The ultimate prize - great Christian Olympians

As we run up to this summer's Olympics in Athens, we look back with Jonathan Edwards to Sydney.

While Jonathan was in the UK training camp along the coast from Sydney, he received the telephone call he had been dreading.

Alison's mother had died. It would not be possible for Jonathan to take the 22-hour flight to the UK for the funeral and back to Sydney, without leaving himself so jet-lagged and exhausted that he would not be able to compete. It was one or the other. He felt he was letting Alison down by not being with her in the biggest crisis of her life, and there is no doubt that this added to the pressure on him to win. Put crudely, there was no point in having stayed in Australia if he didn't win gold.

While in the Olympic village, Jonathan was spoken to by an incident in the Bible: the story of the boy who gave his lunch to Jesus, who then used it to feed 5,000 people. Like the boy giving the five loaves and two fish to Jesus, Jonathan felt he was being asked to give his triple-jumping to Jesus, for Jesus to make of it what he could. He said later that his prayer was for God to 'give me the strength to cope, come what may. That in victory I don't glorify myself, and in defeat I don't plumb the depths of despair'.

Pressures at the top

Jonathan safely negotiated this qualifying competition with a jump of 17.08 metres, but he was the third Briton behind Phillips Idowu and Larry Achike. Incidentally, that was the day Steve Redgrave had collected his fifth Olympic gold medal in rowing.

Few people understand the pressure of top-level sport, but Jonathan certainly does: 'Competing at the top level is not fun, it's excruciating. The day and a half between qualifying and the final in Sydney were agony. In Atlanta, I had wanted to go home. You want to be anywhere else in the world and yet you don't, because you're at the top and you've got a real chance of winning. You've also got more to lose'.

The final of the triple jump took place on Monday September 25. It was the evening that the heroine of all Australia, Kathy Freeman, was to run in the 400 metres, and then came the triple jump.

When Jonathan started with a legal jump of 17.12 metres, there was a sense of relief. In the second round it was 17.37, but then Denis Kasputin jumped 17.24. In the third round Jonathan found the big one-17.71 metres, the longest jump in the world in 2002. His fourth jump did not improve his position.

He passed in round five, when Garcia leapt into second place with 17.47 metres. In the final round Jonathan no-jumped, probably going for the really big one, but the gold was his. 'What a dog fight! I was just overwhelmed. I was on the point of crying on a number of occasions and had to choke back the tears. I couldn't believe what was happening: this awesome arena, the Olympic Games - and I was the champion!' In his lap of honour, Linford persuaded Jonathan to throw his shoes into the crowd, as Maurice Green had done.

Everything or nothing

As Jonathan reflected later on Sydney and its significance for him and his career, he said: 'It was very important from the point of view of Alison. It would have been very hard for her had I lost. It would have come on top of what she was feeling in the loss of her mum. The mantra I had about Sydney was 'everything and nothing'. I had given everything, but actually it was nothing. If I had lost it would be hard to cope with, in the sense of feeling I had not achieved all that I could. Yet it is amazing how that one competition makes such a difference. My career is viewed now in a completely different way, because of one competition.

'I don't think I needed it as a person, although it is probably easier to say that having won. If I hadn't won, I am sure that I would always have looked back and said 'it would be nice to have won the Olympics'. I do smile when I think how differently I am viewed because I have won an Olympic gold medal-because really, what difference does it actually make? I suppose, in a sense, it was the human seal on my athletics career. But in reality it didn't make any difference - I am exactly the same person as if I had not won the Olympic gold. I am the world record holder, and the best triple-jumper there has ever been, but that wasn't influenced by Sydney.

'Having been through Goteborg, and having seen the other side of the coin with not winning in Atlanta, and to a degree having always lived with a certain level of expectation and the unspoken disappointment that I never really lived up to 1995, it has made me much more realistic. I have a much better insight into who my real friends are and who are hangers-on. Success is a very illusory and shallow thing.'

Last event

As he entered 2003, Jonathan was at peace about the future and a fifth Olympic Games. He said, 'I'm ready to retire; equally, I'm ready to carry on as long as my body will perform, and that's a nice position to be in'. In fact, the decision was largely made for him in two events at the end of the season.

His last event before the 2003 World Championships was at Crystal Palace, and there, at full speed, he hit the edge of the runway and fell awkwardly. He made an amazing recovery, competed in the World Championships, but withdrew after two jumps.

So ended the career of a great athlete. He explained to the press in Paris the background to his decision, beginning with the Bible:

'I would like to preface what I say with a verse from the Bible. Proverbs 16, verse 9, says: 'A man devises a plan in his heart but God directs his path'. I probably thought God had directed my path off the triple-jump track at Crystal Palace two weeks ago and that was the end of my career. As I lay in the pit, that was what was going through my mind.

'I thought I had broken my ankle, ruptured my ligaments and tendons, and I could not have walked if I had wanted to. I pretty much thought that was it and here endeth my career. Then, over the next few days, something quite miraculous happened, in that my ankle was not badly hurt at all. I sit here now feeling that almost a miracle has taken place.

God's direction

'I should not be here. I come back to Proverbs 16, verse 9. I had planned to carry on to the Olympics, but God directed my path [for me], so I will jump here and that will be the end of my career.

'I am in great shape, good enough to go on to the Olympics next year and jump well, but I had always said I would carry on until my legs would take me no further or I felt God was saying something else. People have asked whether it might be a sign to carry on. All I can say is that, as I thought on my circumstances in the last couple of weeks, I felt sure this was the right thing to do.'

Jonathan Edwards has been an outstanding athlete, and no one can take away the fact that in 1995 he broke the world record, and in 2000 took Olympic gold. But perhaps his greatest accolade comes from The Times journalist Andrew Longmore: '... an athlete capable of making sexy the intricate discipline of the triple jump'.

This article is an extract from 'The ultimate prize - great Christian Olympians' by Stuart Weir, director of Christians in Sport (Hodder & Stoughton. £8.99). Reproduced by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Limited.

The ultimate prize - great Christian Olympians

Pressures at the top

Everything or nothing

Last event

God's direction

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