As we had duelled at the front, Moroccan Hasna Benhassi and Jolanda Ceplak were storming up behind.
The three of us crossed the line together. My instinct was that I had got across first. But I wasn’t sure. For a few seconds, everything seemed to go into slow motion as I looked around for confirmation.
It didn’t come from the big screen or the trackside clock. Instead it was when one of the British press photographers. I glanced across and he was jumping up and down in celebration, telling me I had won.
We spoke later and he said seeing me win close up was the best night of his life, but also the worst as he got so caught up in the moment that he missed getting any pictures of the winning moment.
He certainly had an accurate eye and sense of timing though. I had won, if only by five hundredths of a second.
By 02:00 on the morning after winning Olympic gold, some champions might have been sipping champagne. About that time I was shivering in an ice bath, admittedly with the medal around my neck.
I slept with it on my pillow as well, but come the morning it was time for stage two of the plan. I put it in a box, out of sight and out of mind, and pretended I hadn’t won it.
I wasn’t the only one keeping up this pretence. On one of the few days off between the 800m and 1500m final, I went to catch up with some friends and family in one of the private lounges that Team GB had set up.
Before I arrived, unbeknown to me, they had swept the lounge to get rid of all the British newspapers that used to be left about for people to read. They didn’t want me seeing myself staring out of all the front pages and being spooked by the all the attention that was brewing back in the UK.
Whether it was their efforts or not, the 1500m final was an almost surreally calm
sununubah 