by Jo Pavey
Just a day or so before the flight to Australia, I had one more race: a 3,000m at the Gateshead Norwich Union Classic. I recall there was a light drizzle, and, up against Paula Radcliffe and Sonia O’Sullivan, I certainly wasn’t expecting to figure in the placings. I was still emerging from years of injury. Chris was talking about me running 8:45 or so. Sonia, the European 5,000m and 10,000m gold medallist and world cross-country champion, was in terrific form and put in her trademark kick sprint at the end, leaving us all for dead with a time of 8:33 or something. Libby Hickman of the United States followed in second place, running 8:35, then behind her was Paula in 8:36, and then me, also claiming an 8:36. Chris and Gav were elated. This was such a huge step forward for me – a major breakthrough. If I could go sub 8:40 at 3,000m, I should be able to get close to sub 15:00 at 5,000m. With this race under my belt, I could head off to the training camp in Australia, and to the Olympics, feeling a little more ready.
CHAPTER 10
My First Olympics
Going to my first Olympics was a defining moment in my career. And it seems ridiculous, even to me, that I’ve now been to four of them. Competing at an Olympic Games feels like you’ve achieved a major lifetime goal as an athlete. I remembered the time when my friend Andy Hart was selected for his first World Championships and was so chuffed, and Fatima Whitbread asked him on live TV how he thought he’d do: ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I’m just going for the kit!’ He didn’t mean that literally; the line just popped out. It was said with a mix of incredulity and excitement that I could now fully understand. Only one person in each event is going to win the gold medal, but we are all so proud to put on our country’s vest and perform to the best of our ability to make our nation proud.
When I packed to travel out to Australia, I was heading to only my third ever race over 5,000m at only my second senior major championships. What made the journey particularly special was the thought that I was returning to the place where, three years earlier, Gav and I had peered through the fence at the stadium foundations as backpackers, daring to dream that I could get myself fit enough to try to qualify. It felt surreal that I was now going to be on the other side of that fence in the stadium in Homebush – that I was going to experience performing there as an insider. To add to the feeling that it was ‘meant to be’, the GB holding camp was held in Surfers Paradise, where Gav and I had toasted New Year’s Eve, up to our waists in foam as a Nirvana tribute band played to the crowds. This time, however, we couldn’t get up to such exploits. We were there with a purpose: to prepare for our events within a focused team environment, protected from any distractions. Inside the camp, the excitement built up day by day, and the camaraderie was fantastic. I soon settled in but poor Gav had to find an alternative place to stay.
At that stage, he wasn’t my coach – although, as well as being my husband, he was also my training partner, pacer and support system – but he wasn’t part of the GB team and therefore entitled to official travel and accommodation. In the early summer of 2000, he and I had purchased a house in Bristol, trying to do the responsible thing, which had swallowed up nearly all our savings. We weren’t skint, but the mortgage deposit and outgoings challenged our cash flow, which meant Gav had a very tight budget to stick to in order to accompany me to Sydney. His flight took a large chunk of the budget, but we calculated enough for accommodation. When we arrived, however, we realised that not all of the training venues were suitable for me. My knee couldn’t handle any undulations or inclines; ideally, I needed good flat grass. Having been so injury-prone, we didn’t want to risk anything by having to train under less-than-ideal circumstances. As I couldn’t expect to be given transport at all times to wherever I’d have to go to train, we decided to hire a car. The problem was that Gav now had hardly any money left for his accommodation and so, on several nights, he ended up kipping in the car! On another occasion, he found a cheap motel room only to discover that it was next door to a brothel. It was not exactly the glamorous Olympic lifestyle you might imagine. I shared a room with Kelly and, as usual, we had lots of laughs. I tried my hardest to be tidy with my stuff in the room, but this is a big ask for me. Compared to Kel, who is immaculately tidy, I never came close. She would often laugh at my recurring problem: an inability to find anything.
The training went well. Apart from the times I went to the track, I did all my training around the flat Pizzey Park. Other athletes used Pooh Park, which was a bit hillier. The names of the venues provided a source of amusement. Gav kept extremely busy, pacemaking the other athletes for parts of their sessions when he wasn’t training with me. He had no official team role, but he did this until he completely injured his calf and could no longer run!
Soon the big day dawned, the day the Olympic Flame would arrive in the stadium to signal the start of the Games. The athletics didn’t begin until the second week and so we wouldn’t move into the Olympic Village until three or four days before our competition. As a result, we weren’t part of the Opening Ceremony, but watched it live from the holding camp on a huge TV screen. They laid on a barbecue and a local primary school came to the camp with a group of sweet little children to put on a special parade for us, and there was also Aboriginal dancing and music with didgeridoos – one of several touches that helped us fully celebrate the experience.
I couldn’t wait to get out on the track to compete in my first Games. I was living in the moment and loving it. The experience became even more overwhelming when we moved down to the Athletes’ Village. My brother Matt had kindly given us £250 towards our Olympic trip, which Gav used to invest in a video camera during the flight stopover in Hong Kong. I made endless videos just walking around the village, revelling in its extraordinary atmosphere. It was buzzing with nerves and excitement.
The village is a little town in its own right with a population made up purely of athletes and coaches, the medical teams and other backroom staff crucial to each national squad. Again, I shared with Kelly. At first we were allocated a room so tiny it did not accommodate our luggage! We were then given the option of staying in a Portakabin in the back garden. We moved into it, embracing the sense of adventure. I was taken with the colour and vibrancy of the village. The balconies of the accommodation buildings were draped with the flags of whatever nation was housed there and everyone walked around in their national kit. In Sydney, the whole village seemed particularly enormous because the buildings were low-rise and there were some nice big grassy areas, which meant it covered a vast, sprawling site. It was so big that the team had a couple of golf buggies to whizz athletes around to spare our legs. Designed as a self-sufficient town, it had its own bus system, gyms, cinemas, arcades of shops and food. Oh, the food! There were more than 10,000 athletes at the 2000 Olympic Games – a massive number to cater for, so you might think the quality would suffer – but the food was amazing, with so much choice, catering for the tastes of the whole world. Everything was free, with plenty of healthy food on offer – but also a free McDonald’s and fridges stocked with Magnum ice creams. I had to be extremely self-controlled and resist the kid-in-the-sweet-shop temptation to go for it, at least until after my race!
Gav and I had very much shared our build-up to the Sydney Games with our good friends Andy and Analie Hart. We met up so regularly we felt like a team of four. At the trials when I qualified, the job somehow hadn’t felt totally complete until Andy had also qualified for the 800m. As the competitors, Andy and I had the same routine while Gav and Analie shared similar supportive roles. In Sydney, we used to joke we’d done an innocent wife swap: Andy and I often hanging out together in the Athletes’ Village, and Gav and Analie hanging out together outside it.
Once in the village, time whizzed by and soon the day arrived when I would compete in my first ever Olympics. As well as the excitement, I had such nerves. Simply to be there in that atmosphere in the Olympic Stadium was an unbelievable experience, let alone running in front of 110,000 people screaming louder than you think possible. Fo
rtunately, the 5,000m heat was scheduled on the first night of the athletics so I didn’t have to wait around for days while everyone else’s events were under way. Once I’d readjusted to the glare of the stadium floodlights and taken in the incredible surroundings, I took a moment to look up at the Olympic Flame burning from the huge, elevated cauldron. It was a stirring sight: here I was, competing in the Olympics, knowing I was only here because I had somehow kept alive my own burning passion to run. To be there was such a joy compared to a normal meeting; I knew I would instinctively give every ounce of effort to try to get through to the final. When I toed the line for the start of my heat, I allowed myself a brief reflection on that moment when Gav and I had gazed through the wire fence surrounding a large hole in the ground and huge heaps of earth spoils excavated during construction of the stadium’s foundations. That private moment of contemplation, taking stock of how much we’d gone through to get me here, both relaxed and fired me up.
I can’t remember much of my qualifying heat lap by lap. My nerves were considerable but I channelled them to my advantage. I’ve never used a sports psychologist, even though I appreciate how helpful they can be to some athletes. Somehow I’ve always been able to get into the zone. It’s a sort of heightened state, fuelled by the extra adrenalin, which is hard to describe beyond the fact that it genuinely does lift my performance. It’s about not dreading the pain I know I am about to suffer but to turn it around and relish the challenge. When the pain bites, it’s a case of ‘Come on, enjoy the pain’ because every step is getting me nearer my goal. Over the distance, I’m concentrating on being economical. If I tense up, I lose energy. I’m aware of my thought processes, but they are almost subconscious. When a race goes well, my body seems to take control instinctively. I also believe that you shouldn’t set limits on yourself. This was the Olympics, and however unrealistic it might have seemed, I was going to do my utmost to make that final.
To my absolute delight, I crossed the line in a personal best of 15:08.82, to finish second behind Sonia O’Sullivan and one place ahead of the reigning 10,000m World Champion Gete Wami of Ethiopia. Three 5,000m heats had been held to whittle the field of fifty down to fifteen finalists and I would be one of them. I’d made the final of an Olympic Games! Chris, my coach, was working for the BBC as a trackside interviewer so I was able to thank her both in person and live on air for helping me to become an Olympian. I couldn’t wait to get off the track to hug Gav. We were so overjoyed. I remember lying in bed that night thinking, ‘Wow. I’m in an Olympic final.’ At the beginning of the year I’d been forever stuck in slow traffic on the motorway, travelling to and from physio, or sitting in the gym doing core work watching people run on treadmills, wishing I was fit enough to do the same. And now I was going to line up alongside the best in the world.
I had three days to recover after my heat. My muscles were so sore the next morning I was barely able to walk. It wasn’t lack of fitness. Rather a lack of track adaptation. My performance in the qualifying heat had taken its toll. I was simply not used to running flat out on a hard surface for such a relatively long time in spikes. My legs stiffened and rebelled in protest. We knew this could happen. But after such a long time away injured I couldn’t justify doing any more track work than I had done. If I could, I would have incorporated more track work to condition my muscles so that I would have recovered more quickly and been in a better state for the final. I’m not making excuses; nor do I have regrets. I had trained the way I had to in order to reach the Olympics. I knew it would be tough with my lack of experience and the lack of miles in my legs, but if I had done more track work, I may have broken down again with injuries, so that was simply the way it had to be.
On the night of the final, the stadium was packed to the rafters with passionate spectators. I later learnt the figure was 112,524, a new record attendance at an Olympic Games, and they created the most incredible atmosphere to compete in. It was the night the host nation’s poster girl Cathy Freeman won the 400m. So for the home crowd, this was the night of the Games. I went through my warm-up: fifteen minutes of gentle jogging, stretches to warm up all the muscle groups, drills to activate those muscles. We were summoned to the call room for about forty minutes, and that’s always a tense time: waiting with all your rivals, some sitting still, others hyperactive. I’m usually worried about when to fit in the last opportunity to use the toilet. And I tend to play with my shoelaces. I want them to be absolutely perfect: imagine having to run all those laps in an Olympic race with your shoelaces too tight or too loose! I do struggle with knowing when to stop re-doing them. My nerves matched the huge occasion. One comical thing happened as we were led from the call room through a long tunnel that led up to the stadium. Normally you walk calmly to the track, but this time, for some reason, everyone – athletes and officials – broke into a run as if we were a football team coming on to the pitch! And then we all looked at each other in bewilderment. Why had we done that?
It was reassuring to see the friendly – and equally puzzled – face of Sonia O’Sullivan in the mix in there. Everything about the process of racing seemed on a different level that night. We were led out towards the start, then held back by the official for a minute near the triple jump pit so their competition could continue. I had the most fantastic view of Jonathan Edwards’s winning jump. An amazing moment.
I stood on the start line, again conscious of that Olympic Flame, looking up at it and feeling its symbolism. I had run my first ever 5,000m at the start of August and now, just seven weeks later, I was in an Olympic final. Of course it felt surreal, a bit like something you might daydream about as a kid, knowing it’s nothing but an illusion in your mind.
‘Stand up! Stand up!’ the starter was shouting.
He wasn’t happy with something – someone had a toe over the line, maybe, or there was a distraction from a field event. I took a deep breath. Waited. Then bang! We were off. My legs felt awful right away. But I just went for it, running to the death, giving it my all. I stayed with the pace for as many laps as I could. It felt tough. With five laps to go I was still in touch, in tenth place, but as the leaders upped the pace I started to slip back. I gave it my all and finished twelfth – in 14 minutes and 58.27 seconds. The Romanian Gabriela Szabo won and Sonia O’Sullivan took silver. Despite coming in behind the breakaway leading pack, I’d gone under the 15-minute mark for the first time and improved my personal best by 10 seconds. That was a huge boost and gave me hope for the future.
After my final, I didn’t want the Olympic experience to end. I was determined to soak up every last wonderful moment. It was like that glorious end-of-term feeling you have as a child, with a long holiday stretching out ahead of you and nothing to do but have fun. And of course I didn’t want to miss the Closing Ceremony. So Gav and I arranged to stay on and we really made the most of our freedom: I no longer had to resist the lure of those free chocolate caramel Magnums and we went out all the time, having a blast. We watched all the athletics we could, and then went partying in Sydney until the early hours. Because my event featured early on in the competition schedule, some of the other athletes in my house still hadn’t finished competing. So sometimes I’d creep back in to the team accommodation. There is no way I’d risk waking up my teammates. I certainly couldn’t risk the noise that going out into the back garden to the Portakabin would make! So I’d lie on the floor fully clothed so as to avoid disturbing the others. One random night there was no need for accommodation. Somehow, we ended up getting a lift in the car of parents who’d just picked up their kids from a graduation party. We sat in the back, with the kids. To this day we’re not sure how we ended up in this situation, but it was their idea to drop us off at an Irish bar that stayed open until the early hours. We eventually got back on a morning train, packed with commuters on their way to work. On the train we met 1,500m runner John Mayock who had also enjoyed a good night.
In retrospect, this period was probably the longest stretch of ‘freedom from tr
aining’ I’ve ever had after a Games. I really went into celebratory mode after running in my first Olympics, but in the years to come my priority was to stay in good shape. For distance runners, the autumn is an important time and I would switch my focus to events such as the Great North Run and the Great South Run. But after 2000, the only plan was to start winter training after a decent rest, and in sunny Australia, that point seemed a long time away. We stayed for the Closing Ceremony and I was able to walk around the track for a final time, reflecting on this incredible experience. Ticker tape fell everywhere as part of the parade. Many athletes tried to catch it, to keep as a memento. It’s nice to have a tangible reminder to go with all the wonderful memories.
Our mate Andy retired soon after Sydney. To this day, he runs an 800m on the anniversary of the day he competed in the Olympics – not to be competitive, just for a bit of fun, so he can measure how much slower he gets over time. On one of these anniversary runs, he managed to fall over on the track as he struggled to take off his kit – and broke his arm. He was so determined to continue his tradition he ran his 800m anyway, thankful, I suppose, he wasn’t a 10,000m runner.
I arrived back from Sydney brimming with plans about how to approach the future. But before we sat at the kitchen table, focusing on working out the strategy for 2001, there was a final occasion of post-Olympic partying to enjoy. The entire British athletics squad was invited to Buckingham Palace, just the team in a room at a proper Palace function. Unfortunately, Gav couldn’t go in because he wasn’t an official member of the squad, but he kindly volunteered to drive me and my friend Marian Sutton, the marathon runner, up to the Palace. The Palace staff were discreetly generous with the wine. Very generous, in fact. My glass always seemed to be full. Every time I turned around to talk to someone, it must have been refilled. When the Queen arrived, we formed a line and she came down, kindly taking time to speak to some of us. My friends Andy and Marian were standing on either side of me, propping me up, hoping for dear life that the Queen would not talk to me. I suddenly found myself searching for something to say. ‘What a lovely house you’ve got!’ I calmly and politely said to the Queen. I didn’t hear the end of that from some of the other members of the team!
