London gold will be ‘best ever’ says ‘92 hero Christie

LINFORD Christie says a gold medal in this summer’s London Olympic Games will eclipse his achievement in Barcelona.

The former world champion visited Worksop on Saturday with his Street Athletics organisation to promote sporting participation to the area’s young people, 20 years after winning 100m gold.

Before starting a series of 60m kids races, he spoke to the Guardian about this summer’s Olympic Games and said he hopes there will be lasting impact for the people of Britain.

“The legacy I would hope would be the great facilities, getting the kids and getting the people into them,” he said.

“There’s no use having them if people can’t get access to the facilities or afford to go in there.”

He also predicted that the Great Britain athletes will be feeling the nerves ahead of the Olympic trials this weekend, but the rewards would be rich if they went on to take gold at the Games.

He said: “They’ll be getting very nervous. They pick the athletics team next week.”

“You always want an extra week to train and prepare so they’ll be getting nervous and praying for great weather for the trials.”

“But once the Olympics come round the nerves will go and everyone will be excited and raring to go.”

“The support they’re going to get from the British crowd will be second to none.”

“Anyone who wins gold on home soil – it’s going to be the biggest thing ever, better than when I won in Barcelona, better than everything that’s gone before.”

“It’s on home soil, in front of your home crowd, the euphoria will be twice as big as anything else.”

For full coverage of Saturday’s Street Athletics event see this Friday’s Worksop Guardian.