by Steve Howell
***
Danny was sleeping heavily, lying diagonally across the narrow bed in his room, when I walked in. His head was over the edge of one side, and one foot was dangling from the other. I put a glass of milk down on a wonky DIY unit I’d put together in a hurry when I was decorating the room a few years ago – an earlier attempt at trying to show Kelli I was serious about being Danny’s father.
Danny was wearing boxers, and I was surprised how broad his bare shoulders seemed in the half-light coming through the thin curtains. His voice hadn’t broken yet, but he was looking more and more like a teenager every day. I was running out of time.
“Dan,” I said. “There’s some milk there for you.
He groaned and wriggled a little, pulling the duvet over himself in a tangled heap.
“You still up for this bike ride?” I said.
He groaned some more.
“Okay, we need to go soon, because I have to get back to see Meg’s press conference on TV.”
“Daaaad,” he said.
I left him to it, but he did surface about half an hour later, staggering into the kitchen, rubbing his wiry black hair with one hand, his other hand shoved down his boxers.
“Have a shower and I’ll do some breakfast,” I said, with a cheery tone that was probably physically painful to the ears of a 12-year-old.
He gave me a jerky, silent nod and shuffled into the bathroom.
***
Our bike ride took in all my favourite Hendon spots: the Burroughs field where cows used to graze in my childhood; St Mary’s church and the old church farmhouse; the top path through Sunnyhill Park, and over to Copthall playing fields, stretching out with Mill Hill rising behind.
We pedalled through my territory, Dan chatting about the cricket and his school, and me telling a few childhood stories. When it was my turn, Dan would listen and ask questions, his bright-eyed curiosity not yet suppressed by adolescent sullenness.
As Copthall athletics stadium came into view, I felt a spasm of emotion. It’s a ramshackle place. The facelifts given to the fifty-year-old concrete stand on the home straight can’t hide its age and inadequacies. And the new seating on the back straight - built for recent intruders Saracens rugby club - would never win a design award. But Copthall was my addiction, and I still got a buzz out of seeing the place full.
Danny and I stopped at an entrance near the finish line, where you could peer in through steel gates at the track and the stands. I could visualise Megan on the track, grimacing as she pushed herself to the limit, all that effort, all those sessions not now being taken to their natural conclusion in Rio.
“Do you think that’s good, Dad?” Danny said.
He was reading a plaque I had never noticed before, the club motto of the Saracens: Honesty, Work Rate, Humility, Discipline.
“It’ll do for starters,” I said.
***
We arrived back at the flat and switched the TV on just in time to catch Megan’s announcement. The news channel presenter was saying, “We’re going live now to Newport for an update on the breaking story that Megan Tomos, widely considered Britain’s best hope for an Olympic track medal, will not be going to Rio”.
The face of a male reporter came up on screen. He was on the lawn at The Priory with dozens of people milling around behind.
“Chris, what’s the latest?” the presenter said.
“Well, this looks set to be an unusual press conference,” he said, gesturing to the scene behind him. “It seems this hotel in Caerleon has been Tomos’s hideaway for the last week. This is the first time she’s spoken to the media since before the Olympic trials, and of course there’s been mounting speculation she might pull out of the Olympics…”
“And we understand she’s going to confirm that today,” the presenter said.
“Yes, we haven’t been issued with a press release yet, which is a bit odd, and there seems to be some delay, but the spin from her team earlier was that she’s pulling-out because her situation is so uncertain and she wants to give the selectors a chance to pick someone else…”
“There seems to be some activity behind you,” the presenter said, and the reporter looked over his shoulder as the camera zoomed-in on Megan, striding across the lawn with Mimi on one side and Graeme on the other.
“Graeme? What the hell..?” I said to Danny and slumped on settee.
The three of them lined-up, standing in front of a single microphone with the photographers gathering into a semi-circle, crouching with cameras whirring.
Megan stepped forward, holding a single sheet of paper and looking nervous and pale in the unforgiving mid-afternoon sun.
“There has been a great deal of speculation about whether or not I’m going to be taking part in the Olympic Games in Rio,” she said, obviously reading from a statement. “As you know, on Saturday, I was involved in helping the police free three hostages taken by a former friend who has now been charged and is in police custody.
“You also know that the police have made a number of other arrests relating to a steroids cartel operating across the country and that the police are separately investigating the death of my friend Matthew Davies, whose father Graeme is here today.
“I can’t comment on any of this – that’s a matter for the police – but I’m pleased to say that I have been cleared of any wrongdoing and that I have now given a witness statement to the police to help them with their enquiries.”
Megan smiled in an earnest, diffident way and then seemed to swallow on her next words, bowing her head as if she was struggling to continue.
Mimi and Graeme stepped forward, each holding one of Megan’s arms.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Danny said
“I haven’t a clue – where’s my phone? Can you have a look in the kitchen? I think it’s in there,” I said, not wanting to miss anything.
Mimi was whispering something in Meg’s ear, but Meg was shaking her head, and she looked up and started speaking again.
“But I have made mistakes,” she continued, “and I regret some of the decisions I’ve made and the people I’ve trusted. But my family and friends, and especially Mr Davies, have urged me to put those things behind me and go to Rio to do my best for the team and for them and for the memory of Matt.”
At those words, I was as close to passing-out as I’ve been since drinking a bottle of vodka on my 18th birthday.
I looked up, and Danny was standing over me holding out my phone.
“So she’s going after all!” he said.
“So it seems,” I said, grabbing the phone. It was showing six missed calls and three messages from Mimi.
Call me
Where the fuck are you?
Meg’s going to Rio. X
***
As I was still digesting this, the phone went, and Mimi’s name came up on the screen. I looked up at the TV and could see her walking away from the camera with Megan and Graeme and with the phone to her ear.
“What the hell’s going on?” I said, practically hyperventilating with excitement.
“You saw it,” Mimi said. “She’s going!”
“So what happened? How come?”
“Graeme. It was Graeme. Apparently, he was furious when he found out she’d decided not to go and went to see Richards this morning, and it’s been bedlam ever since. The chief constable intervened. Suddenly, the frigging pathology report could be turned round in an hour! Meg was off the hook, and I was tearing up my press release and going mad trying to contact you and write that statement. But didn’t she do well?”
I was too choked to speak.
“Liam – are you okay,” Mimi said.
Danny sat down next to me and put an arm round my shoulder.
“Yes,” I said. “She did very well indeed.”
EPILOGUE
Four Weeks Later
My phone pinged with a text:
Enjoy this Liam. You’ve definitely earned it! Love Mimi and Danny Xx
I
was sitting in the Maracana Stadium with about seventy-five thousand other people watching Megan and seven other 100m hurdles finalists peeling-off their tracksuits ready to be introduced to the crowd.
While I was waiting for Megan to appear, I had been pondering how many double-decker buses all these people would fill, thinking this was indeed a far cry from cold winter nights at Copthall, or even a packed Alexander Stadium.
I had been to three previous Olympics – London, Sydney and Athens – but I had never had an athlete in a final and nothing had prepared me for the mix of euphoria and nausea I was feeling.
As usual, the other coaches and I had been allocated seats just beyond the finish line, allowing us to look down the home straight across the tops of the perfectly-aligned rows of hurdles that seemed from this angle far too close together for athletes racing at such speed.
Mimi and Danny were going to watch the race on the TV in our hotel room. Tickets were scarce – we knew that before we came – but Megan and Kelli had insisted on paying for Danny to come, haggling with each other to do the honours. The upshot was that Danny was having the time of his life: Kelli had paid for the flights and his spending money, while Megan told Jackie to fix us up with a palatial suite in one of the best hotels in Rio and a post-Olympic boat trip up the Amazon.
Megan, meanwhile, was staying in the Olympic Village, protected from the paparazzi, some of whom were on a mission to grab any shot that could portray her in some pre-determined negative light – as ‘troubled’ or ‘tearful’ – you name it.
After the siege and the press conference, numerous, often anonymous ‘friends’ had popped up with fantastic stories about her. She hardly seemed to be off the front pages of some tabloids, fuelling a build-up of anticipation for the final that was alarmingly disproportionate and often poisonous.
I had been receiving daily reports from Mimi while we were at Belo Horizonte but, thankfully, Megan was largely oblivious to all this. We had left for the holding camp only three days after the press conference, and Meg had become intensely focused on making-up for the time she had lost. We had broken the event down into all its components, polished each and every one of them and pieced them back together meticulously like a highly-tuned machine.
And it seemed to be working. Megan had sailed through the rounds, looking as sharp and confident as her main rivals: the American, Debbie Masters, and the Russian, Natasha Sholokhova. But Masters had edged the faster time in winning her semi-final and was being talked about by almost every pundit – except the British ones – as the favourite.
As I looked at Megan now, walking back after rehearsing her start, I knew she was capable of winning and I knew, equally, that she could stumble and come last. It was in the nature of this event that something could go dramatically wrong; that years of work could be undone by a split-second miscalculation, a slightly misjudged stride pattern or a spike coming unscrewed.
And it was in the nature of coaching that there was nothing more you could do once you had said good-bye to your athlete at the entrance to the long walkway to the pre-race holding area. On this occasion, for the first time, I had kissed Megan on the cheek, attracting surprised looks from the other finalists passing by. It may not be in the coach’s handbook, but it seemed so natural after what we’d been through to get here.
The athletes were lining up now and being introduced to the crowd and a global TV audience running to billions. When Megan’s turn came, she lifted both arms to give a two-handed wave turning in a half-circle to take in most of the stadium. On my virtual clap-o-meter – otherwise known as my ears – she had the biggest reception of any of the finalists, but it could have been that I was clapping very loudly myself.
Another text from Mimi pinged:
She’s looking good
I was too nervous to reply, and – my superstitious streak surfacing – I didn’t want to tempt fate by agreeing. It was too late anyway because the starter had them under orders and the crowd was falling silent.
The athletes settled into their blocks. The screen above the Start was showing a close-up of Megan. She looked twitchy but seemed to find the right spot for her fingers and thumbs on the line just as the starter said, ‘Set’.
The athletes rose as one and burst into a sprint before the delayed sound of the gun had reached my ears.
Megan, Natasha and Debbie reached the first hurdle together, but Debbie was more upright at take-off and brought her trail leg down faster. By the second hurdle, she had taken a slight lead, which she held through the middle part of the race. But Megan and Natasha were both running well and seemed to be pulling level as they approached the final hurdle. They rose together, their technique perfect, and there was next-to-nothing separating them as they sprinted and dipped for the line.
I had no idea who’d won. The judges were examining the photo finish.
Megan was wide-eyed and euphoric, bouncing up and down and then linking arms in a circle with Natasha and Debbie like footballers in a team huddle after a match.
Meg broke away from the others, her eyes going first to the judges, who still hadn’t made a decision, and then to the section of the stand where I was, on my feet, hemmed-in by all the other cheering spectators.
She started scanning the rows, trying to pick me out, knowing from my ticket I would be about halfway back near the middle. I waved furiously, and she seemed to look in my direction without seeing me.
Finally our eyes met, and hers were sparkling as she smiled that charming smile, and we held that look for a fraction of a moment until the screaming erupted and Meg buried her face in her hands, and I knew the result must have flashed onto the screens, but I couldn’t bear to look.
Acknowledgements
This book grew out of conversations with people who have direct – and, in one case, tragic – experiences of steroid abuse. Some of them cannot be named but they know I am grateful for their insights.
My thanks also to numerous other people who have helped and who I can name. I spent several enjoyable evenings discussing the plot and police procedures with Martyn Jones, a former police superintendent who was deputy head of crime in South Wales. Another friend, consultant epidemiologist Professor John Watkins, shared his knowledge of the steroid scene and ideas for the plot, as well as being my athletics training partner when I was still competing. I am also grateful to Nigel Walker, the former Olympic hurdler and current National Director of the English Institute of Sport, for finding time to answer my questions on the lifestyle of an elite athlete and the preparations for Rio.
I am lucky my family has been so unstinting in their support through all the ups and downs of this project, and so willing to take time to help and share their thoughts. My daughter Cerys and her partner Sion read an early draft and gave invaluable feedback. My son Josh answered my endless questions on the youth scene in Newport – any failures in authenticity on that score are entirely mine. My eldest, Gareth, and his partner Cynthia put up with me writing at all hours when I was visiting them in Long Beach, California. And my wife Kim deployed a red pen extensively on the very first draft and has been a sounding board – as well as source of encouragement – from start to finish.
I am grateful to my friend Steve Hoselitz, who was my editor at the South Wales Argus in the mid-nineties, and his wife, Virginia, for reading an early draft and giving me numerous useful comments. I also sought professional literary advice from Lorna Howarth of The Write Factor to whom I’m indebted for providing a thorough manuscript review. Two colleagues at Freshwater UK, Louise Harris and Elinor Evans, provided the Welsh translation in Chapter 15, which has stood up to scrutiny among other Welsh speaking readers – thanks to them. My re-acquaintance with Hendon (where I was brought up) was aided by the helpful and friendly staff of the University of Middlesex library and Copthall Stadium.
Finally, I am delighted that Accent Press has decided to republish the book, and I much appreciate their support.
While all those mentioned have been hugely h
elpful, I am ultimately the author of every word in the book – any errors or deficiencies are entirely my responsibility.
About the Author
Steve Howell is a former journalist and the author of two books: Over The Line, first published in 2015, and Game Changer: Eight Weeks That Transformed British Politics, an account of his experiences working for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour campaign in the 2017 General Election.
Born on Merseyside, and brought up in Hendon, north London, he went to university in Sheffield before moving to Wales in 1993 with his wife, Kim, and their three (now grown-up) children.
Steve’s career in journalism included spells as a freelance sports writer working for the Independent, Guardian and Athletics Weekly and as a BBC radio and TV reporter. After leaving the BBC, he set up a successful communications consultancy, Freshwater, which now employs more than 50 staff.
Over The Line draws on Steve’s experiences in competitive athletics as well as his research into the widespread abuse of steroids for image-enhancing body-building, a topic which he has written about for the Guardian and Western Mail.
Twitter @fromstevehowell
Game Changer
Eight Weeks That Transformed British Politics
When Theresa May called a snap election in 2017, Labour was more than twenty points behind in the polls and it seemed the only question was how big her landslide would be.
In the most dramatic election of modern times, Corbyn’s inspirational campaign transformed British politics. Labour won its best vote for twenty years and the largest increase in its vote share since 1945.