next three years, my career really took off. I would have a phenomenal 1997. Everything went well. I won my European under-23 title and by then I’d beaten the Scottish record, which was a big thing because everyone was mad about Lynsey Macdonald’s record.
There were two things that were very important to me. that record that held for so long and then getting to the Commonwealth and standing on the podium. I could dare to dream about it well after 1997, where I also won the World Student Games and reached the semi-finals of the World Championships.
Katie Freeman was the big name at the Sydney Olympics, but as soon as we found out she wasn’t going to the Commonwealth, all eyes were on Sandy Richards. At the same time, Donna Fraser and I had started to build a really strong rivalry.
Kuala Lumpur was so humid. One of our physios was Liz Mendle and she was amazing, a real psychologist for me. I was horrible with the heat despite exercising in reasonably warm weather. I never wanted to work out in the afternoon because it was so hot and my face was red and my hair was just this wet mess. Liz loaned me this band. I never ran in one again after seeing the pictures, but it made a big difference.
We also had a nightmare with our outfit. We were given it when we all arrived in KL… only to find out that if you ordered a size eight, your outfit was an eight and so on. I had to run in it in the heat because they hadn’t managed to find a replacement. Cherry Alexander called Brendan Foster and they sent us the View From kit. It was dark blue, but I don’t even think they had time to put Scotland on it. It was hard enough running in the heat in an eight-year-old’s gear that restricted my ribs.
I was realistic to reach the final. There were really three of us going for the medals. The highlight for me was Donna running her PB in the semi. At that moment he had never beaten me. It was the first time. In the final, because of that semi, I drew for Lane Two. Today you would go. “I want to be in one of the outer zones.” With tech, with shoes, you want to be when you were six or seven, while Lane Four was your favorite back then. Donna had Lane in Three and Sandy in Four.
Donna has come from 100m, 200m and up. I was always more of an endurance runner when I was a kid, doing 800m, 1500m and cross country. There were no 400m/800m runners at that time.
I had to pick up the pace. Running against Donna, in the first 200 meters with her long legs, I felt like I was taking two strides for each of her. In KL, I was of the mindset that as long as I was on Donna’s shoulder and she couldn’t get a meter or two on me in the home straight, I would probably catch her. And the second lane gave me that benefit. He hated that last 100 meters and he only really got it in the Sydney Olympic final when he was just one step away from a medal.
Sometimes you race and you’re realistic. Of course, everyone wants to win, but I think we knew Sandy was going to get gold. I broke 51 seconds and he broke 50. In the final he set the games record and I was nowhere near it.
I’ve never run faster. And amazingly my Scottish record still stands. Our BBC statistician Mark Butler puts the rankings at the bottom of all our lullabies – the world’s top ten, the UK’s all-time list. When I got out of the UK top ten he kept adding me to the bottom. I am 13 nowth so a longer piece of paper is needed. Anyway, I’ll be covering his entries for the Commonwealth this year. After all, I didn’t have a long career and 1997 and 1998 were where I did some good things.
As Mark Woods said
