Roger Black and British relay icons finally receive gold medals… 28 YEARS after controversial race tinged with tragedy
Roger Black, Iwan Thomas, Jamie Baulch, Mark Richardson and reserve Mark Hylton finished second in the men's 4x400 metres relay final behind the United States at the 1997 Worlds in Athens.
3
3
The quartet ran a time of 2:56.65 while American sprinters Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Chris Jones and Tyree Washington came home first in 2:56.47 in the Greek capital.
Yet a retrospective anti-doping violation by Pettigrew – in 2008 he was banned for two years after admitting he used prohibited substances – meant the Yanks were belatedly booted out of the event.
This resulted in the Brits being upgraded to the gold medal position but it has taken almost three decades before they got their hands on the gongs.
A special medal ceremony led by World Athletics President Seb Coe took place at the London Stadium on Saturday at 1.30pm on a wet afternoon in Stratford.
And the British national anthem was also played in front of the sell-out crowd.
UK Athletics say the presentation 'offers a long-awaited opportunity to celebrate a landmark moment in British athletics and to honour a team who exemplified fairness, resilience and excellence on the global stage'.
Pettigrew, who was born in Georgia, was caught up in the BALCO doping scandal and admitted during the trial of former coach Trevor Graham that he had doped.
As a result, the US Anti-Doping Agency annulled all of Pettigrew's competitive results after January 1997.
3
He also voluntarily surrendered his 2000 Sydney Olympics 4x400 metres relay gold medal and his 1997 and 1999 world championship relay golds.
In August 2010, Pettigrew was found dead in the backseat of his locked car in North Carolina. He was 42 years old.
An autopsy report said the cause of death was diphenhydramine toxicity – it was ruled that he had committed suicide by overdosing on a drug common to sleeping pills.
One of the reasons it has taken so long to happen is that the five guys had not managed to coordinate diaries for an event taking place in the UK after it was all confirmed in 2021.
Yet there is a bittersweet feeling among the contingent given that Pettigrew felt compelled to take his own life when his drugs shame went public.
Welsh star Baulch, 52, said: 'I've said this to a few people now. 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.'
Former European 400 metres champion Thomas, 51, said: 'On the one hand it's a real shame it's taken this long.
'On a personal level, it's really beautiful today. My son Teddy, who is six, is here today. I didn't have any children back then.
'My mum and dad are pretty elderly now. They're up in the box. For them to be able to see the moment I should have had with the boys 28 years ago, but in front of a British crowd, it felt really special.'
You're Not Alone
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide
It doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It's the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet it's rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You're Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let's all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others… You're Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
CALM, www.thecalmzone.net, 0800 585 858
Heads Together, www.headstogether.org.uk
HUMEN www.wearehumen.org
Mind, www.mind.org.uk, 0300 123 3393
Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org, 0800 068 41 41
Samaritans, www.samaritans.org, 116 123
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
26 minutes ago
- Sky News
Reform UK is on the march - and the most popular party on TikTok. There's just one problem
Reform UK is on the march. Following a barnstorming performance in this year's local elections, they are now the most successful political party on TikTok, engaging younger audiences. But most of their 400,000 followers are men. I was at the local elections launch for Reform in March, looking around for any young women to interview who had come to support the party at its most ambitious rally yet, and I was struggling. A woman wearing a "let's save Britain" hat walked by, and I asked her to help me. "Now you say it, there are more men here," she said. But she wasn't worried, adding: "We'll get the women in." And that probably best sums up Reform's strategy. When Nigel Farage threw his hat into the ring to become an MP for Reform, midway through the general election campaign, they weren't really thinking about the diversity of their base. 1:48 As a result, they attracted a very specific politician. Fewer than 20% of general election candidates for Reform were women, and the five men elected were all white with a median age of 60. Polling shows that best, too. According to YouGov's survey from June 2025, a year on from the election, young women are one of Reform UK's weakest groups, with just 7% supporting Farage's party - half the rate of men in the same age group. The highest support comes from older men, with a considerable amount of over-65s backing Reform - almost 40%. But the party hoped to change all that at the local elections. Time to go pro It was the closing act of Reform's September conference and Farage had his most serious rallying cry: it was time for the party to "professionalise". In an interview with me last year, Farage admitted "no vetting" had occurred for one of his new MPs, James McMurdock. Only a couple of months after he arrived in parliament, it was revealed he had been jailed after being convicted of assaulting his then girlfriend in 2006 while drunk outside a nightclub. McMurdock told me earlier this year: "I would like to do my best to do as little harm to everyone else and at the same time accept that I was a bad person for a moment back then. I'm doing my best to manage the fact that something really regrettable did happen." He has since suspended himself from the party over allegations about his business affairs. He has denied any wrongdoing. 0:40 Later, two women who worked for another of Reform's original MPs, Rupert Lowe, gave "credible" evidence of bullying or harassment by him and his team, according to a report from a KC hired by the party. Lowe denies all wrongdoing and says the claims were retaliation after he criticised Farage in an interview with the Daily Mail, describing his then leader's style as "messianic". The Crown Prosecution Service later said it would not charge Lowe after an investigation. He now sits as an independent MP. 1:04 A breakthrough night But these issues created an image problem and scuppered plans for getting women to join the party. So, in the run-up to the local elections, big changes were made. The first big opportunity presented itself when a by-election was called in Runcorn and Helsby. The party put up Sarah Pochin as a candidate, and she won a nail-biting race by just six votes. Reform effectively doubled their vote share there compared to the general election - jumping to 38% - and brought its first female MP into parliament. And in the Lincolnshire mayoral race - where Andrea Jenkyns was up for the role - they won with 42% of the vote. The council results that night were positive, too, with Reform taking control of 10 local authorities. They brought new recruits into the party - some of whom had never been involved in active politics. 6:11 'The same vibes as Trump' Catherine Becker is one of them and says motherhood, family, and community is at the heart of Reform's offering. It's attracted her to what she calls Reform's "common sense" policies. As Reform's parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Highgate in last year's general election, and now a councillor, she also taps into Reform's strategy of hyper-localism - trying to get candidates to talk about local issues of crime, family, and law and order in the community above everything else. Jess Gill was your quintessential Labour voter: "I'm northern, I'm working class, I'm a woman, based on the current stereotype that would have been the party for me." But when Sir Keir Starmer knelt for Black Lives Matter, she said that was the end of her love affair with the party, and she switched. "Women are fed up of men not being real men," she says. "Starmer is a bit of a wimp, where Nigel Farage is a funny guy - he gives the same vibes as Trump in a way." 'Shy Reformers' But most of Reform's recruits seem to have defected from the Conservative Party, according to the data, and this is where the party sees real opportunity. Anna McGovern was one of those defectors after the astonishing defeat of the Tories in the general election. She thinks there may be "shy Reformers" - women who support the party but are unwilling to speak about it publicly. "You don't see many young women like myself who are publicly saying they support Reform," she says. "I think many people fear that if they publicly say they support Reform, what their friends might think about them. I've faced that before, where people have made assumptions of my beliefs because I've said I support Reform or more right-wing policies." But representation isn't their entire strategy. Reform have pivoted to speaking about controversial topics - the sort they think the female voters they're keen to attract may be particularly attuned to. "Reform are speaking up for women on issues such as transgenderism, defining what a woman is," McGovern says. And since Reform's original five MPs joined parliament, grooming gangs have been mentioned 159 times in the Commons - compared to the previous 13 years when it was mentioned 88 times, despite the scandal first coming to prominence back in 2011. But the pitfall of that strategy is where it could risk alienating other communities. Pochin, Reform's first and only female MP, used her first question in parliament to the prime minister to ask if he would ban the burka - something that isn't Reform policy, but which she says was "punchy" to "get the attention to start the debate". 0:31 'What politics is all about' Alex Philips was the right-hand woman to Farage during the Brexit years. She's still very close to senior officials in Reform and a party member, and tells me these issues present an opportunity. "An issue in politics is a political opportunity and what democracy is for is actually putting a voice to a representation, to concerns of the public. That's what politics is all about." Luke Tryl is the executive director of the More In Common public opinion and polling firm, and says the shift since the local elections is targeted and effective. Reform's newer converts are much more likely to be female, as the party started to realise you can't win a general election without getting the support of effectively half the electorate. "When we speak to women, particularly older women in focus groups, there is a sense that women's issues have been neglected by the traditional mainstream parties," he says. "Particularly issues around women's safety, and women's concerns aren't taken as seriously as they should be. "If Reform could show it takes their concerns seriously, they may well consolidate their support." According to his focus groups, the party's vote share among women aged 18 to 26 shot up in May - jumping from 12% to 21% after the local elections. But the gender divide in right-wing parties is still stark, Tryl says, and representation will remain an uphill battle for a party historically dogged by controversy and clashes. A Reform UK spokesman told Sky News: "Reform is attracting support across all demographics. "Our support with women has surged since the general election a year ago, in that time we have seen Sarah Pochin and Andrea Jenkyns elected in senior roles for the party."
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Inquiry launched after identities of SAS soldiers leaked in fresh data breach
Army leaders have launched an inquiry after the identities of soldiers in the SAS were revealed in a fresh data breach. Details about the elite unit, part of UK Special Forces, are usually kept so secret that its members are barred for life from discussing their involvement unless they receive prior approval. News of the breach comes just days after it emerged the Ministry of Justice had taken out an unprecedented superinjunction after up to 100,000 lives were put at risk of reprisals from the Taliban in a catastrophic data leak. Around 18,700 Afghans who applied for sanctuary in Britain after the withdrawal of western forces in 2021 had their names and contact details exposed after an MoD official emailed a secret database to trusted contacts in February 2022. A number of SAS members and MI6 operatives were also compromised in the major leak. In yet another data lapse, the Sunday Times reported that details of at least 20 Special Forces soldiers recruited from the Grenadier Guards have been publicly available online for a decade. In response, General Sir Roly Walker, the head of the army, has ordered an 'immediate review' of the data sharing arrangements that led to the incident. At least 20 least 20 SAS members have been named by two different regimental publications over more than a decade, according to the newspaper. The Grenadier Guards in-house publication included a roll call of the names and current deployments of its most senior officers. In the latest edition, published last year and available online, the names of ten men in the regiment allegedly appeared next to the codename 'MAB' — shorthand for MoD A Block, which is the site of the UK Special Forces headquarters at the Regent's Park Barracks in London. The codename is well-known in military circles and means enemies would know which soldiers were linked to an elite unit. The breaches were first reported in April and while another regiment removed similar publications, the remaining information on the Guards was only taken down on Friday. Those whose details were compromised have been notified and protected, it is understood. General Sir Roly Walker said: 'The security of our people is of the utmost importance and we take any breach extremely seriously. '[As a result of this incident], I have directed an immediate review into our data sharing arrangements with our regimental and corps associations to ensure appropriate guidance and safeguards are in place to best support the vital work they do.'
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Grinning small boat migrant chronicles his journey across the Channel to the UK - as he films himself celebrating on Blackpool beach after illegally crossing into Britain
A small boat migrant who was helped across the Channel by the French authorities is documenting his 'best life' in Britain on TikTok. Shocking footage filmed by the migrant and posted on the social media platform showed him on a small boat with around 20 other men being given bottles of water by the French coastguard. The group of around 30 men cheer, wave and hold out their hands in thanks to the French boat which travels right next to them to hand over the water. Despite crossings being against the law - and often deadly - the coastguard made no attempt to stop the boat or urge them to return. It was posted on the TikTok of an account of a man, believed to be from Iraq, called Youssef Hassan. He has more than 5,000 followers. The footage of the crossing was posted this week and clearly shows him holding his phone in a selfie position. Another video sees him on the same small boat talking to the camera with people on the boat with him. Young children can be seen in the centre of the boat. His TikTok now shows him enjoying living in Blackpool, Lancashire. The social media giant has been accused of being an 'online travel agent for illegal crossings'. His profile has the phrase: 'I live in peace and I post videos that I shoot for myself and for my personal page. Greetings to everyone.' He has posted numerous videos of him enjoying his time in the Lancashire town, including the iconic Blackpool Tower. He is believed to have travelled through Germany for the boat crossing. He posted videos of him last month in the country. Videos from Blackpool started this month, and include shots of him outside an amusement arcade. One follower urged him to return to Iraq and wrote: 'Go back to your family, living abroad is hard. There is nothing better than Iraq, I swear.' But others wished him well, writing: 'May God protect you, my dear Youssef. Congratulations on your arrival in Britain. God willing your dreams will come true. May God ease your mind and your future. You deserve all the best, my brother.' The migrant was with a group of around 30 men seen cheering, waving and holding out their hands in thanks to the French boat which travels right next to them to hand over the water He replied: 'You are my soul.' Other clips show him outside the Coral Island children's amusement centre in Blackpool. Each has thousands of views. On the clip featuring him on the boat, some followers question how easy and safe it is to make it to Britain on a small boat. One follower boasted how easy it is. He wrote: 'My brother, you will reach Britain, and Britain does not allow rejection and does not allow deportation. 'The English language and work are all Iraqis and it is the best country and trust.' Another commented him to say: 'May God protect you, my dear Youssef. Congratulations on your arrival in Britain. God willing, your dreams will come true. 'May God ease your mind and your future. You deserve all the best, my brother.' Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: 'TikTok is basically an online travel agent for illegal crossings. How on earth is this allowed? 'It's just an online advert to say come to Britain, it's easy and you'll have a great life. It's very worrying.' One source said: 'It looks like this guy is living his best life here in Britain. It's sticking two fingers up to the authorities. 'Not only was he basically helped to get here, he's now living a very good life.' According to the latest government figures at least 21,000 people have embarked on the perilous journey across the Channel since January, putting 2025 on course to be a record year for crossings. Earlier this month, Keir Starmer announced a new pilot scheme that will see migrants arriving via small boat being detained and returned to France. A one-in, one-out system will operate with migrants sent back to France in exchange for asylum seekers. But the scheme could be canned if it is found to be ineffective. The new scheme has been condemned by campaigners, who said they would support court cases brought by small-boat arrivals chosen to be sent back to France. A border union boss said the legal challenges could take a year. Brussels ominously warned that it was assessing whether the scheme complied with the 'spirit and the letter of the law', while governments including Italy were said to be harbouring 'huge doubts' about its legality. Meanwhile Home Secretary Yvette Cooper refused to say how many of the thousands arriving by dinghy will be removed under the pilot scheme, amid fears it could be even fewer than the 50 a week suggested by French officials. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Mail: 'This pathetic arrangement may be sunk by legal challenges from activist lawyers and irresponsible charities who want to facilitate illegal immigration into the UK. 'With illegal immigration across the Channel so far this year hitting record levels, Keir Starmer must now be bitterly regretting his foolish decision to cancel the Rwanda deterrent scheme before it even started. 'After two years of legal challenges and legislation, the scheme was ready to go, but Starmer cancelled it just days before the first plane was due to take off last July. 'This would have enabled 100 per cent of the illegal immigrants to be immediately removed without judicial interference. 'The boats would soon have stopped. But Starmer is too weak and too mentally enslaved by his human rights lawyer friends to do what is needed to protect our country's borders.' Downing Street insisted the controversial 'one in, one out' agreement was legally sound and that Brussels supported it. But fearing that returned migrants could head to Italy, the country's interior minister told Sky News: 'We know the EU Commission is still evaluating the agreement, and EU countries, including us, have huge doubts about security and legal aspects of the deal.' It has been a decade since a sporadic number of boats with migrants on board arriving off the Kent coast from France was reported in the media. At the time, the focus was mainly on the thousands of attempts by migrants in northern France, who were attempting to stowaway on lorries and ferries to the UK. In the nearby Calais Jungle thousands of people, including children, were living under canvass in a camp which was later cleared by the French authorities. But as security was tightened around the ports and Eurotunnel, within three years, significant numbers were using small boats instead to make the dangerous crossing. The cost for a single small boat journey can cost upwards of £1,500 for a single person with no guarantee that the journey will be a success.
