VALERIE

---

I’ve never seen my father run – at least not competitively. All his running fame came before I was born, or when I was still a small baby. Just before the 1988 Olympics in Seoul my daughter and I watched a retrospective of the 1948 Games, and we knew they would show that fateful relay in which he pulled up lame and lost the race. I became more and more tense, clutching a pillow to my chest and starting to hyperventilate. The race came on, and I started to sob uncontrollably. My daughter was saying, ‘Calm down, Mum,’ but I couldn’t calm down, because I knew what was going to happen and in part I didn’t want to see it.  

This is a story I had heard throughout my life, but I had never actually seen it. Now it was real, made flesh. I saw my father fall on the field in agony, physical and emotional agony. He hopped off the track clutching the back of his leg, fell onto the inner field, and beat the grass with the baton. The disappointment must have been overwhelming. My father was devastated not only because of pain, but more so because he was a team player, always wanting what was best for the team and not simply seeking personal glory. He felt he had let down his team.

— The Longer Run: A Daughter's Story of Arthur Wint by Valerie Wint