athletics 1983-1993

I was always quick, in fact sprinting was the best thing I did. Recognised in junior school, I was recommended to join a club.  I soon found myself in all the school sport teams, even if I wasn't any good at them. But it was athletics I excelled at, and at a Borough Sports meeting I met Ken Seddington, who became my coach for the next 4 years. 
I entered the Senior Indoor Championships in 1994 and beat Mel Lattany, a famous American sprinter and the great Linford Christie.
 All the  talk was of going to that years Olympics in Los Angeles.  I was just 17 years old!

I qualified for the Olympics at the trials, beating Buster Watson in a close finish.   My Olympic dream was always just to get to the 200 metre final, which I did, coming 8th in the race won by the great Carl Lewis. The following year at the European Junior Championships, I won the 200m and was a member of the English team that won the 4 x 400m. These Championships featured future greats such as Colin Jackson, Roger Black and John Regis.

In 1991, I was being coached by Ron Roddan, Linford Christies coach. I went to the Commonwealth Games representing England in the 200m with Marcus Adam and John Regis, finishing a close third to Marcus and John, running a personal best of 20.23sec.
In the World Championships in Tokyo in 1992 I ran in the heats for the Gold medal winning 4 x 400 team, consisting of Kriss Akabusi, John Regis, Roger Black, Derek Redmond and Mark Richardson

In 1991 I had the honour of recieving a commemorative  plaque from Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace, in recognition of the 4 x 200m World Indoor Record run at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. 
My fellow team members were,Linford Christie, John Regis and Darren Braithwaite. 

After narrowly missing out on qualification for the Barcelona Olympics, I switched events up to the longer 400m, but despite qualifying for the World Championships in Stuttgart in 1993, I crashed out in the heats. In November I discovered that I had been training and racing all year with a broken bone in my right foot and needed a operation, which led to retirement.