Adulation can carry its own dangers

ATHLETICS:Athletics needs its heroes, probably now more than ever, but it's important too that they're properly guided and guarded

WHOEVER SAID you should never meet your heroes might have got it the wrong way round: should your heroes ever meet you? There was certainly no disguising the disappointment on the face of my hero after we shook hands; he signed an autograph, and all I could say was, “We love you in Ireland.”

Obviously he’d expected something more along the lines of “you’re a genius”, or “total legend” – although he did raise a quick smile. It was April, 1995, and truth is he was going through a bit of a rough patch. Fortunately, he didn’t take offence. In fact, he’s produced some of his best work in the years since, and wait until you see how many people salute his 70th birthday next Tuesday.

The Greeks knew this about their heroes – that for all their fame and adoration, they could sometimes be terribly insecure. They could also be selfish, and often anti-social, and not exactly role models for the so-called younger generation. Even the great Achilles had his fatal flaw.

But for the modern sporting hero nothing will bring about a fall from grace quicker than a selfish indulgence in drink, drugs or women – or any combination.

If excessive drink is the problem, coupled with an excessive lust for women, it’s more likely viewed as a sad and destructive loss, and that was certainly the case this week with the death of Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru.

No one is sure what happened at Wanjiru’s house in Kenya early last Monday. There was definitely a scuffle of some sort after his estranged wife arrived home to find him in bed with another woman. She reportedly locked him into the bedroom, prompting him to jump from the first-floor balcony to his death on the driveway below.

Or was he somehow pushed?

Wanjiru’s mother yesterday got a court order blocking his wife from burying him for 14 days so police can carry out a more thorough investigation – possibly even open a murder inquiry.

No one is sure either how much drink Wanjiru had consumed. But he had been drinking, as had been his habit for the last months.

Unfortunately, Wanjiru was just the latest in a long line of great Kenyan runners who used drink as a crutch to new-found fame and fortune. Henry Rono remains the prime example, and although he did survive his addiction, his extraordinary potential was never fulfilled.

The same now goes for Wanjiru. He was the most exciting marathon runner in the world, with such a fearlessness and almost disrespect for the 26.2-mile distance that anything looked possible, even breaking the two-hour barrier.

I will never forget watching the opening miles in Beijing as the 21-year-old Wanjiru defied the heat and humidity and launched into a formidable pace, clearly sprinting flat-out at some points to unnerve his opponents. Few observing from the media centre expected him to survive, but by the time we’d walked the short distance to the Bird’s Nest he’d built an unassailable lead, and crossed the finish line in 2:06.32 – knocking almost three minutes off the Olympic record. Wow!

Incredibly, Wanjiru was the first Kenyan to win an Olympic marathon title – so he was instantly hailed a national hero. Like most Kenyan runners he’d come from a poor background, but after defending his Chicago marathon last October became a very rich man. Was that really too much for him to handle?

Perhaps we’ll never know – but the message once again is that there’s a fine line between success and failure, or indeed genius and madness. Athletics needs its heroes, probably now more than ever, and it’s important too that they’re properly guided and indeed guarded, should your heroes ever meet someone less adoring than you. Adulation, after all, can be a dangerous thing.

There were some fears Usain Bolt might be going down this road after his record-breaking exploits at the last World Championships, two years ago, in Berlin. Earlier that summer Bolt had crashed his souped-up BMW in Jamaica, and by some accounts was lucky to walk away. Then for several weeks after Berlin he was spotted in the nightspots around Kingston, usually in the early hours, and last summer his performances on the track weren’t lightning-bolt quality.

A back injury then ended his season, and the only thing I heard about Bolt over the winter was that he’d opened a sports bar in Kingston, and called it Tracks and Records – hardly a positive sign.

Well, the good news is Bolt is about to re-emerge, “fit and ready” as he says, for his opening 100 metres of the season in Rome next Thursday. Fortunately, Bolt has sound men around him, including his agent and our own Ricky Simms. “Just looking forward to getting the ball rolling,” Bolt says, and who couldn’t agree?

The sports needs Bolt to set the tracks alight again, and no one knows this better than the IAAF. Their still baffling decision to award the World Championships in South Korea at the tail of the summer will almost certainly backfire if Bolt is not there to produce some heroics, which at age 24 and a still peaking physique he should be well capable of – although ultimately that may be over 400 metres.

In the meantime, one event that deserves a mention is the new Dublin 5x5km Staff Relay, which takes place in the Phoenix Park, also next Thursday evening. The idea – the brainchild of former race walker Pierce O’Callaghan – is that staff from various businesses or whatever workplace, compete both with and against each other, if that makes any sense. Over 150 teams have entered, and it’s the chance for all of them to be heroes just for one day – as another of my heroes once said.

See: dublinstaffrelay.com