This was my first Olympics. I was 32 years old. Beforehand, the one thing I said that I must not do is finish the race thinking: “I wish I’d done this.” Later on, when we got to about 21-22 miles, I’d expected De Castella or somebody to push really hard. I was mentally ready for it but I looked around the group and no one else was going to push. This is a very typical example and the MSM are always happy to augment it and add to the fearmongering. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/boris-johnson-says-he-wants-to-relax-2-metre-physical-distancing-rule No one went crazy at the start which was good because it was pretty hot," recalled Charlie. "I got to 20 kilometres and was waiting for de Castella to make his move but when I looked round he wasn't even there and I thought it was time to get rid of some of the others so I started shaking it up. Which is also why Magee’s commentary – recalling Ireland’s 12 previous Olympic medal winners in the time it took Treacy to run the final 100 metres – was so magnificent: he did realise, about a mile from the finish, that Treacy was going to medal, unless he collapsed, and yet his astonishing display of sporting memory took Treacy’s achievement straight into the sporting pantheon where it belonged.

Spedding was 32 years of age and the first eight months of 1984 were pure vintage for a County Durham long-distance runner who held down a day job before shamateurism gave way to full blooded professional millionaires.In my view the medical profession lies somewhere far below journalism and estate agents in the moral integrity stakes. This was a man killer, run in searing temperatures that touched 110 degrees but Spedding unbelievably defeated Australia's world champion Rob de Castella, Japan's Toshihiko Seko and world record holder Alberto Salazar of the USA.

As has been described elsewhere in this blog, 95% (at least in UK, and seemingly true elsewhere) of deaths have occurred in subjects with one or more serious conditions: diabetes, dementia, chronic pulmonary disease, chronic renal disease being top four. In those grey days between amateurism and professionalism athletes were allowed to run for cash - but they couldn't spend it. As for Spedding, there was no shame in finishing second to Jones, although understandably he wasn't too keen to embrace the victor come the end of the race: "I didn't shake hands with him at the finish, but that wasn't because he had beaten me," which was fair enough considering Jones's caught-short moment. I might easily have run in the 10,000 metres myself if I'd blown up in Houston. But as it was Mike finished third in the final and ended up with the silver medal when the Finn Martti Vainio was found to be a drugs cheat and I ran the race of my life in the marathon."

We got changed at the Coatsworth Road Junior School," recalled Charlie. "There were no showers when you came in sweaty from a 10-mile run, only washbasins which were about a foot off the floor and tiny. And only cold water. We weren't pampered in those days, I can tell you!