Roger Black finally receives gold medal after 28-year wait for justice

Telegraph

a day ago

Just five months after life-saving heart surgery, Roger Black returned to centre stage at the 60,000-sell out London Diamond League on Saturday to collect a second World Championship gold.
The 4x400m Great Britain relay team of 1997, which also included Iwan Thomas, Jamie Baulch, Mark Richardson and Mark Hylton, were belatedly upgraded to gold after the American sprinter Antonio Pettigrew admitted doping, but had never previously received their rightful medals.
That changed at the London Stadium when, to a standing ovation, gold medals were presented by World Athletics president Lord Coe and God Save The King rang out inside the arena that also hosted the 2012 London Olympics. In what has become the world's biggest single day athletics event, Georgia Hunter Bell and Charlie Dobson later followed up with superb British victories in the women's 800m and men's 400m.
Charlie Dobson what a finish 🤯
Powering through to take the men's 400m final in a new personal best of 44.14s 🙌 @BritAthletics #LondonDL pic.twitter.com/4yhdDqbfpd
— Team GB (@TeamGB) July 19, 2025
The ever popular Black, who was also part of the British team that won the 4x400m World Championship gold in 1991, revealed that he is still recovering well following major surgery in February to have a new heart valve and part of his aorta – the main vessel that transports blood from the heart – removed. Black, who turns 60 next year, spent 12 hours under anaesthetic in Southampton General Hospital. 'It was really tough,' he said. 'Now I feel great and much better. I'm not 100 per cent there, but pretty good.'
Pettigrew admitted taking performance enhancing drugs in 2008 at the trial of the coach Trevor Graham, and died by suicide in 2010. 'If there was an option of giving this gold medal to him, I'd rather him have the gold medal than him taking his life – his life is far more important to me than me having this gold medal,' said Baulch.
Thomas said that it was a 'shame' that it had taken so long for the British team to receive their medals but was happy that it meant his six-year-old son, Teddy, could be present. 'My mum and dad are pretty elderly now – they're up in the box,' he said. 'For them to be able to see the moment I should have had with the boys 28 years ago, in front of a British crowd, felt really special.'
Hunter Bell, who produced one of the fairytale Olympic stories last summer by going from running parkrun months earlier to making the 1500m podium, took her second Diamond League win of the summer over 800m.
With training partner Keely Hodgkinson still yet to race since winning Olympic gold over that same distance, Hunter Bell is emerging as a major threat at the World Championship in September.
'You've obviously got to just look strategically at the events,' said Hunter Bell, who is considering running both the 1500m and 800m.
Hunter Bell, whose winning time of 1min 56.74sec is the second-fastest in the world this year, said that Hodgkinson was 'working her way back' following the hamstring injury that has curtailed her season.
Georgia Hunter Bell takes first in the women's 800m with 1:56:74, her season best! 👏 pic.twitter.com/ltPWYqPJA8
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 19, 2025
On a day when the Government pledged £45 million of public money for a bid to host the World Athletics Championships in 2029, Dobson upset British team-mate Matthew Hudson-Smith to win the 400m in 44.14sec. Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles was also beaten by Oblique Seville in the 100m while Josh Kerr, Britain's Olympic 1500m champion, lost out to the 18-year-old Kenyan sensation Phanuel Koech.
Kerr, though, was bullish about British chances of keeping the world 1500m title following his win in Budapest in 2023 and Jake Wightman's triumph in 2022. 'The title lives here and it will continue to live here for the next year,' he said. Max Burgin also finished third in the 800m, running what was the third fastest ever time by a Briton in 1min 42.35sec.