Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography (11 page)

That summer, at the age of sixteen, I finished at Feltham Community College. Alan Watkinson also left and took up a new post as head of year at Isleworth & Syon School, which was up the road from Feltham. This was great timing. I was looking for a way to continue running, and switching to the sixth-form college at Isleworth was perfect. My grades weren’t up to scratch, but Alan promised to have a word with the head teacher at Isleworth to see about bringing me over with him. At the time, Isleworth were Feltham’s great rivals in school athletics in the borough, and, as it turned out, the school was only too happy to welcome me. I still had to work on my grades, so I divided my time between going to Isleworth, studying to resit my English Language and Maths GCSEs at a college in Richmond, and training at the athletics club. At the weekends I went out for runs and competed in events. The only downside was that I didn’t see as much of Alan at Isleworth. He was teaching history for a year instead of PE, and I was spending more and more time training at the club under the guidance of Conrad Milton.

A year or so after I started at Isleworth, our athletics club merged with another club: Windsor Slough & Eton. This wasn’t a major surprise. The writing had been on the wall for a while for Borough of Hounslow. Feltham Arena had that worn-out look about it. The council didn’t have the funds to lay down a new track. Eventually the club couldn’t even get insured to host competitions. Conrad, Alex and the other coaches didn’t feel very confident working there. There had been talk of the club moving from Feltham Arena and the local council laying down a brand-new track at my old school, Feltham Community College. Everyone was in favour of it – the school, the club, the coaches. They mentioned my name as someone who’d benefited from the club and could inspire other kids to get into athletics. Sadly, nothing ever came of the talks. The track never got built. Feltham Arena fell into neglect. Borough of Hounslow had no choice but to merge with their Berkshire neighbours. The new club was named Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow Athletic Club.

The big positive from the merger was that Hounslow got the benefit of sharing top-class training facilities. The club was based at the brand-new Thames Valley Athletics Centre in the grounds of Eton College. Still, leaving Feltham was a bit of a blow for athletics in Hounslow, and for me personally. Instead of a short drive north up the A312 to Feltham Arena, going to training sessions now involved a 25-mile round trip beyond Heathrow. It doesn’t sound far, but for a schoolkid, that’s quite a trek. If the club had been based at Eton when I started running at the age of eleven, I doubt I’d have made it over there.

I began making more friends both inside and beyond the club. Scott Overall was a good mate of mine. He was a member at Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow and later competed in the marathon at London 2012. Scott was never a troublemaker. He was the complete opposite of me. I’d be taking the mick with Abdi Ali, but Scott never went in for any of that stuff. He was always that little bit more serious. That didn’t stop us from getting on really well. We had that same competitive drive. Often we’d meet up outside the club to go for runs around Bushy Park in nearby Teddington. We’d arrange a meeting place, usually the McDonald’s on Twickenham Road, and then head down to the park for a few laps.

I also got to know Carlton Cole, a sprinter who later became a professional footballer and played for Chelsea, Aston Villa and West Ham. We met through a mutual friend, another sprinter by the name of Darren Chin. Darren is still one of my best mates. He used to teach me about sprinting techniques. He was on the verge of qualifying for the 2005 60 metres final at the European Indoor Championships in Madrid when he pulled up with a hamstring injury. If it hadn’t been for that injury, Darren would’ve made the final, and who knows what he might have gone on to achieve?

Outside the club, I made good friends on the athletics circuit. There was Malcolm Hassan, of course. There was also Chris Thompson, who was based over at Loughborough. He ran for Aldershot, Farnham & District Athletics Club. I’d come up against him a few times and we were considered fierce rivals at junior cross country. Chris had been the top guy in Britain at junior cross country before I showed up; he’d won a string of UK Trial, English and Southern titles, and finished third in the English Schools race in the year I won it at Newark Showground. We’d both competed in the European Junior Championships in December 1999 in Slovenia (I finished fifth). We also helped the junior GB team to win gold. Chris was a couple of years older than me and that little bit further along with his development, winning silver in the 2000 European Junior Championship in Malmö. I finished the same race down in seventh place.

At that time Chris was studying at Loughborough on a sports scholarship. Loughborough was famous for having world-class sports facilities, sports scientists and coaches, so to be accepted there on a scholarship was a big deal and marked Chris out as being a hot prospect in UK athletics. He used to invite me up to the uni to hang out. He lived in hall on the campus and there was always a spare room available for me to crash. I was still living with Aunt Kinsi, and getting away for a full weekend was tricky. My aunt was very protective of me. I was only permitted to stay out for the whole weekend if I had to race somewhere in Europe. Otherwise, I was supposed to be back by the end of the night. I wanted to go up and visit Chris, so I told Aunt Kinsi that my European races went on for longer than a day or two at a time. Then I secretly planned my trek up to Loughborough to visit Chris.

‘Aunt,’ I’d say. ‘I’m going to go off for a race this weekend. It’s in Poland.’

Aunt Kinsi would ask, ‘When are you back?’

‘Next week,’ I’d say. ‘We’re training for a few days after the race.’

A blatant lie. My return flight would be on the Monday, but instead of travelling straight back home from the airport, I’d catch the train to Loughborough with Chris. Then we’d spend the week on campus. We had some great fun, playing monster sessions of Pro Evolution Soccer on the PlayStation 2, checking out the student union bar in the evenings before going into town. The following Friday I’d catch a train back to Hounslow and arrive home in the early evening. My auntie would be at home waiting for me, asking me about my trip to Poland.

‘Yeah, it was good,’ I’d reply casually. Then I’d head upstairs and crash.

I travelled up to Loughborough as often as I could – which was about as often as the race calendar allowed. If there was an event being held near Loughborough – say, a cross-country race in Nottingham – I’d pop over to the campus after I’d finished my run. Along with Chris, I got to hang out with a few of the other athletes based at Loughborough, including Steve Vernon. Steve came from Manchester. He’d won the English Schools senior title in 1999, the year after Sam Haughian had won it, and the same year that I won the Intermediate race. Out of the two, Steve was the more sensible guy. Chris was more like me, a bit of a joker. Spending time with them both was really great. I got my first taste of university life. I remember thinking, ‘This definitely looks cool.’ I wanted more of the same.

I met loads of people on the athletics circuit. The circuit is unique. There’s nothing else like it. You’ll meet a lot of genuinely warm and friendly people, and make friends, even if you’re competing against some of them the next day. As everyone travels to the same meetings, you see the same faces, stay in the same hotels, compete in the same events. The circuit becomes sort of like an extended family. As well as making friends with the likes of Malcolm, Chris and Steve, I got the chance to meet some of the great names in British athletics too, including Paula Radcliffe. Meeting Paula was a special moment for me. She had been one of my role models, and the first time I met her I was a little star-struck.

Over the years, Paula has helped me out in various ways. She set up a scheme with her sponsors, Nike, to provide grants to promising young athletes to help fund their development. I was among the lucky ones to be awarded a grant of £1,000. I spent the money on driving lessons because I felt I should be less reliant on getting lifts from Alan or club members to get to Eton for training. Learning to drive made it easier for me to get to the track and make my way to race meets. Getting the money to do this was such a wonderful gesture. Paula didn’t have to do that. I was just some young up-and-coming kid. I’ll never forget how she helped me out.

When I look back on it, my life has been full of these little kindnesses. Conrad Milton helped me set up a bank account. He had a background in banking and we agreed for him to be a joint signatory so that I’d learn how to manage my money properly. I wasn’t making much in those days – mostly grants through SportsAid, and the odd bit here and there for winning some race, £100 or so. (I had a contract with Nike that covered my basic running kit.) Sir Eddie Kulukundis, a Greek ship-owner and benefactor of British athletics, stepped in to help with my passport situation. He got his solicitors on the case to help sort out my UK naturalization. Eventually, I was given a full British passport, which meant I was able to travel to meetings without having to apply for a new visa every time I visited a new country. Without these kindnesses, I would’ve found it much more of a struggle making my breakthrough in athletics.

I also took on an agent. Conrad soon recognized that I was at a level where I needed professional management and he introduced me to an agent by the name of Kim McDonald. Kim had founded his management company in the 1980s and was famous for representing some of the leading athletes at that time, including Sonia O’Sullivan, Daniel Komen, Moses Kiptanui and Noah Ngeny. Over coffee in Teddington, Kim and I discussed my future in athletics. He explained that he recognized that I had immense talent and told me that he’d be more than happy to take me on and help nurture my career – to help me fulfil my potential. I was over the moon. Now that I had an agent, I felt I was on my way to becoming a professional athlete.

Year by year I was getting faster. I was constantly striving to improve my times at each distance – on reps of 400, 600 and 800 metres, on the road relays and the cross country races. My fastest laps were consistently getting faster, but it wasn’t always a smooth progression. There were hiccups along the way. I suffered a disappointment at the World Cross Country Championships in Portugal in early 2000, when I finished way down the field in twenty-fifth – the lowest I’d ever placed in a race up to that point. People congratulated me for being the highest-placed European to finish behind a supremely talented pack of Kenyans and Ethiopians. I didn’t see it that way. All I could think was, ‘I lost.’

Alan had come to watch me compete in Portugal. As I walked away from the track and made my way over to him, this older man I didn’t recognize came over to me and patted me on the back.

‘Well done, Mo,’ this guy said. ‘That was really good.’

I smiled politely and nodded, although I didn’t know who this guy was. ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I said, not wanting to stop and talk, just wanting to go away and process my defeat. ‘Wish I’d won, though.’

After the man had left, Alan turned to me and lowered his voice.

‘Do you know who that was, Mo?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘Not a clue.’

‘That was Steve Cram!’

I frowned. ‘Who?’

Alan quickly set me straight. As soon as I got home from Portugal, I borrowed a bunch of videos of Steve’s old races and watched them all. After that, I found myself bumping into him all the time and we’d get chatting about this or that. I sought out his opinion on various things. I’ve got a lot of time for Steve. He’s one of the most honest guys on the circuit. You need that, as an athlete. Someone who isn’t afraid to tell you how it is. Otherwise, how else are you supposed to improve?

In August 2000 I finished second in the junior 5000 metres in Mannheim, Germany. Two months later I made the finals of the same event at the World Junior Athletics Championships in Chile. Of course, there were the usual injury spells and learning curves, but I was pleased with my progress and confident I could get even better.

In July 2001 I competed in the European Athletics Junior Championships in Grosetto, Italy. My form was good going into the race and I was expected to win the 5000 metres. Because the officials read out the lap times in Italian, Conrad arranged to stand at the side of the track, calling out my lap times in English so I knew how fast I was going. It was a close race. This guy from Portugal, Bruno Saramago, gave me a good run for my money. He had a good engine and, as Conrad called out the lap times, I realized that I had to change tack and go for a kick finish rather than trying to burn the guy off, because no matter how much I pushed the pace I couldn’t drop him. BOOM! I kicked on and pulled clear of Saramago on the last lap to win the race. I wasn’t simply winning now; I was also learning about the tactical side of running, learning to adapt to racing in major championships.

Throughout this period of training and competing I found time to spend with Tania. We used to hang out with Abdi Ali and one of Tania’s girlfriends. The four of us would meet up at the corner of our road, hop on a bus and head to the high street, where we’d do a whole lot of nothing. Just talking, having fun, joking around. Over time, Tania and me became very close friends. She was really sweet and, as well as being beautiful, she was a good person. I felt that I could talk to her about anything. Tania seemed to understand me in a way that no one else truly did.

I spent time around her family, got to know Bob and Nadia and her brother Colin. I’d go round the house and Tania would plait my hair. (I had hair in those days, believe it or not.) On one occasion Tania was plaiting my hair in the back garden and her grandmother on her mum’s side of the family was over from Singapore to see the family. I’d been abroad shortly before, competing at a meet – I can’t remember which one – and I had brought back a gift for Tania. It wasn’t just some random key chain or tacky souvenir. It was something quite special, although neither of us can recall exactly what it was. At that point Tania didn’t know how I felt about her, but her grandmother is sharp-eyed. She saw the chemistry between us and picked up on it immediately. Tania later discovered that, after I left the house, her grandmother pulled her mum to one side and said, ‘That kid has a thing for my granddaughter. He likes her.’