Kelly Holmes

Kelly Holmes grew up in Kent, the daughter of a young single mother, and was a promising junior runner before she gave up athletics at 17 to join the army. She drove lorries, then trained as a physical training instructor, and rose to sergeant. It was watching the 1992 Olympics on a television in the barracks that convinced her to try again.

She combined army duties with running until 1997 and won medals at Commonwealth and world level, but her body kept breaking. Stress fractures, calf tears and Achilles problems cost her season after season. She took bronze in the 800 metres at Sydney in 2000 while barely fit, and by 2003, alone in a training camp in France with another injury, she was cutting herself with scissors in the bathroom. She told no one for years.

Athens in 2004 was her last realistic chance. She arrived unsure whether to run the 800 metres at all, then won it in the final strides, her eyes wide with disbelief in a photograph that became famous. Five days later she won the 1500 metres too, becoming the first British woman to take two golds at the same Games. She was 34.

She was made a Dame in 2005 and later set up a charity mentoring young athletes. She spoke publicly about her self-harm in her autobiography and, in 2022, about being gay, something she had hidden since her army days when it was still a sacking offence.