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Sometimes to win an Olympic title you need good fortune. At the 2000
Games in Sydney Denise Lewis enjoyed her fair share and at the end of
her two days exertions in the heptathlon she was crowned champion
without having recorded a single personal best performance. On day one
defending champion Ghada Shouaa fell by the wayside as did World
champion Eunice Barber the next and with their demise the event was
Denise's for the taking. Not that it was going to be a formality because
she herself was by then suffering badly from an inflamed achilles
tendon, painful ankle and damaged foot.
The manner in which she carried
on was a tribute to both her tenacity and the team of medics that kept
her going. The first event (100mh) took her into second place but a poor
high jump dropped her down to eighth. Denise then won the shot putt
with 15.55m (her only individual event victory) and regained 2nd place
only then to slip back to third following the 200m. Day two began with
the long jump (Denise is shown above taking her third jump) after
which she had moved up again into 2nd position and with the javelin she
finally took the lead. All she needed to do in the final event, the 800
metres, was ensure Yelena Prokhorova did not beat her by more than ten
seconds, an event at which the then second placed Russian was known to
be faster. Yelena ran 2m 10.32 secs. but Denise's 2m 16.83 secs was good
enough to retain first place and with it the gold medal.
Her total of
6,584 points was 55 better than the Russian's, but well down on her
Commonwealth record of 6 831 set earlier in June at Talence. She thus
became Britain's sixth women to win an Olympics athletics gold medal.
(Mary Peters won the pentathlon in 1972). (George Herringshaw)
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