If you could take drugs to help you win, would you? “There’s one thing talking tough about drugs. It’s another thing all together acting tough on drugs”. Toni is in the media again for holding to his views that the world’s approach to drug testing in sport needs to change. Radically. It may not be [...]
Toni is contemplating ironing his jeans. He’s about to head to the Kombank Arena in Belgrade to continue his punditry role for the BBC at the European Athletics Indoor Championships. I ask if he’s planning on incorporating a nice sharp crease down the front of his denim. He chuckles, “No, but I saw my piece [...]
It's been a momentous couple of weeks for Toni and Jess. Toni celebrated his 50th birthday at a restaurant in Sheffield surrounded by family, friends and athletes. And me. It was a surprise party - mainly planned as a surprise I suspect to restrict Toni's speech to less than thirty minutes. He duly obliged and [...]
This week’s blog is our second ever guest submission. This one is from Conor Ryan. Conor, who has been working behind the scenes on the project, put his running shoes on last weekend to help Toni deliver a training session to a select few backers from our Kickstarter campaign. Here are his reflections on the [...]
After months of designing, editing, proofreading and all round worrying, the book of the blog was printed last week. But that wasn’t the end of it. There was a problem with the print job so our lovely printers had to start all over again. This meant that the day Mark and I visited Toni and [...]
This weeks’ post was going to include a range of topics as diverse as Californian athletes, photocopiers and cheap hotel rooms. Then on Thursday Mark sent me an article written by Jim White of The Telegraph. I duly sent the article to Toni who was unaware of it and thus suitably bowled over by Jim’s [...]
After the memories, the interviews and the kind words, the night that closes in on Jess’ career gives way to a new, slightly colder dawn. In less poetic prose, what the hell is Toni going to do now? It’s a question that has been posed to him many times over the last week. As he [...]
Although I knew it was coming there’s still a slight judder of shock when I read Jess’ announcement of her retirement. I guess I still cherished a hope that she’d compete in London 2017 and retain her world title on home soil. Not that I’m selfish or anything but it had a certain poetic symmetry [...]
I hinted last week that things were getting back to the way they were. Seems I was right. This is what happens when Toni answers the phone, “Bonjour fella, call that an abs exercise? I can't let that lie. Is that meant to be an abs exercise? Paul does it does he? How old is [...]
Toni Gets His Own Medal It’s been two and half days at University this week for Toni. The rest of the time has been looking after his partner who is recovering from an operation on her foot that has, in turn, necessitated some healthy doses of daddy day care. I suspect the Olympics feels like [...]