Olympic heroes, No 4: Daley Thompson

MENTION the name and we automatically hark back to Britain’s domination of track and field in the 1980s – in Thompson’s case, decathlon.

And Francis Morgan Ayodele “Daley” Thompson did just that. With a Nigerian father and a mother from Dundee, he won decathlon gold at the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. Just for good measure, he broke the world points record for the event four times. Let’s not forget his record in the Commonwealth Games, either – three gold medals including one at the 1986 games in Edinburgh along with a silver in the 4x100 metres relay, plus gold in Helsinki during the 1983 World Championships. Not too shabby. By the time he suffered defeat inthe 1987 World Championships, he had gone unbeaten for seven years.

After retiring from athletics in 1992 he turned his hand to other sports, playing for Mansfield Town and lending his name to computer games.