Still Running (weakly). Issue 155

PAST – inspiration – “And Jenkins has got a lot to do,” intoned David Coleman, as David Jenkins of Great Britain closed on the Finn and the Frenchman in front of him with 300 metres to go on the final lap of the 4x400 relay at the 1974 European Championships in Rome.  It’s on YouTube.

Jenkins was my hero.  He had won the individual 400 gold in the 1971 edition of these games in Helsinki, had run a marvellous anchor leg to claim relay silver in the Munich Olympics of 1972, and had won individual silver here behind Karl Honz of West Germany, who can be seen in fourth place for most of that last lap of the 1974 relay.

Jenkins would go on to set another British record in winning the American 400 title in 1975 (44.93) but he disappointed in the Olympics of Montreal 1976 and Moscow 1980, coming 7th on each occasion.  But he was part of the Scottish team that won the Commonwealth 4x100 gold in 1978 and the British team that won the European 4x400 silver in 1982.

I remember watching him one day at Crystal Palace during an international competition when he won the match 200 metres, an invitation 100 and contributed to the GB winning 4x400 team!

However, in 1988, he received a 7-year jail sentence in the US for drug (steroid) smuggling, admitting to using the illegal performance-enhancing drugs in his own career from about 1976.

He was my hero no more.

PRESENT – perspiration – Jenkins’s brother, Roger, is another interesting character.  He also competed in the 400 metres for Scotland and Britain between 1973 and 1978, without reaching his brother’s level of success, just winning a silver medal in the World Student Games in 1975.

He then went into finance.  His nicknames – “Roger the Dodger,” “Big Dog” and “King of the Double Dip” give you some idea of his activity.  He was called “Roger the Dodger” in the City of London for his mastery of complex, cross-border tax avoidance schemes.  A 2006 investigation by The Wall Street Journal alleged that in 2003 Jenkins and his team had set up a company co-owned by Barclays and a US bank, which was incorporated in Delaware, but also had a London address and British directors.  Although the company had no employees, products or customers, in 2004 it registered pretax profits of $317 million from assets such as Danish mortgage securities and US Treasuries, on which it paid UK taxes of $94 million.

According to the WSJ, thanks to “elaborate structure and cash flows,” both Barclays and the US bank were able to take credit for a full payment of the tax, meaning the $94 million could be claimed twice (hence "double dip".)

Jenkins is said to have earned about £40 million in 2005, making him reputedly the highest paid banker in the City of London.  Such success was overshadowed in many people’s eyes by the macho culture that he allegedly created, encouraging his teams to act extremely aggressively and, when they did not, summoning them to his office to be summarily dismissed.

FUTURE – suggestion – Neil Jenkins (no relation) was the first rugby player to score 1,000 points in international matches for Wales and the British Lions.  The son of a scrap dealer from Pontypridd, he rose to become one of the most respected and recognisable figures in the game.  On Friday 27th October 2000, he received his MBE from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in the morning before being helicoptered back to Cardiff for a midday kick-off, to score all 24 points in his club’s 24-14 win over Saracens!

Since retiring in 2003, he has been part of the Wales coaching setup as Kicking and Skills Coach, and can often be seen acting as the water carrier, running onto the pitch during internationals to offer the Welsh goalkicker hydration, hints and help – demonstrating a humility that one cannot imagine either of his namesakes possessing.

Humility is a somewhat undervalued and all too rarely remarked-upon quality in sportspeople, partly because most such acts, by their very nature, go unnoticed. 

I remember that, when Frenchman Gerard Lelievre set a world 20km race walking record back in the 70s, Athletics Weekly published a short profile of the man, which finished with the detail that, at one track race in provincial France, the world record holder could be seen pushing a measuring wheel round the circuit to ensure that the competitors were credited with exactly the correct distance.

One would not immediately look to football’s millionaire egos for displays of humility, but Erling Haaland, of all people, does seem to be an exception that proves the rule.  This is all anecdotal of course, but one video does show him handing the kit man his warmup bib when all of his Man City colleagues are throwing theirs on the ground.

And perhaps now is an apposite moment to recommend the humble act of volunteering – whether that is at parkrun, your club’s own race or indeed anywhere that needs an extra pair of hands – and who doesn’t?

Volunteering is a great way to help the event go ahead smoothly and safely, to give something back to our athletics infrastructure and to feel good about yourself – in a humble sort of way, of course!