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Athletics legend Derek Redmond aged 59 set for return to TWO sports – 33 years on from iconic Olympic moment
Legend has had amazing highs and one famous low over five decades but isn't finished yet
THIRTY-THREE years on from THAT iconic Olympic moment, Derek Redmond is not ready to limp off into the sporting sunset.
The British sprinter tearing his right hamstring in Barcelona and being helped along the track by his dad, Jim, has gone down in history.
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Footage of him in agony, trying to finish the 400 metres semi-final on one leg despite officials attempting to usher him off the track, has been viewed more than 100MILLION times on YouTube.
Yet ’s life is so much richer and more interesting than that one incident — and there is still lingering frustration that he failed to make the final!
Six months before turning 60, he has two burning aspirations.
The first is to train for a final white-collar boxing bout, preferably “against somebody my weight and my ability — and if that person happens to be 20 or 50, so be it”.
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His second dream is to play for Britain’s over-55 basketball side at the FIMBA World Championships in June in Ticino, Switzerland.
Redmond said: “Why am I doing all this?
“I suppose the easiest answer is I’m not a pipe and slippers guy.
“I’ve never really stopped competing in some form of sport since Barcelona.
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“There’s something quite cool and nostalgic about pulling on a British vest again and that excites me.
One of the coaching staff contacted me and said, ‘Are you still playing basketball, would you be interested in having a conversation about this?’.
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“As soon as he said that, I saw it as another challenge.
“Last August it was rubber-stamped and they said, ‘You’re in the squad’.
“I’m one of these people who never say never. You never know what might happen around the corner.”
Redmond’s preparations were hindered by a sore Achilles in the first training camp and then a pulled hamstring — but not THAT hamstring, the left one.
Redmond, who is based in Northamptonshire, added: “I guess I have to manage my body a lot more cautiously at 59 than I did aged 19 and 29.
“As you get older, you also have to train a lot smarter, which I’m starting to do.
“I’m a former Olympic athlete but I get out of breath doing my shoelaces just like any normal person.
“I’m not Superman. But it really comes down to your attitude.
“I don’t look nearly 60. I don’t act 60 and don’t dress 60.
“It’s a state of mind. If you feel like, ‘Oh God, I’m now 60, that’s it, it’s all over’ then what you think is what your body will generate into.
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“I’m proud of the fact that when I’m on stage for my motivational speaking and I reveal my age, people say, ‘You’re what? 59?’.
“Being 60 in 2025 is like being 40 . . . 45 years ago.”
Redmond — whose father died in October 2022, aged 81 — became a 4x400m relay world champion alongside Roger Black, John Regis and Kriss Akabusi in Tokyo in 1991.
Following athletics and various surgeries, he played professional basketball for Birmingham Bullets and England, was an international motorcycle racing team co-owner and survived the challenge of Celebrity Gladiators.
There were also stints in rugby sevens, kick-boxing and amateur boxing and he now goes clay pigeon shooting up to twice a week.
All these experiences will come in handy when he is shooting hoops for his country.
Redmond, a dad of four and grandad of five, said: “I don’t want to be there because my name is Derek Redmond.
“I want to go there and add my bit to the team.
“I’m hoping to bring a little bit of international competition experience — albeit mainly from different sports.
“I’m not the world’s best three-point shooter. I’m not putting in bombs from anywhere on the court. I’m not Michael Jordan!
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“But I’m not going to put myself through all this, all the injuries and problems, just to make up the numbers.”
- Derek Redmond is now Head of Training & Development at Champions (UK) plc
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