STEPH Twell absorbed the din of the crowd and her eyes lit up at the sight of the flame. Barely weeks after her 18th birthday, she was living out her childhood dream in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, competing in the heats of the 1500 metres at the 2008 Olympics.
The Scotland international didn’t manage to reach the final but she had already accomplished so much so young. World junior titles on the track. European crowns at cross-country. Then a Commonwealth bronze in Delhi. Injuries, cruel fate, intervened. But she had already accomplished more than most do in a running lifetime.
Yet this afternoon, the now 26-year-old will head into Beijing’s cauldron and attempt to write a pulsating opening to a new chapter. Her presence in the line-up for the 5000m final is the most fitting of endings to a long march back to full fitness since a broken ankle in the winter of 2011 set her on a path through multiple surgeries, setbacks, self-doubt and – finally – a quest to reinvent herself in both body and mind.
Her very best, Twell ventures, lies ahead. However, she can now look back with some regrets, not over ailments or contests missed, but at the medals and accolades that might have come her way, if not for those determined to win by foul means, not fear.
“I was unfortunately exposed to doping from a very young age,” she recounts. “In 2007, I came second at the European Juniors in Hengelo. About nine months later the winner, Cristina Vasiloiu, was suspended from Romania’s team for the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for EPO.
“I knew she was cheating. You could smell it. She brought her doctor to the start line. On the podium, she was smelling medical.
“I had come up with a master plan to inject some pace in the race and she matched that. I had lactic coming down the home straight. She had none at all. I was thinking: ‘how is she doing that?’ That was my first eye-opener.”
Injustice was to become a theme. The 1500m final at the 2010 European Championships is tainted beyond belief. The record books show Twell came seventh. Silver medallist Hind Dehiba of France was coming off a drug ban. Ahead also were Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin, later stripped of Olympic gold, and Anna Alminova of Russia whose European indoor title would be annulled.
The victor, Nuria Fernandez, was questioned as a witness in an investigation into a Spanish doping ring, amid allegations her coach was involved. Twell’s British team-mate Lisa Dobriskey came fourth in the 2010 race and can feel sickest of all at what might have been.
“It frustrates me because it’s just a massive short cut and there are no short cuts in athletics,” Twell says. “It should be a about hard work, grit and determination.
“The thing I love about this sport is that the thing that can push you to the line is how much your heart wants it. And that to me is everything I know.
“But to know people haven’t put in the graft and that they can take medals despite having worked less and taken less of a risk of injury, it’s so frustrating. They’re forcing the sport to a different level and risking people’s health. If the cheats were scratched from the 1500, I could have been a finalist in 2008.”
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