Why is daley thompson not knighted

The only thing I realised, when he died, was what a big family I had because they all came over from Nigeria. Oh my God. Does Thompson feel African in any way? My mum [a Scot from Dundee] was the key influence. She gave me this work ethic. I saw what she did and considered it normal to have three jobs as a cleaner and bring up kids on your own.

When he told his mum as a teenager he was going to dedicate his life to sport she said he would need to move out. She wanted me to stick to my studies but I was luckier than most. I could stay with my aunt. She never said she was wrong but that was her. She gave me a lot.

I just loved sport so much. Thompson has been associated with Laureus Sports since its inception 20 years ago. He is also enthused about his friendship with other academy members. Has he always followed rugby and cricket? Seb Coe is the man Thompson most admires as a fellow athlete. Thompson pulls a face. I think there should be a safe place for women. Despite these complexities, will Thompson be in Tokyo?

They all pale into insignificance with ours. London was so good. Why did British sport fail to build on such success? Then we had to get back to the slog of life but for three weeks we were the centre of the universe. Does he ever feel doubt without the intensity of elite competition to bolster his self-belief? I went to a funeral the other day of a guy who coached me in football when I was at Wimbledon. He was six years younger than me. They talked about what he did.

I was thinking, if I had to die soon, the only thing that would upset me would be not seeing all the kids grow up. I still look forward to every day. The 20th anniversary Laureus World Sports Awards honoured the greatest triumphs of and celebrated the power of sport in transforming the lives of millions of young people Read more: The Guardian » COVID Number of booster jabs administered in UK reaches 10 million Latest figures from the government's coronavirus dashboard also showed another 30, infections, compared to 30, on Saturday and 38, this time last week.

Daley Thompson clasps his hands together and smiles broadly at the question. Is it him? He may well be right, but there has never been the sniff of a knighthood. Carl Lewis, the American athletics icon, blanks him even now. At 61 and with the signature moustache fading to grey he still has a lot to say and he is not about to put it through a PR filter.

Subscription Notification. The list — chosen, says Camelot, by a poll — omits Thompson: a decision Sebastian Coe describes as "astonishing". It was, in the words of Independent on Sunday sports diarist Alan Hubbard, "a snub of Olympian proportions".

At Chisinau airport, we're met by a British Embassy car and drive past rows of dilapidated flats that blight the nation commonly described as the poorest in Europe. We check in at the five-star Leogrand Hotel, then make our way to the British Embassy. Graceless though such stereotyping might be, a posting to Moldova doesn't necessarily indicate that you're on the fast track to Washington.

Perhaps because of that, the acting ambassador and his staff are welcoming and generous, with none of the aloofness acquired by some others in the service. Daley, who's still in his T-shirt and shorts, doesn't look underdressed. We have drinks in the Embassy garden, by the outdoor pool — the sight of which unavoidably recalls one of the most famous chapters in the history of Moldovan sport. The country entered a male team for the Underwater Hockey World Championships in Australia in ; they were beaten by Colombia and by Argentina, before the whole squad applied for asylum.

Two years later, in Calgary, Canada, Francis arranged visas for a strong Moldovan women's underwater hockey side. This time the players didn't even make the opening ceremony, as they were already filing for refugee status. Thompson, who has never drunk alcohol, shakes hands with members of the Moldovan Football Federation. In social situations, he often looks like a man who has been picked as the fall guy for a sketch in Trigger Happy TV or its forerunner Candid Camera, but has been tipped off in advance, and is taking pleasure in observing, with an occasional knowing glance, the people conspiring against him.

Afterwards, over dinner, he falls in with Scotty, a Londoner who has run football ' camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the three of us walk back to the hotel, Daley and Scotty settle into locker-room banter.

The athlete's irreverent attitude to his intimate life changes once Scotty's left, and we sit down to talk, at around He orders a hot chocolate. Thompson, who now works as a motivational trainer for individuals and corporations, but still speaks about his athletic career in the present tense, doesn't need reminding what "it" might be.

Not a day goes by when I don't wish I was still doing it. Being selfish, training, no responsibilities. To be honest" — this last phrase is one that Thompson uses frequently — "all I ever wanted to be was the best. I don't enjoy fame. It's intrusive. It's not for me. But I wouldn't change my life at all. I wouldn't change a day.

Athletics, I suggest to Thompson, is uninteresting to many because of the slender margins between victory and defeat. The decathlon is different because — rather like cricket where, even at the highest level, bowlers who can't bat are obliged to — you have the spectacle of supremely gifted performers attempting things they're not especially good at, which is always fascinating.

Thompson says he was fortunate his best events came first. Day one opens with the metres. Then long jump, putting the shot, high jump and the metres. The decathlon requires a wide range of skills. Come to think of it, the decathlon might be even more popular if we widened the range even further. Start day one with juggling, say, followed by bowls and origami It's not enough for him to win; he has to Thompson might have had a third Olympic gold, had injury not hampered him in There's a widely held assumption based on his athletic achievements, I suggest, that he must have been taking performance-enhancing drugs; people might no more believe a s track and field champion who says he didn't take drugs than a s rock drummer who claims he never smoked cannabis.

I believe anybody who's taking drugs knowingly shouldn't be allowed back. He could be very sarcastic; very full of himself. He was mean as shit with money. But I've never heard any suggestion he took drugs. He's remained close to Sebastian Coe, who is vehemently opposed to drug use. I don't believe they could have stayed so close if he'd been taking anything.

The only thing Daley Thompson ever got high on was himself. His mother, Lydia, came from Dundee; his father, a Nigerian who ran a minicab firm, left home when Daley [a contraction of Ayodele, an African name meaning "joy comes home"] was six. A year later, the boy, described by his mother as "a terror from the start", was sent on a council grant to Farley Close, a Sussex boarding school he calls "a place for troubled children".

Daley's brother and sister attended state schools. As soon as the bullet hit him. He was shot. In Streatham.

Him and a mate were dropping off some woman. Her husband shot my dad.