Weirwolf Page 5

  But would the selectors take a chance on me? I knew I could beat a lot of the older guys in the British team over lots of different distances but I was still racked with self-doubt, just praying to get my chance.

  Then I got the phone call. It was a moment I will never forget. I felt so proud. It was such an honour, such a privilege. It was out of this world. There were huge cheers when I told my mum, dad and brothers. Remember, this was a huge moment for my family, who had given so much to help me reach this point. I just kept thinking how special it would be for a boy to come from a south London council estate and represent his country at the Paralympics. We were overjoyed. My brothers had boxed to a really good standard … but to represent your country? That was another level. They really understood what it meant and were so proud. Then there were my coaches – Chas and Dan Sadler and, of course, Jenny. Everyone had worked so hard to get me to Atlanta and now it was actually going to happen. I was so excited.

  Because there were twelve days between the Olympics ending and the Paralympics starting I remember watching events unfold in America with an anticipation I had never experienced before. We had to leave just before the closing ceremony, but those highlights still made a big impression on me. Muhammad Ali lighting the cauldron and Michael Johnson smashing the world record in the 200m – these were some of the unforgettable moments in sporting history and I was going to be a small part of it.

  But it was also an Olympics cursed by a nail bomb attack in an Atlanta park which killed one person and wounded more than 100 others. And it was a Games marred by transport and organisational headaches. There had been lots of reports of athletes getting lost on buses and missing their events, and of the food being awful. But at that stage it didn’t bother me. I just tried to put all that out of my mind and focus on my racing.

  I remember the excitement building as I went to collect my GB kit at a special camp set up by the British Paralympic Association in Birmingham. Just meeting the other members of the team was a fantastic feeling. Then, before I knew it, I was on my way to Gatwick Airport to join the team and fly to America. My mum dropped me off. She was in floods of tears, but I wasn’t scared. I was happy to go away and to be in another country, to see the other side of the world. I wasn’t even worried about the flight – which was extraordinary because I am now so terrified of flying that I drive to most of my race meetings in Europe. Back then I wasn’t afraid, though – it’s only something that’s developed as I got older. In fact, the plane to Atlanta had a problem and we were all sat on the tarmac for ages waiting for the engineers to fix it. If that happened now I would be straight out the door. But for me, getting to compete in the Paralympics was so important that a wing would have had to fall off to stop me getting on the plane.

  When we eventually landed in Atlanta we got straight onto a bus and were taken to the British team’s training camp at the US Naval Air Station, Pensacola. Situated about five hours’ drive south-west of Atlanta on the Gulf of Mexico, it was a great place to prepare for the Games. The facilities were first rate but it was also nice and quiet. We didn’t have any distractions or disturbances. And, of course, it was totally secure. To be there training every day with the top athletes in Britain made me feel really special.

  After we arrived everyone was so jet-lagged. This was my first real taste of big international competition and although I had been to Australia as a junior, this was a big step up. Sadly there was no one else of a similar age in the team that I could talk to. Instead I relied on the older, more experienced athletes like Dave Holding – my roommate – and Tanni. She looked after me quite a lot. She would always make sure I was presentable in my GB kit and said if I needed any help to just come and ask her.

  Our two weeks at Pensacola flashed by. Soon it was time to head up to Atlanta. My bags packed, I sat in my day chair outside the apartment blocks, waiting to board the coach for the biggest adventure of my life. The heat was unbearable: 35 degrees in the shade. And the humidity – just breathing made you sweat. After a few minutes waiting, my shiny new GB kit was soaked. It was like I had been caught in a sudden shower. I wondered to myself, ‘How on earth am I going to race in this?’ Climbing onto the ice-cold, air-conditioned coach was such a relief. Now I felt shivery as I took my seat next to Dave. He checked if I was OK. I was fine. Shitting a brick with nerves, but basically OK.

  As the bus pulled onto the highway I sat silently, staring out of the window at America’s wide open spaces. The giant juggernauts with their shiny chrome radiators, so distinctive and different to what we are used to back in England. The scale of everything, the width of the highways. It was awesome. Exciting.

  For the first couple of weeks in America, everything was fine. It was only when we got to the athletes’ village that people started to ask questions. Was this really how an Olympic and Paralympic village was supposed to be? The accommodation was situated on a university campus, so it hadn’t been specially built for the Games. But the rooms were so small. Everyone got an apartment shared between four or six people but the bedrooms and bathrooms were shared. The twin bedrooms were so tiny that by the time you got a wardrobe in there and a bedside table, there was only enough space for one wheelchair between the beds. For athletes like me this was such a terrible oversight. Only one of us could have our chair in the bedroom area at once. How were we both supposed to get into bed?

  It was lucky I was sharing with Dave. He was an old hand at big events and had learned to take things as they come. Plus he didn’t snore. He was so quiet that I had to keep checking if he was still there. In the end we worked out a pretty good system so we could both manoeuvre ourselves into bed. I would wheel myself into the tiny room first. Then he got as close to the door as he could and would swing himself across the bed and under his covers. His chair would stay by the door while mine sat between the two beds. If I had rolled over I would have ended up falling into it. It was a disgrace. How on earth could the organisers say these rooms had been adapted for people like me?

  But this was just the beginning. Getting to the food hall was a nightmare. There were big, steep hills across the campus so just getting from your apartment to breakfast or lunch was really hard work in a wheelchair. Fortunately we were all fit enough to cope with it but on the race days we didn’t really want to be wasting energy just going to get a bite to eat. So some of the wheelchair athletes would hitch a lift on the back of the little trains the organisers were running to get people around the site. It was hilarious.

  But once you got to the food hall you didn’t feel like laughing. It was ridiculous. It was so small – a tiny fraction of the size of the one we had in London. You had to queue for over an hour just to get a bit of breakfast. And then there were flies everywhere. It was disgusting. I don’t know if it was the same for the Olympic guys a few weeks earlier but I guess it must have been. It was supposed to be a first-class experience designed for the best athletes in the world – but it didn’t feel that way. Most of it wasn’t made for us and it was clear Atlanta didn’t really think of the Paralympians. Fortunately, I never got caught out on the buses – my drivers always seemed to know where they were going. Maybe by the time the Paralympics came around they had learned the various routes. But I do remember going to the warm-up area, which was in the middle of quite a rough and dangerous part of town. At the time I didn’t even think about it – all I cared about was racing. But when you look back you think, ‘Blimey, that could have been deadly.’

  The most shattering disappointment of Atlanta was the crowds. Hardly anyone came out to see us. Those who did sit in the stands were mostly volunteers or staff from the Atlanta organising committee. I felt so let down. They would probably tell you differently but to me it looked like very few people had actually paid to come and watch us. For the 100m final the stadium was completely empty. I don’t know if the International Paralympic Committee or the American organisers were to blame. I have very little respect for the IPC – the same thing happened to us at the World Champ
ionships in New Zealand (more of which later). They just didn’t seem to promote it. I am convinced that if Atlanta had been promoted properly then people would have come and watched. But we were an afterthought. The Paralympics is supposed to be parallel to the Olympics but we didn’t feel parallel to anything. It felt like – and I hate this word – the ‘special’ Games. Back in the UK there was hardly any interest either. There were highlights on the BBC but the newspapers barely gave it a mention. It was very upsetting.

  As for the British team – it was all done on a bit of a shoestring. Not like now, with hundreds of millions of pounds provided by the National Lottery. There was no backroom team of note. We had physios and medical staff, but there was no coach giving us tactics or sports psychologist giving advice going into a race. The British Paralympic Association even had to buy its own kit from Adidas. Some of it was made for us but the vast majority was the same as the Olympic team. Except that the ‘British Olympics 1996 Atlanta’ badge had been replaced by a clunky Paralympics one sewn over the top. It was real budget stuff. I actually ended up taking the Paralympic logo off mine because I thought the Olympic one was better. The kit was very patched up. Despite that, it’s the one kit I have kept: it has such sentimental value for me. I’ve even got the marching kit from the opening ceremony. It was all very classic British, made by Aquascutum – navy blue and a yellow tie. The opening ceremony was an impressive affair – and at least the stadium was sold out for that. I remember the Superman actor Christopher Reeve hosting it. Only a year earlier he had been paralysed in a horse-riding accident, so it took incredible bravery to do what he did. It was a very moving moment for everyone. But perhaps we should have seen what was coming when it was left to US Vice-President Al Gore – instead of the President, Bill Clinton – to open the Paralympics. Clinton didn’t miss the Olympics, did he?

  Despite all these distractions and disappointments, I had come all this way for one thing: the racing. And once at the track I just focused on my preparations. For a rookie like me it was just amazing to suddenly be alongside the very best. Athletes like the Canadian racer Jeff Adams, and the man who had inspired me four years earlier in Spain, Heinz Frei.

  Jeff was the top dog. Some people thought he was a bit cocky but I thought he was a real character. Sure, he could come over as a bit full of himself but he was always nice to me. He could be very aggressive on the track but he always had respect for me. The great thing about Atlanta was that there was no pressure on me to deliver. It was my first Games and no one expected me to come home with medals of any colour. Tanni had been giving me a lot of advice in the run-up to my first heat. She had told me to keep calm and just go out and enjoy it.

  So that was exactly what I did. In the 100m I got through my heat and then squeezed through the semi-final by a few hundredths of a second. I had a big smile from then on – my first Paralympics and my first final. I didn’t care what I did after that.

  The day of the final was another Atlanta scorcher. It was like a furnace out there. I thought the track might melt it was so hot. Still, hot weather made for fast times and this was a straight contest between my roommate Dave and the Swede Håkan Ericsson. They had been battling it out with each other all season, breaking world records and competing for gold. On the night it was Dave’s race. He gave an awesome performance, smashed the world record and won the gold. I finished seventh and was so pleased. All I wanted to do was avoid coming last. It seems so unambitious now, but that was my big target then.

  I knew I had less of a chance in my other event, the 400m. I would have to set personal bests to get through to the final. I got through the first round but was eliminated in the semi-finals – but only by two hundredths of a second. I had produced personal bests in both races, but they weren’t good enough. It was a real sign of just how much better I would have to be to progress in the more competitive races.

  I was pleased with how I performed in Atlanta. After all, it was my first Paralympics and I didn’t expect to win gold medals. But while I thought I could shut out all the external stuff – the poor crowds, the bad organisation, the lack of interest back home – I couldn’t. I came away feeling desperately disappointed. I had really put the Games on a pedestal and they had let me down in a big way. When I got back to London I thought, ‘Why have I wasted my teenage years doing this?’

  Atlanta showed me that people didn’t give a stuff about Paralympic sport. I had got on that plane to Atlanta expecting the wow factor. Instead it just felt like a sideshow, with disabled athletes being paraded around like animals. When I look back on Atlanta now I can only wonder what Games prior to that must have been like. Was Seoul even worse? I had just assumed that because the Games were in North America they would be blinding. I thought the Americans would want to be the best. But they just didn’t seem to plan properly for them.

  After Atlanta I did try to keep training and racing. But a lot of my motivation had been destroyed by my experience in the States. I was struggling to keep my place in the British team so, in December, four months after the Atlanta Games I had worked so hard to get to, I just thought, that’s it. I quit. There’s nothing in it for me any more.

  My parents couldn’t understand what I was doing. They thought I had so much to be proud of and said it would get better in the future. That was all that anyone said. But I just didn’t feel that way. I had started too young. Got addicted to it too young. Not because of my parents pushing me: they never got involved with the training and never made me do anything I didn’t want to do. All they did was take me to the races and back me up. They did everything I asked of them.

  The fact was, my outlook on life was changing. I was seventeen and yet I had spent all my teenage years training and keeping fit. Everything I did was aimed at one day representing my country at the Paralympics. Well, now I had done it, and it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. All my mates were suddenly going out drinking and having a laugh and I just wanted a part of that. I felt left out.

  On top of all this I had been involved in a relationship with a girl called Maxine whom I had started seeing before Atlanta. We had been together a while – my first serious relationship. I met her at a youth club. She had made the first move. At that stage of my life I never chatted up girls. I was too scared. I waited until they approached me. I wasn’t worried about my looks; I was pretty sure girls fancied me. But I always worried that they couldn’t see past the chair. After a few rejections and knock-backs I retreated inside myself. I asked myself, why would anyone want to go out with me? A bloke in a wheelchair? I was full of self-doubt and although it really got on my nerves, there wasn’t too much I could do to overcome it back then. So, to be in a relationship gave me a great sense of security. Imagine my horror when I got back home from America to find out she had started seeing other blokes while I was away. I was only young but it deeply affected me and I got a bit depressed. I asked myself, ‘Is it my disability? Is this why she’s done this? Is this why I can’t get a proper girlfriend?’

  At that point I couldn’t see a way through it all. My sport was supposed to be my escape from my disability – a way of turning my misfortune into something unique and special. But Atlanta had let me down. I was lost.

  This was always going to be the hardest bit to write. As I sit here now, preparing to bare my soul, to confess my past sins, I’m finding it hard to breathe. Even saying the words aloud to the empty room is difficult. I go to open my mouth and start speaking but I feel blood rush to my face. I’m full of self-loathing and shame. Did it really happen? Was it really that bad? After all, everyone’s at it, aren’t they?

  But I know deep down there’s no excuse. I should have known better. What a waste. What an idiot.

  Normally I am so controlled but my anxiety is overwhelming. I take a sip of water and tell myself to get on with it. I imagine it’s like a really tough training session that I just have to get through. At the end I will be better for it, but right now it feels like the world is going to end.r />
  When I decided to write this book, I weighed up the pros and cons of coming clean on what really happened to me when I quit the sport after the Atlanta Games. For years I have kept it a closely guarded secret. Only my family, Jenny and my closest friends know what really went on. Even my dad doesn’t know the truth.

  Those who know me will understand. They may not even be that surprised.

  But those who don’t know me may jump to conclusions. I only hope that when people read my story they will understand that I was in a dark place. It was over ten years ago and I have learned from my mistakes.

  Ultimately, the public will have to make their own minds up but I can only do what I feel to be right and right now I want to get this off my chest. I have been carrying it around for too long.

  It all started when I was out at a party with some of my closest mates. Frustrated and bored, I was going out a lot. My mum and dad said I treated their house like a hotel. With no job and no prospect of finding one, house music became my new escape. It was 1997 and although Blur and Oasis were still keeping the Britpop scene going, I was only interested in dance music. I used to go to a lot of clubs and raves in those days – Vauxhall, Camden, anywhere in London, really. Drugs were everywhere. A lot of my older mates had started getting involved a few years earlier. It was just a part of the social scene back then.

  Going down the pub? Take drugs.

  Going clubbing? Take drugs.

  Going to a rave? Get completely out of your head.

  The weird thing is I had always shunned it. In fact, I hated it. As far as I was concerned it was fine for my mates to mess about. It was their life and they could do what they liked. But, crucially, I didn’t envy them or want to join in. I had my training and my Paralympic ambitions. Why would I get caught up in all that?

  Besides, I was absolutely terrified of dying. I hated the idea that I would take something and then collapse or have a fit. I’d read all the scare stories about kids overheating and dying from taking pills and I didn’t want to end up like that.