British Sprinter looks back in its 60 m gold in the EUropeo Interior Championships in Katowice in 1975
A silver medalist in Gothenburg 12 months before behind the Olympic champion of Eastern Germany Renate Stecher, the British born in Barbados arrived in Poland with Silver from the Commonwealth and a European outdoor bronze outdoors of more than 100 meters. There was a trust that would finally be his time to hit the gold.
60m was my distance. I knew I could bombard him for so long. After that, I could keep until the end of 100 m, but 60m was when my coach Tom McNab said he would only fly. I knew that no one could catch more than 60 m. After that, it is more or less.
The previous summer, Tom and some others established a race in the distance in Crystal Palace and I would match the Outdoor World record with a 7.2 race when my staff was the best 7.16. Returning from New Zealand and the 1974 Commonwealth games, it was still fresh and strong enough to compete inside and obtain European silver before obtaining an outdoor bronze in Rome.
So, when I arrive to the European interior of 1975, my mentality was to win. It is a strange child to say this, but I knew at that moment that it would win that due to the people who were in the races. And that Renate Stecher was.
Katowice was a freezing. It was cold and law with a lot of black ice. I remember that it was a dark place, but the covered facilities were fantastic and I was many of these athletes that care the night before the race. I just did. If I win, win. If I don’t, I don’t. Don’t care about: “How am I going to do?”
I had a good start in the final and continued. Monika Meyer, the German, was behind me. Irena Szewsca was third, but it was quite clear. It was a good career at the same time that he gave me money the previous year.
Ian Stewart also won his 3000m race, while Geoff Capes was second in the bullet launch. Arthur Gold, who was a team manager at that time, gave all a bottle of champagne. Geoff was the life of the party, but, in reality, there were no celebrations.
At that moment, I worked for Barclays Bank. They knew that I had always gone but it didn’t seem to care. I was pampered like some of these athletes today. We all work. Many of us had jobs and trained after work. Everyone in Clapham knew me at that time. He was running for Mitcham and the coach there, George Robinson, had a great team and everyone worked together. Everyone knew that on Tuesdays and Thursdays at five o’clock we would be training.
We enjoy our athletics. We enjoyed when we saw each other. We would receive a letter that said: “Hey, they want you to come to Germany. They want you to go here.” And we get used to. That was an honor for us. Today is expected. Athletics today is a business, it is not an athletics as we had.
I remember going to the track in Munich at the 1976 Olympic Games and they rejected me. I kept saying: “Oh my God, look at all these people.”
When I look back in certain events I executed, it was absolutely pleasant. In the Europeans of Rome, I arrived third, but now I should obtain a silver medal, because the Eastern Germans have owned that they were used using performance potentiators. I remember when I ran for the first time against Renate in Crystal Palace, and I saw her, I asked my coach if I thought that person was like a man.
Later, I got a scholarship to go to California to Long Beach State University. He was also training and exercised one day, and this guy approached and said: “I know who you are. You are Andrea Lynch.” You believe it, you believe it, but it was Bobby Kersee. He watched my beginnings and told me what was wrong. Then he would show him all the different things he had learned. I taught Bobby how to do some things for training.
The people who mattered recognized me: my family, Tom and some of my companions athletes, my comrades. But the British athletics board never bother. I went to Birmingham a couple of years ago and went to visit the United Kingdom athletics offices. It is just below the stadium. And there is a cup AAAS with my name. I went: “Oh my God, it’s still there!”
I directed a world record of 10.8 more than 100m in California, but has never been recognized. I do not know what happens to the British people, but, because it was in the United States, the people who were in charge at that time were very presumed about it. He had to prove that he would execute a world record. But my best career was 60 meters inside. I won that. I have the gold medal.
As he told Mark Woods
Data file
Born: November 24, 1952
Events: 60m/100m
PBS: 7.17/11.16
International Honors:
1975: European Interior Championships 60 m gold
1974: Commonwealth 100m Silver games; European Bronze European Championships; 60m silver interior championships,
1970: European U20 100m Silver Championship
