Heptathlon: Britain’s Denise Lewis beats injury to win gold

It was painful to watch, and doubtless painful to achieve, but in the end injury-hit Denise Lewis had just enough left to win the heptathlon gold for Britain on Monday night.

For the hour before the last, deciding, heat of the 800m rumour swept around the stadium that Lewis would withdraw from the contest, hit by an injury in the long jump.

But head coach Max Jones dismissed the rumours as "utter rubbish" and when the lead athletes emerged for the final heat she was among them.

From the beginning of the heat Russia's Yelena Prokhorova hit the front, stretching the field in a brave attempt to snatch gold.

Lewis by comparison seemed to be plodding around the track, and at the end of the race was also overtaken by Natalya Sazanovich of Belarus.

But moments later the confirmation came through that she had stayed close enough to them to take the gold, 53 points ahead of Prokhorova with Sazanovich a further four points behind in the bronze medal position.

Only Mary Rand, Ann Packer, Peters, Tessa Sanderson and Sally Gunnell among British women in track and field have clinched the most prestigious five ounces of metal in sport since the Second World War.

That is the measure of Lewis' heptathlon achievement and, as she struggled down the final straight of the gruelling 800m, the final event she hates, with an Achilles injury she had kept secret for two months, you could but marvel at the tenacity and will-to-win which sets her apart among British women athletes.

Forget that she finished seventh out of eight in that last defining event. She had already displayed courage enough in the other six disciplines over two days which make up the most gruelling event in the women's athletics calendar. Such bravery, such relentless determination, such a wonderful boost for the cause of British sportswomen.

Just like Peters all those years ago she did not know if she had won for a full agonising minute during which she shook her head while the complex scoring procedure of this exacting discipline was checked.

Two of her opponents hugged and congratulated her. She whispered a polite "thank you" but still it seemed she did not believe until the stadium announcer called her name and uttered those words - 'first, and gold medal winner, Denise Lewis'.

She raised both palms to the night air in a gesture of thanks to a higher authority and then at last there was that famous flashing smile, as warm and bright as the Olympic flame raging above against the black sky.

And off she set on her lap of honour, draped in the Union Jack, seeking out her mum and friends in the crowd and throwing her running shoes as a prized souvenir to two lucky fans.

And we forgot the downpour which turned a balmy Sydney spring into a chilly Birmingham evening, because for Britain this truly was the day it rained gold. Just hours earlier the Men's Eight had won Britain's second gold in rowing to go with the first medal ever won by British women, a silver, in the quadruple sculls.

Already, Britain has matched the gold medal tally of the previous four Olympics before Atlanta. Already the total medal haul four years ago has been eclipsed.

Driving on Lewis, at least in some measure, were perhaps the comments of double Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson, who had claimed after she won bronze in Atlanta that she did not train seriously enough.

But even allowing for the blue and clingy one-armed piece she wore to fling the javelin earlier there was nothing flashy about Lewis' performance.

Just honest guts, controlled technique, spirit aplenty and perhaps, if we are honest, the injury suffered by her chief rival Eunice Barber.

It left Peters, watching in the stands, acclaiming the girl who was born just one week before she had enjoyed her own moment of glory.

"I'm absolutely thrilled and still shaking all over with emotion," said Peters. "I was on the far side with all the Union Jacks. I knew she was born a week before I won my gold medal. It's fantastic."

So it was - on the day it rained gold.

- INDEPENDENT