Blog: Ace

Olympic Greats - Dame Kelly Holmes

Kelly Holmes became the first British female athlete to win two gold medals at the same Olympics when she did the middle distance double at Athens 2004.

A talented athlete as a youngster, she won the National Schools 1500m title in 1983 but after receiving her junior international vest, she took a step back from Athletics to join the army. In the forces she played Judo and Volleyball and became a physical training instructor.

After watching the Barcelona Olympics on television, she decided to try and return to elite level athletics and in 1994 she took 1500m Commonwealth gold and European silver.

In 1995 she made the breakthrough at world level, with 1500m silver and 800m bronze at the IAAF World Championships in Gothenburg but that was only the prelude to years of heartbreak.

In 1997 she broke down injured in the heats at the IAAF World Championships in, of all places, Athens.

Although she won Commonwealth gold again in 2002, this time in front of a home crowd in Manchester, it seemed as though her 800m Olympic bronze at Sydney 2000 would be the high watermark of her Olympic achievements. However, all those who had doubted were silenced by a truly Herculean peformance in Athens.

A runaway winner of the BBC Sports personality of the Year award, she was honoured by some 30 organisations including the Sports Journalists Association of Great Britain and the Association Internationale Presse Sportive.

She became a Dame in the 2005 New Year Honours List but retired from competition after injury returned to force her out of the World Championships.

An ambassador for London 2012, she also mentors aspiring athletes. Visit www.oncampwithkelly.co.uk or www.doublegold.co.uk to find out more.

by Ace on 11:29 on 14th July 2008