Team GB sprinter Derek Redmond, most famously known for the iconic scenes at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, where he broke down injured in shocking fashion.
He’s speaking on how to deal with injuries in sport after the physical and mental damage they can cause.
He’s speaking on how to deal with injuries in sport after the physical and mental damage they can cause.
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00:00Derek, obviously, you probably had to discuss it, you know, so much over your life, but
00:07the injury in 1992, the incredible footage, obviously doing my research, I had to watch
00:12it and, you know, it's quite hard to keep a dry eye, I will have to say that, but, you
00:17know, how do you sort of feel about it now when you look back on that moment?
00:22I mean, it's different. Back then, it was annoyance, upsetting, anger, because I failed
00:31in what I set out to do. I believed I was good enough to win a medal, could have won
00:35a medal, and I didn't. So in my eyes, back then, I failed. When I look at it now, 30
00:40plus years later, I kind of see it slightly different. Rather than annoyance, it's frustration,
00:47because I still believe to this day I could have won a medal. But I can also see what
00:51a lot of people saw in it, just because I'm now a father, I'm a parent, four kids, five
00:58grandkids as well, but, you know, so I can see it from a different set of eyes, if you
01:04like. So I begin to understand what people saw in it and how they saw it as a slightly
01:09different incident than I did, if you like. What happened was after the athletic side
01:15of things, seven operations and told that was it, your career is over, you're never
01:18going to compete for your country again, just under three years later, playing basketball
01:22for England and sending that same surgeon a photograph saying, told you so. And I think
01:27for me, it's just understanding why you do sport and what you get out of it.
01:33Yeah, and, you know, just on Team GB, it's quite special that we had, obviously, London
01:382012, you felt that that Olympics sort of brought the nation so close together. And
01:42then maybe half or, you know, a number of the Olympians now at the Games would have
01:48probably been watching London 2012, you know, looking up to their idols. How sort of special
01:52is that to say?
01:53Yeah, that's cool. I mean, I went through the same thing. So 1984 was the first Olympics
01:58when I really sat and watched it and thought I could actually be there. And then four years
02:05later, there I was at the Olympic Games competing against some of the people I was watching
02:09four years prior. So I know exactly what a lot of these athletes would have been going
02:13through. And most Olympians will have an Olympic Games that inspired them to want to
02:19compete at the Olympics, you know, or whatever the situation is great, because I saw a bit
02:25of an interview and a montage of Tom Daley when he was in 2008. And he could have only
02:30been 13. And he was talking about his, you know, his Olympic hopes and dreams. And he
02:38turned around and said, you never know, I could still be competing in 2024. Like that
02:43was some time in the distant future. And here he is in 2024, winning a silver medal. So
02:50even Olympians, you know, aspire to be competing in Olympics further down the road. So yeah,
02:56it's brilliant. Absolutely fantastic.