‘Accidental’ Olympian watched Paris opening ceremony at home before winning two medals

Unexpected Olympian wins two bronze medals after watching Paris opening ceremony at homeSource: Good Morning Britain

Transcript

00:00It's absolutely, I mean it's such a brilliant story isn't it?

00:03Although I have to say you feel sorry for the poor person who pulled out because it's all,

00:06it is that kind of fate isn't it? Yeah. That got you there. Tell us what happened,

00:10so you're just at home, you must have been feeling a bit sad that you weren't there presumably.

00:15Yeah definitely, so I think I ran a big PB the week before in London Diamond League,

00:19I went to fourth fastest in Europe for the year, behind three really good guys, two of them British,

00:25and yeah 40 full-time in the British all-time list. So I was definitely sitting there watching

00:30every ceremony going down, I wish I was there. Why weren't you selected though then if you were

00:34that, you know if you'd been breaking records? Yeah so in January I tore my hamstring,

00:39which wasn't ideal obviously going into the Olympic year, I had a lot of aspiration to make

00:44a lot of champs, so I missed the whole indoor season, missed opportunities to back up my

00:49British title I won last year, so it was really disappointing and then it took a whole lot longer

00:53to get back than we thought. So you sat there? Yeah, so you just watched the opening ceremony

00:58and it's literally the following day wasn't it? Yeah. So it was your mobile phone rings,

01:02where are you? That must be one heck of a moment, it's like a Hollywood moment really,

01:07you know what I mean? So where were you when your mobile phone rang? Yeah so I was training at my

01:13track on Saturday morning, just doing some block sessions, something like that, just having a bit

01:17of fun, and then we heard the news of the athlete pulling out, I still didn't know, I got picked,

01:22and then about 45 minutes later I got a call from the selector, Martin Rooney going,

01:28what are you doing for the next couple of weeks? He was like, I heard you're doing it at Angel

01:31Meters, can you not do that please, I'd rather you be running the 4x4. He must have loved making

01:36that phone call to you. Yeah definitely, so that was a really good moment I think, I put the phone

01:40down, I screamed out, I'm an Olympian! The whole training group was jumping up and down with

01:46excitement, my coach. Don't jump too hard, I've got to protect myself now.