Tag Archives: Alan Wells

Mo.

The sweat pours wistfully from your brow

and like many before you,

Thompson backflip, Coe eminence,

Ovett working class maverick, Wells

my hero at the age of nine, dipping head

on the line, Lyndon Davies grace in the air,

sand undisturbed, Sean Kerly, an honour

to have met before he won Gold,

David Wilkie years after he became an icon,

Steve Redgrave, Linford Christie, Matthew Pinsett,

ninety six disappointment, crushed memories,

weightless and unimpressed, my own failure

at the heart of it…

Kelly Holmes resurgent, beautiful, bold and a queen

(208 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

Alan Wells

was a hero of mine when I was younger,

when I first realised

what the Olympics meant,

what it could inspire,

what it could be

if not allowed to be dominated

by politics and cheats

or death’s unfavourable hand;

the dip

of the head at the line,

something I loved.

Nearly forty years on,

past the excuse of the biggest cheat

of them all, an athlete that destroyed

my faith, past vainglorious,

past deception and onto spectacle,

onto breathing legend and admiration

(130 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)