athens memories soar above lows well it s goodbye to another olympic year and as usual there were plenty of highs and lows in athens obviously there s no getting away from the differing fortunes of kelly holmes and paula radcliffe but i want to remind you of a few more events that made 2004 another year to remember or forget for athletics one of my favourite olympic moments was kelly s success in the 800m winning that race was the key to her success because if she won that then the 1500m would be a bit of a formality kelly had been full of should i shouldn t i thoughts about going for the double in athens i thought why wouldn t you do the 800m it s your best event it was such good fun to commentate on her 1500m and it was nice to be able to be part of her athens story the victory for the british men s 4x100m relay team was a bit of a surprise but a great climax to the games i think the four of them jason gardener darren campbell marlon devonish and mark lewisfrancis knew deep down that it was their best chance of a medal the lads had run poorly in the individual sprints so maybe they did lift their game when they knew something was really at stake hicham el guerrouj s olympic double is a much bigger achievement than kelly s on a global scale he was the first man since for 80 years to win both the 1500m and 5 000m titles as soon as he had added the 5 000m crown and i had finished commentating i jumped up ran down the stairs pushed everyone out the way and just gave him a big hug he is one of the few african runners who has embraced the tradition of the mile and he loves to hear all the roger bannister stories hicham is someone i enjoy having a bit of time with even though my french and his english are not very good what happened to paula in athens this year is the obvious low on a personal level and for the expectations of the nation as well there were a set of circumstances around athens that conspired to produce a very dramatic ending which i think has been greatly misunderstood dropping out of the marathon was the right thing to do but starting in the 10 000m five days later was not wise that was her heart and not her head reacting paula had a lot of little things going wrong in her preparation and on the day things like niggling injuries not being able to do all her running sessions and feeling the pressure of the race looming ahead of her i think she came to the start line in athens physically and emotionally drained and if even the smallest thing doesn t feel right when you are preparing