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Tyrone Edgar is set to go up against the world’s top sprinters in Beijing. Inset, Tyrone as a boy |
Olympics ace Tyrone was a fast learner!
Mum tells how she was ‘stunned’ the first time she saw Beijing 100 metres sprint star run
WHEN Tyrone Edgar settles into the starting blocks at the Beijing Olympics early tomorrow (Friday) morning he will be fulfilling a life-long dream that started at his family home in Somers Town more than 15 years ago.
The £300 million Bird’s Nest stadium, with its 91,000 capacity, is a far cry from the Somers Town Community Sports Centre in Chalton Street where he worked and trained as a schoolboy.
Now 26, Tyrone is making a fairytale appearance in the 100 metres heats in a bid to become the fastest man in the world and bring the gold medal back to his family, who have backed him all the way.
His mum Rita a bus driver, told the New Journal: “Tyrone has done so well. We are all so proud. He has trained really, really hard all of his life to get to the Olympics. It has always been his dream, ever since he was a boy running on Parliament Hill.”
Tyrone’s fastest time this year is 10.06 seconds – the world record is held by the Jamaican Usain Bolt at 9.72 – and he will have to make it through four qualifying rounds to reach the final.
But back in Somers Town, everybody has their fingers crossed for him.
Tyrone, who most recently trained in Los Angeles, was confirmed in Team GB when Dwain Chambers lost a High Court appeal to overturn a lifetime Olympic ban for using performance-enhancing drugs. When he heard the judge’s verdict, the first thing Tyrone did was call his mum.
Rita said: “Tyrone rang up and said, ‘Mum – that’s my dream. My dream is going to happen’. I said to him, ‘just do your best’. He would have been totally devastated if he had not got in.”
Tyrone was born in south London before moving to Drummond Crescent in Somers Town, aged five. He attended St Aloysius Catholic infant and junior schools in Somers Town and then the secondary school in Highgate.
Rita said: “When he was 12 or 13, I took him to a family sports day at Parliament Hill and I was really stunned when I saw the way he ran. He was always such a quiet child. The coach asked me if he was in a club. He wasn’t, so he joined the Highgate Harriers.”
Tyrone was later spotted by javelin gold-medal winner Tessa Sanderson and sent for special training in the United States.
Rita, who has filled her lounge room with Tyrone’s trophies, said he was fiercely driven as a teenager.
“I didn’t have to wake him up in the morning for training – he would go of his own accord,” she said. “Sometimes I’d see him in bed in the morning and say ‘no training today’ and he’d reply ‘I’ve already been, mum.
“I’d like to thank everyone here in Somers Town who supported Tyrone over the years.”
Tyrone will be 30 when the Olympic torch comes to London in 2012.
Rita added: “I’m sure if he is capable he will go. After that, I think he will start coaching the younger generation.” |
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