The cheering crowd suddenly went silent in a matter of a few seconds. He could feel a searing pain down his right leg and no longer was he able to move his knee. It was terrible pain and his physical limit was breached. Derek Redmond had torn his hamstring. Struggling to even move an inch further, he stayed on the ground. When that didn’t help he laid down facing sky but only for a while. As the physio team with stretcher arrived, he denied help. Instead, he got up and forced his feet to carry him for a bit more hobbling in excruciating pain.
After he had covered 20-30 steps, a man burst onto the race track. Brushing aside the security, he quickly forced his way towards limping Derek and comforted him by placing his hands over the sprinter’s shoulders. He was the man Derek had seen since he was born. He was his father, Jim Redmond.
“You don’t have to do this.” the father exclaimed.
“Yes. I have to.” distraught Derek replied. “Then we finish together!” father assured him.
Poor Derek could no longer hold back his emotions and cried loudly in pain as the father-son duo clambered down the race track together. He let out all the disappointment, anger and frustration on his dear father’s shoulders. But they didn’t stop. Meanwhile, the security did try to stop the intruder (Jim Redmond) and they were quite right to do so. But nothing was going to change the intruder father’s mind. It was only after Derek convinced him to let him go and finish the race. He limped and finished the remaining few yards. The stadium erupted in applause reacting to what they had just witnessed! It was the Olympic Games of 1992, at Barcelona.
Typical sprinters train for 20 hours a week, maintain the prescribed diet and repeat the schedule for an endless number of times. These athletes are almost bound to get injured and hence they have to take into consideration the time they need to recover from the various injuries. All this while consistently improving their performances and timing their runs. So, all the Olympians we witness have already worked really hard to reach the world stage.
Derek Redmond was proving to be a brilliant prospect for Great Britain. In 1985, he broke the country record for 400 m sprint. It was broken within a year but he reclaimed the record in 1987. In 1986 he was the part of the gold medal-winning team in the 4×400 m relay at European Championships at Stuttgart. For the same event in the world championships at Rome in 1987 and Tokyo in 1991, his team won bronze and gold medals respectively.
While all these were clear indications of a legend in making, behind all the glories hid a terrible reality of injuries. In 1988 Olympics at Seoul, just 90 seconds before his first round of sprint Derek received an injury to his Achilles tendon. He had to withdraw from the event and all the preparation, efforts and patience turned to nothing in a jiffy. Even in the build-up to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, he underwent 8 surgeries due to the injuries!
When he ran the first round of the 400 m sprint at Barcelona, he clocked the fastest timing among all. Thus, was a clear favourite for the gold medal. That loud cry he let out was not about the physical pain, it was about something he had tried to fight off his entire life. A soul that had worked up through a series of difficult situations and wagered his life into choosing to be a sprinter. He was very well on track to achieve what he wanted until his hamstring tore. The medals and accolades were all lost and everything he had devoted so far turned to ashes.
As the stretchers arrived he had a choice to make. His body had given up but his mind hadn’t. For he knew one thing for sure, he had chosen this path of life and only he was the right person to conclude it. Circumstances had bogged him down time and time again. With always the odds against him, he was a mortal with limited energy but his will had waged a war against those odds. Jim, his father could no longer sit and watch his little boy take on the world all alone; without a second thought, he broke through the security to let his son know that he was not alone.
Force is measured in kilograms. Speed is measured in seconds. Courage? You can’t measure courage.
– International Olympics Committee, Celebrate Humanity
The Olympic committee ruled out Derek Redmond as ‘Did not finish’ because he had received help from an ‘external source’. Fair enough they were just playing by the rules. But the 65000 spectators in the stadium had witnessed something way beyond just a 400 m sprint. They all gave a standing ovation to the powerful spirit they watched limping to the finish line. He had lost the event, only to win the race of life. The international Olympic committee in their ‘Celebrate Humanity’ videos mentioned Derek Redmond and proclaimed “Force is measured in kilograms. Speed is measured in seconds. Courage? You can’t measure courage.”
There are and there will be circumstances you have no control over. You may not be able to get what you really desired and even though you gave your best for. Derek Redmond through his actions taught the whole world that at the end of the day it’s the spirit that overruled the most formidable roadblocks. The best thing about the people with a strong will is that they generate a strong aura around them. The race was already lost, but if he hadn’t gotten up that day, the world would have missed out on an opportunity to witness as well as embrace this aura! He was never finished, was he?
