Look him up on YouTube, and the first thing you find should be footage of what happened to him during the 1992 Olympic 400m final. Three things will happen when you watch this:
1. You will cry beautiful tears of compassion.
2. You'll probably have to listen to Coldplay in the background. Sorry.
3. You will, hopefully, appreciate the tenuous link I am about to make, which has something to do with the power of sport to magnify the love between a parent and their child.
Yesterday morning was my oldest daughter's first school sports day. I was on a late shift at work, so I was able to witness what was a momentous landmark in her burgeoning existence.
I loved a bit of sport when I was young; I still do. So I'm keen for my children to share my instinctive passion for organised competition based on co-ordination, determination and physical prowess. I don't think we're quite there yet, but I remain hopeful.
I was thoroughly impressed by the logistics of the occasion. The pupils were divided into small teams, each of which would complete circuits of a particular activity involving some combination of hoops, beanbags and cones: quintessential P.E. paraphernalia. After three minutes an authoritative whistle would sound, prompting the pupils to halt and sit with an immediacy as impressive as it was terrifying. A second whistle provoked each team to move, as one, to their left, whereupon they would commence a circuit of the next activity.
And so the sporting entertainment progressed, in an efficient and orderly fashion, like North Korea in airtex tops.
My eldest, for her part, performed nobly. Her hula hoop work was particularly strong, as was her valuable ability to run with a beanbag balanced on a plastic tennis racquet. That beanbag didn't get a sniff of the ground; not on her watch.
But the real pride, on my part, kicked in when I discovered that the more conventional running races which followed were in fact finals, the fields for which had been previously determined by heats, held in prior weeks. There were six in contention for the Panda Class final. My daughter was one of them. And she was there on bloody merit!
And I'm here to tell you that fifth is a very respectable position to finish in, after a race during which one is relentlessly distracted by one's hat attempting to blow away. I struggled to rein in the impassioned cheering my pride demanded.
She didn't twang a hammy in the middle of the race. But I have no doubt that, if she had, I would have been there like a bloody shot, drawing beautiful tears of compassion from all and sundry. I might even have allowed Chris Martin to whine morosely in the background, trying to fix me.
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