Denise Lewis is another Olympic gold medal winning female athlete from the UK. She won gold in the heptathlon in the 2000 Sydney Olympics despite battling injuries throughout. You can read all about her winning performance in her autobiography, Personal Best, (affiliate links: UK
Denise, one of the best
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Hang on a minute, what’s the heptathlon?
OK, don’t worry, you are not alone. The heptathlon is the women’s version of the decathlon and comprises the following events:
- 100m hurdles
- High jump
- Shot put
- 200m
- Long jump
- Javelin
- 800m
The first four events are done on the first day and the other three are done on a second day of competition.
While the athletes are extremely capable in all the events, many of them tend to have either a power bias or an endurance bias and therefore tend to do better at either the throwing events or the 800m.
The heptathlon is scored by way of points based on your performance in each event on an absolute scale (not relative to the other competitors) so it is difficult to know whether you have won overall until the calculations have been done.
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Off to a bad start
One of the first things you read about in this book is the nasty knee injury that Denise sustained while still a Junior athlete, competing at the European Junior Championships in Italy in 1989.
She slipped on the take-off board for the long jump and damaged her knee badly, causing an infusion of the knee. It swelled up hugely with blood and fluid. Surgery was needed but this did not happen until the February the following year.
She had over six months without training, followed by a difficult and stressful rehabilitation programme to follow to get her back on her feet.
And then, 18 months after surgery, Denise went back and competed at the European Junior Championships again. She did it by learning to use her other leg as the take-off leg.
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Feel the pressure
Fortunately, Denise had a much better start to her career once she started competing at senior level. At the Commonwealth Games in 1994, in Canada, after the first day of competition, she found herself happy with third position. She woke up on the second day, ready to do the long jump, javelin and 800m to defend her bronze medal.
The long jump went well and only the two other medal-contenders were ahead of her, so the podium looked predictable.
Suddenly, Denise found her groove in the javelin and threw 53.68m, an astounding throw for a heptathlete. This great throw brought her a lot of points and pushed her out into first place, much to the shock of the other competitors and many of the spectators.
The final event, the 800m, put Denise under an enormous amount of pressure. She walked out onto the track feeling as if the gold medal was hers to lose. In fact, the 800m was by far her worst event so there was no way she could even stay with the leaders. The simple strategy was to lose by as little as possible.
Despite this nerve-wracking experience, Denise kept the lead down to around 40m by the end of the race and fended off the challenge to take the gold medal, her first big win in international competition.
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Nutritional advice?
Success in the 1994 Commonwealth Games spurred Denise on to much greater heights. She started working with a nutritionist, who advised her to cut out all fast food, red meat and diary products. All of her food had to be low fat and contain no sugar.
I don’t really know what to say. I guess I’m just happy they figured out that fast food is bad…
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Olympic dreams under threat of injury
In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Denise had a bad run of luck and fouled a number of her attempts in the throwing events. Fortunately, however, her performances were just sufficient to win the bronze, so she did not go home empty handed.
A silver medal in the World Championships the following year spurred Denise on further but another injury, this time to her ankle, held her back. This injury was to continue on and off until just before the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Towards the time when she should have been refining her preparation for the competition, Denise found herself battling an achilles tendon injury, initially thought to be a tear, but eventually discovered to be degeneration caused by inflammation. Strength training for the calf muscles followed, as well as physiotherapy and taping.
Fortunately, Denise was just fit enough to go to Sydney. However, things got off to a bad start. Her high jump just didn’t click and she missed an easy height she would have normally be comfortable with. And things went from bad to worse.
On the second day, as Denise stood up after a long jump attempt, she felt a searing pain in her foot. Urgent physiotherapy followed but she was still in a great deal of pain for the javelin, which came shortly afterwards. Gritting her teeth, she still managed to pull a 48m throw out of the bag, followed by a 50m, which pushed her finally into the lead.
Now, there was just a small matter of the 800m…
Of course, as you already know, Denise was able to hang on to her gold medal position by the skin of her teeth in the 800m, helped in no small part, I am sure, by quite substantial amounts of local painkillers for the foot injury, which had by then been diagnosed as either a stress fracture or severe bruising.
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An exclusive club
Her success puts her into a very small and exclusive club, of female British athletes who have won Olympic gold in track and field. In recent times, I can think of only these four:
- Denise Lewis – heptathlon
- Tessa Sanderson – javelin
- Fatima Whitbread - javelin
- Sally Gunnell – 400m hurdles
Of course, there are plenty of other great female British athletes, including Rebecca Adlington, Victoria Pendleton and Paula Radcliffe. I’m just thinking of track and field here.
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Personal best
Denise Lewis had a short but extremely successful career, which was sadly affected by injury. However, her efforts, bravery and persistence in succeeding despite the injuries are even more inspiring than her great talent. You can tell that when it counted, she definitely gave her very best effort.
You can read all about her winning spirit in her autobiography (affiliate links: UK
