Linford Christie: The Real Story Of Olympic Gold, The Doping Ban & Walking Away (E441)

Linford Christie (0:03)

I own the track. I am the only person that people come out to watch.

Jake Humphrey (0:09)

Britain's Linford Christie won the Olympic 100m gold medal tonight to claim the title of the fastest man on earth.

Damian Hughes (0:15)

You were the best in the world, you Olympic champion. What did you feel?

Linford Christie (0:19)

I feel that if I show too much emotions, then you're going to work me out, and then you're going to know how to beat me. And when I'm on the track, I'm a different person.

Damian Hughes (0:34)

Okay, Linford, welcome to High Performance.

Linford Christie (0:35)

Thank you.

Damian Hughes (0:36)

It's a pleasure of us to have you with us. We want to start with someone that your daughter Brianna said. She said you like to portray yourself as someone who is not affected by anything and that you find it difficult to see the good in what you've achieved. For us, that is an extraordinary thing to hear from an Olympic champion, a world champion, one of the world's greatest ever athletes. So, what we want to do, if you're happy with this, is to understand what you had to build inside you to become the man and what it cost to build that.

Is that okay?

Linford Christie (1:06)

That's fine. I mean, for me, that one of these things is, you can't show weakness or emotions at times. And so, as an athlete, you read people, and I got to know what you're thinking, and there's more to winning than running fast.

And so, I got to know your mind, I got to know what you think on certain days, and how you're going to react and everything else. And so, I feel that if I show too much emotions, then you're going to work me out, and then you're going to know how to beat me.

SPEAKER_4 (1:37)

Well, you look palpably uncomfortable then when Jake read that introduction to you.

Linford Christie (1:42)

I'm trying to give away secret. Well, that's what, I mean, virtually that's what it is. It's not that I don't feel all these things, but you have to hide it. And I was saying to Sue on the way here, we were talking about certain things, and I was saying, we're gladiators.

And it's between us and the lion. And the lion, the lion ain't thinking the same way as us. They want to survive the same way. So if I show, you know, fear and everything, animals read all those sort of things, and it's just like athletes, athletes read you. And so you have to, you know, block all that out and not show it.

Damian Hughes (2:21)

So when did you first realize that allowing other people to see your emotions could be detrimental to your performance?

Linford Christie (2:28)

Gosh, I don't even know if I realized, you know, sometimes they say experience makes the man. And I think sometimes, you know, in order to be something, you have to go through something. And so we make mistakes in life, but if we learn from it, it becomes an experience. And so if you don't, it stays a mistake. So, you know, my thing is, I just want to have as many experiences as possible.

And a few mistakes. So it's just one of these things when you go through things and you get beat a couple of times and everything else, and you're thinking, yeah, I've got to reinvent myself. What do I need to do to make me better than, you know, the next guy? And that's what you got to do.

Damian Hughes (3:08)

So when was that? Was that after 1984 when things didn't go your way?

Linford Christie (3:12)

Gosh, I mean, I think most probably 1984 was one of those things. But you know, there's a couple of times even after that, you know, I sit down in races and I lose.

I lose a race which I never thought I should. You know, one day, I mean, I lost the race and I sat down and I cried. I sat in the court and I cried. I said, this will never ever happen again.

SPEAKER_4 (3:33)

What happened after the tears had dried up?

Linford Christie (3:37)

Well, I decided I was never going to lose like that again. I decided, you know, I thought I was good. And maybe I really wasn't as good as I thought I was, you know? And it's these things. And so you go back. It's like, for example, I went to, I think it was the 91 World Champs. And I thought I was doing really well until, gosh, Carl Lewis came on my shoulder. He went past me. Leroy Borrow came past me. And Dennis Mitchell, you know? And I thinking, maybe this is how good I was going to be. And, you know, I ran the four fastest time ever.