In the Olympics, held at Moscow, long-jumper turned runner Allan Wells became the first Scot to win a medal on the Olympic track since Eric Liddell in 1924 by taking gold for the 100-metre sprint.
Allan Wells dipped his head to win the closest Olympic 100 metres final for 28 years, in the Lenin Stadium in Moscow last night.
The 28-year-old Scot, who had been more strongly favoured to win a Gold medal in the 200 metres, stunned everyone by taking the premier sprint title in a photo-finish from the Cuban, Silvio Leonard.
It was so close that neither Wells nor Leonard was sure who had taken the Gold until the race was replayed on the screen high above the stadium. Both men were given identical times of 10.25 seconds.
The announcer, the television cameras and the photographers had all gone for the 25-year-old Cuban, but the big silver screen showed without doubt that the Edinburgh marine engineer had dipped in front of his upright rival.
‘It was very close,’ said Wells afterwards. ‘I thought I had got it, but I wasn’t sure until I saw that replay, and then I knew it.’
Wells, normally so cool and collected, suddenly set off round the track on a lap of honour while the bewildered Leonard stood there, a lonely figure, as the cameramen realized their error and set off after the fastest man in the Olympic Games.
His wife and coach Margo, herself an international sprinter, said: ‘I thought Leonard had beaten him until the replay.’
The difficulty was that the two were separated by the full width of the track, with the Cuban in lane 1 and Wells in lane 8.
‘Allan was running with tunnel vision,’ said Margo. ‘There was just no one there to help him. But we did it, thank God.’
Even in this moment of glory, Wells was annoyed at the way he had been treated by the seeding committee which pitched him in with three other heat winners in the quarter-finals, when he was forced to run a British record time of 10.11, and again yesterday at being isolated in the lane nobody wants.
‘Russia is not the easiest place to do it,’ he said. ‘Leonard had all the favours by being in the inside lane, and I had no one to pull me through. I only saw him in the last 20 metres, and knew then that I had to do something special to get it.’
But the Scot, a failed long-jumper until he took up sprinting, has always been noted for his powerful finish. His problems this time were accentuated by the fact that he was forced by the International Athletics Federation rules to abandon his normal free start and use the electronic starting blocks.
In spite of this drastic change to his style, he produced four marvellous runs to win the title that every sprinter wants. Wells said: ‘As I settled in my blocks, the thought went through my mind that I needed my best ever start. Maybe it wasn’t the quickest, but it was good enough.’