But that never happened to me. I’ve always gone where I was aiming. I’ve been the luckiest bloke in the world.” Luckiest?
During the 1980s, Thompson powered to two Olympic decathlon gold medals, broke the world record four times and remained unbeaten for nine extraordinary years. Along the way, self-doubt, like his opponents, was conquered and vanquished. That wasn’t luck, it was talent and unyielding willpower.
Underpinning it all was a work ethic that made Stakhanov look like a slacker. Thompson trained 20 times a week. And, famously, when he heard that his great German rival Jürgen Hingsen trained on Christmas Day, he made sure he did two sessions.
Back then, millions of Britons regarded Thompson as the closest thing to a real-life superhero, voting him the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year in 1982 and revelling in his triumphs. So it remains an enduring mystery that – unlike Britain’s only other three multi-event Olympic track and field champions, Dame Mary Peters, Dame Denise Lewis and Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill – Thompson’s achievements were not rewarded with a knighthood. Does he ever wish he was Sir Daley?
But it’s not going to change my life, honestly.” Why do you think you haven’t got one? But the long-standing suspicion is that the controversy that followed Thompson’s brilliant second Olympic gold medal, in 1984, is to blame. Having whistled to the national anthem, he then wore a T-shirt to the press conference afterwards that asked “Is the world’s second greatest athlete gay?” – an apparent reference to Carl Lewis – before joking that he would like to have Princess Anne’s babies.
Writing for the Guardian from Los Angeles, Charlie Burgess began his report with seven words that proved prescient. These were different times, we suggest to Thompson, as he mulls over his decision to wear that T-shirt. That is the question,” he replies, before answering it himself.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
