Weirwolf Page 7

  I got a bit of luck along the way. About 14 or 15 miles into the race the leader, a French guy called Pierre Fairbank, had a nasty crash, colliding head on with a traffic island in the middle of the road. Thankfully, he was OK, but I came past him, hit the front and never looked back. I might have caught him anyway, but I wasn’t going to worry about how I won my first marathon, I was just going to make the most of the opportunity. All I could remember was Jenny telling me that if you hit the front, don’t look behind you. Just keep going. So that’s what I did. For ten miles I just drove on. It was a fantastic feeling. It was the race I had always wanted to win, from the time I did that first mini-marathon all those years back. It meant such a lot to me. It also gave me a lot of confidence – showed me that I could do it, that there was a future in the sport for me.

  It was also a bit of a reality check. Stupidly, perhaps, I thought winning that marathon would change my life. I thought I had done it and I was now going to be a superstar. But it never happened. At first, I got phone calls saying I might get this sponsorship deal and that sponsorship deal. But after a month it all died down. There was no sponsorship deal. No Nike knocking on the door. People don’t realise it. Even your family don’t realise how it works. That it’s just not like it is for the runners. Certainly not back then.

  Jenny had been such a crucial figure in getting me to the top of the podium that day. Getting her back on board as coach had been a masterstroke. But it wasn’t always plain sailing. When I went back to her, she was already working with another top British athlete called Tushar Patel. During those first few months I kept my head down. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I just turned up, trained and went home. I did everything Jenny asked me to do in the sessions and having a quality training partner like Tush really gave the training a competitive edge which pushed us both on. Jenny never showed either of us preferential treatment. Everyone was the same.

  Despite that there were obviously moments when the rivalry spilled over. In the build-up to the summer’s World Championships in Lille she could obviously sense that something was wrong and that it was affecting our training. Jenny went absolutely mental at both of us, swearing loads: ‘If you want to go to these Championships and represent your country then you better pull your finger out.’

  I knew what she could be like when she got angry. She was used to working in a man’s world so she had to be tough when needed. She did it to get in my mind. She was saying to me, do you really want this? I went home that night really scared – I didn’t want to lose her as she had helped me so much over the years. I rang her up that night and said, ‘Sorry, I really want your help.’ She said, ‘All right then, see you tomorrow.’ That was the end of the matter. No recriminations or grudges. Done and dusted.

  And so after that row they went their separate ways and I got one-on-ones with Jenny and got better and better.

  Despite being so close to her and seeing her as another mother figure in my life I didn’t tell Jenny about the recreational drugs for years. It wasn’t until 2009 that I finally confessed all. I can remember exactly where we were, at the Robin Hood Gate in Richmond Park. I don’t know why it came out then but it just did. I didn’t know how she would react to it. But she was fantastic about it.

  ‘What’s done is done,’ she said. ‘You’re not doing it now, are you?’

  I told her no. ‘Then you should move on. Are you glad you told me?’

  By this point I was nearly in tears. I just felt so ashamed at what I had done. But it was a massive weight off my chest. It had been crushing me for so long and if I was really going to achieve everything I wanted then I had to be open and honest with her.

  ‘As far as I am concerned it’s over with. Yes, it was wrong, but these things happen.’

  I just wished I had told her before. I know she would have reacted in the same way if I had done that right at the start. But it was all too raw then. It was too emotional for me.

  As I headed to France for the World Championships I felt like my life was back on track. I had won the marathon and I felt in really good shape again.

  I was just so proud to be back competing for my country – something I just hadn’t believed was possible after all those dark years in the wilderness. It was hardly a glorious return, though. I wasn’t selected for the 100m and finished just outside the medals in fourth place in the 200m and 400m. I felt so sure I was going to win a medal of some sort. When I failed to get anything I was so angry that I told the coach, Tanni’s husband Ian Thompson, ‘That’s it. I am giving up sprinting.’ I really lost it. I could have given up then. I thought, ‘I am never going to medal, I am never going to get to Athens.’ Some people might have been happy with fourth. But not me. I felt let down again.

  One of the biggest fears any disabled person has is that their disability might affect their chances of having kids. Or – if they are lucky enough to be able to have children – that their disability will be passed onto them. I was no different. And until Kaylie got pregnant with Ronie in the early part of 2002, I was convinced I would never be a dad. I don’t know why. The doctors had at no point in my life suggested that my condition might prevent me from having children. They kept telling me there was nothing in the family history to base my concerns on. I still had my doubts.

  Kaylie and I hadn’t been trying for Ronie. It was just one of those things that happened. I don’t think Kaylie was too happy at first – she was only nineteen – but she obviously grew to love it. I was twenty-four and it felt like the right thing to be a dad.

  Kaylie’s pregnancy went pretty smoothly. There were no big scares. But her labour with Ronie was long. As any father knows, the wait is agonising. You feel so helpless. It was about twenty hours before my beautiful little girl emerged into the world, on 9 February 2003, at the same hospital where I had been born. The pride was overwhelming. I felt so honoured and relieved to be a dad. It also made me feel really grown up. Suddenly I was faced with a whole load of new responsibilities. We didn’t know it was going to be a girl. We didn’t find out because I didn’t care; all I cared about was that the baby was healthy.

  Throughout Kaylie’s pregnancy with Ronie – and Emily’s two with Mason and Tilly – I was always asking the midwife to do checks to see if the baby’s spine was OK. It was always fine but with each of my children I have been worried sick that the doctors might have missed something. Until I can see with my own eyes that they are fine then I just don’t believe it. I just didn’t want any of my children to have anything wrong with them.

  It was even worse with Mason. It’s hard to explain but it is different with boys. Having a son is always special for the dad but I worried more that Mason might have problems. I just wanted him to be running around. Because I could always see that in my mum and dad’s eyes. They probably wished I had been given that chance to run around – not just for them, but for me. Now when I see Mason running and jumping I can’t contain my delight and relief. It’s the same with all three of them. It just puts a smile on my face. Whenever Ronie and Mason come down to the track together and they start playing I just sit there and watch, trying to appreciate how lucky I am to have kids without any disabilities. As I watch Mason, my little boy, I imagine that’s me, running around.

  Of course that’s not the end of the worries. If only. My fear now is, what if their kids are disabled? What if it skips a generation? If you look at me and Paul there has got to be something on my mum’s side. You just don’t know how the genes may be passed on down the generations. My case might have just been bad luck. I hope so because I would be devastated if it happened to my children as parents.

  Coping with Ronie’s arrival wasn’t too bad. We both adjusted pretty well to being young parents. Like most people, we didn’t have enough money and it was a bit of a struggle. But we made do and she certainly didn’t go without.

  Sometimes it was tough, especially in the first two months. All the screaming and sleepless nights. When you are not used to it and you have been
doing double training sessions it’s really hard. But you just deal with it. And I never let it affect my training. After a while Ronie started to sleep through the night and things started to settle down. It was only a year to Athens and I had to get my qualifying times that summer.

  After the World Championships in Lille, Jenny told me to keep training and working hard. So, having calmed down after the disappointment of coming fourth twice, that’s exactly what I did. I changed a few things in the winter and I trained really hard. I had to accept that on this long road to the top I might have to get used to coming fourth and fifth before I could make the big breakthrough. That winter I worked tirelessly on my sprinting. I prioritised that over the London Marathon that year, which explains why I wasn’t able to defend my title. But it paid dividends when the track season came around. I got my qualifying standards for Athens in the summer of 2003. Getting to Athens was the only thing I was focused on. I kept the painful experience of watching Sydney on the TV as my main motivation, the driving force behind my dreams.

  As the Games got closer and closer I remember all the media focus was on the Greeks’ preparations. Would they be ready in time? Was it going to be a shambles? But I didn’t care about all that. I just wanted to get there and race – whatever state Athens was in. The call eventually came in July from Ian Thompson, head of the British athletics team. He told me I had been selected because of my form and performances over the last two years. This was an incredible moment for me. Ever since I had turned my back on the sport, deep down I had doubted whether I would get another chance to go to a Paralympic Games. It’s one of the great contradictions of elite sportsmen and women. Confidence is such a big part of success and when I am out on the track I am totally in control, completely sure of myself. But away from the heat of battle it’s a never-ending struggle against my own mind. My fears and doubts. They are always there and, having gone through the worst few years of my young life, I wasn’t sure I would get my second chance.

  Before the Games started the British team flew off to Cyprus for a training camp. We had about three weeks left to fine-tune our preparations, to fix any last-minute problems and to acclimatise to the heat of the late Greek summer. In keeping with the shoddy image of the Athens Games, the track we were supposed to use in Nicosia wasn’t ready – I don’t know why, but it was a real shame. So we ended up using this rubbish track in Paphos. It was way too soft and I had to change all my training plans by switching to the road instead, something I really didn’t want to do just before my first Paralympics for eight years.

  Fortunately, I was flying in training. Jenny had been timing me in the sessions. She refused to tell me how fast I was going – she didn’t want me to get complacent. While it tears me apart inside, she knows a few self-doubts are good for me in the long run. They make me work even harder. But I just had this feeling I was going well, that I was ready.

  Watching the Olympics earlier in the summer had given me a taste of what to expect when we arrived in the Greek capital. By this time the bigger worries about the venues and the transport had gone away. OK, so it was a bit rough and ready around the edges but the history of the place more than made up for that. Everywhere you looked there was some ancient ruin or other and it was a genuine privilege to be competing in a Games where the Olympic ideal had been born. I thought the place was very special.

  In the village there was a great atmosphere, such a contrast to my first experience in Atlanta. The Greeks treated us really well. It was a bit of a journey from the village to the stadium but as long as you planned it well, it wasn’t too much of a problem. The food was great compared to Atlanta and for me that made a massive difference. The track in the village was first class and there was a 50-metre pool to play in. They did a decent job. The rooms were pretty good and I was sharing with Lloyd Upsdell, a cerebral palsy athlete who’d won two golds in Sydney four years earlier. He was from Essex, so, as you might imagine, there was a fair bit of banter. We had a laugh and looked after each other. He was a good teammate and I missed him when he retired from the sport.

  The only disappointment was the size of the crowds. Again, as with Atlanta, the IPC and the organisers had not promoted the Paralympics properly. It was obvious the Greeks just weren’t into it in the same way as the Australian public had been in Sydney in 2000. But the IPC didn’t help themselves by scheduling big races – like the blue riband event, the 1,500m – at nine in the morning. How do they expect people to come out and support Paralympic sport, especially in a country known to be lukewarm to anything other than football and basketball? You don’t do that. You put it at prime time in the evening. I will never understand how the IPC comes to make these decisions. They don’t talk to athletes. But this time I wasn’t going to let it ruin my experience. I had grown up a lot over the last eight years and with London’s bid for the 2012 Games already under way, I was confident future Paralympics could and would be different.

  On the start line of the qualifying heat for the 200m my heart was racing so fast that when the announcer called out my name my GB vest was throbbing.

  I ignored the rows of empty seats. ‘Who cares?’ I thought. ‘This is my moment and I am going to make the most of it.’

  Afterwards, when I looked at the time, it was the second fastest in qualifying. Suddenly a medal was realistic. This was a game changer.

  In the final I was nervous – really nervous. Eight years ago I had tasted what it was like to be in a Paralympic final and I had been happy not to come last. Now, suddenly, I was in with a chance of getting on the podium, of winning my first medal. Realistically, I knew I would struggle to win gold, but if I could just stay in contention with the big guns I might be in the mix.

  When the starter went off, everything went perfectly. As I expected, Leo-Pekka Tähti was too fast and won in world-record time. Kenny van Weeghel of Holland came second, but I managed to hold on for bronze. That was all I wanted. My first real taste of success. That night, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I just kept looking at the medal, reliving the race and the moment on the podium.

  After I got back to the village I was on the phone for hours talking to my family. No mobiles in those days: I had to buy a phone card and go and use the public phone.

  The problem was that next morning I had my heats for the 400m. I didn’t even qualify. I was just so tired and exhausted. But I was so happy. Ever since I went off the rails I had imagined how it would feel to hold a Paralympic medal in my hands. Now, to have that sense of achievement was better than taking any recreational drug. All the goings-on over the previous few years just vanished. But, like any drug, success leaves you wanting more.

  My experience in the 400m had been a blow but at least I had another chance to make amends in the 100m. Jenny told me to forget about what had happened; she said I had simply got overexcited. I hadn’t expected to get a medal so it was totally understandable. She is so good like that, putting everything into perspective, especially when you are worried you might have let yourself down. Then she told me the truth about how fast I had been going in training. I thought the 100m was my weakest event. But she was the one with the stopwatch and she saw a very different athlete to the one I had in my head. It was a great tactic, to wait until the last couple of days before the heats and then give me that lift by telling me how fast I had been going over the distance in training.

  Normally, once you are in a big competition like a Paralympics you don’t tend to lift heavy weights. But I just wanted to do a little session before the 100m. Just like for the able-bodied sprinters, psychology over the short, explosive sprint races is massively important. If you look ripped and your arm muscles are bulging on the start line then it can help put a doubt in your opponents’ minds. Jenny was a bit unsure. She was worried I might do myself some harm. So I was restricted to just twenty minutes in the gym. But it gave me such a boost. It was a little thing but it made such a big difference to my confidence.

  When it came to the night of the heats I
was watching the early rounds from the tunnel in the stadium. Each race was over in fourteen seconds but it felt like a lifetime. As each heat passed so a new Paralympic record was being set. Everyone was flying. I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, what have I got to do to even get to the second round?’

  When I crossed the line in my heat I couldn’t believe it. I smashed the Paralympic record. I was the fastest out of everyone.

  ‘Oh my God, what have I just done?’

  What an achievement – my first major record. 14.16 seconds. Now I was really pumped. I came through the semi-final and booked my place in the final alongside the best sprinters in the world. I was in lane four, next to my old roommate from Atlanta, Dave Holding. He was thirty-five now and in his last Games. But even his presence didn’t calm my nerves. I was absolutely terrified. Two false starts helped. Most sprinters don’t like them as it puts them on edge, slows them down. But I like them. I am not the best starter in the world so anything which keeps me in contention in the early stages of the race gives me a chance when my power and top-end speed come into play towards the finish line. I rolled back slowly. I remember thinking, ‘Don’t go off too fast.’ The gun went and I absolutely nailed it. I crossed the line in second place, winning my first silver medal. To be just one away from gold – it was such an honour for me. Athens will always have a special place in my heart because it was all so new, so unexpected. I am not normally one for keeping memorabilia or collecting stuff but I have kept a lot of things from 2004.

  I was so grateful to Jenny. It was a massive achievement and she had done so much to help me turn things around. I had gone to Athens just to be part of the British set-up once more, to repay people I had let down back in 1998 when I didn’t show up for the World Championships. To come out of those dark days and be there, I felt like I had done myself justice. I felt very lucky and felt as if I had angels around me looking after me. When I was on the podium getting those two medals I just kept thanking everyone in my mind – my parents, Jenny, my brothers and now my little girl, Ronie. My mum and dad were obviously bursting with pride. My mates arranged a huge party when I returned, at the Windmill, the local pub on Roundshaw. It was such a shock to me, I didn’t expect it at all. But to share my success with all the people I had grown up with, and on the estate, who had always supported me was really special. Now it is my regular celebration venue whenever the all-conquering hero returns from the Games.