Welshman DAI GREENE is the world champion of athletics’ toughest track event, the 400m hurdles, and a favourite to win gold at London 2012, where he’ll channel 10 years’ work into the most important three quarters of a minute of his life.
Dai Greene is sitting on a bench outside the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels on a still September evening, gulping down water and catching his breath. Just a few minutes ago he was in the floodlit stadium, competing in the 400m hurdles. He came second, but in doing so won the 2011 Diamond Race in his event – for the best overall set of results at the 14 Diamond League meetings, world athletics’ season-long competition – and the $40,000 prize that comes with it. Now he sits listening to the muted roar of the 50,000-strong crowd inside, a grin spreading across his face.
At one time, winning the Diamond League, not least defeating former world champions Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson of the USA in the process, would have been the highlight of Greene’s season, but his incredible recent results have relegated it to ‘cherry on the cake’ status. His smile has far more to do with the fact this is the last race of the year, ending a 14-month period that has seen him make his mark as one of the world’s best track athletes over any distance.
In 2010, Greene became both European and Commonwealth champion and then, just two weeks before coming to Brussels, he took the title he had been working towards all his professional life when he became world champion in Daegu, Korea. The fortnight since has been
a whirlwind of media appointments and appearances back in the UK, and his first taste of life as a celebrity sportsman.
“A few days after I got back from Daegu I was on the M5 and thought, ‘Oh I’ll stop and get a McDonald’s,’” he says in strong Welsh tones. “I never usually eat there, but after winning the World Champs I felt like I deserved it. Then just as I’d sat down with a Quarter Pounder, McChicken Sandwich, fries, the whole lot, a guy came up to me and said ‘Are you…?’ and I thought, ‘Oh you’re kidding me!’ I said shamefully, ‘Yeah I’m Dai Greene and I don’t always do this.’ I mean, God, why can’t people recognise me when I’m soaked from training in the rain? It has to be when I’m stuffing a Big Mac down my face!”
Read the full story in December's issue of The Red Bulletin.
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