PUFFIN
1 Danny Powell
2 The Olympics
3 Steve the Spike
4 How to Beat Usain Bolt, Part 1
5 Two Uncles and a Brother
6 Friday Night Fever
7 20 May
8 Serious Spike
9 A levels or Olympics?
10 Dream or Reality?
11 The Plan
12 Cover Blown
13 8 June
14 Overnight Fame
15 The Trials, Part 1
16 The Trials, Part 2
17 Injured Hero
18 Crazy Science
19 The Long Wait
20 The Test
21 Fame Again
22 How to Beat Usain Bolt, Part 2
23 The Unforgettable Olympics
24 Going for Gold
25 The Climax
26 The Olympic Final
27 It’s All Over
28 False Start, Lane Seven
29 One Last Chance
30 The End
100-metre Final Statistics
Books by Owen Slot
Running for Gold
Cycling for Gold
For Ivo, Maddie and Oliver
Until 20 May, no one had taken Danny Powell very seriously. They liked him and they kind of guessed that he was extra special because they all knew he could run so blisteringly fast. Wow, could he run fast! Everyone knew he had the quickest pair of feet in the school. In fact, they all knew that Danny could run faster than anyone in any school in the whole of the United Kingdom.
Every summer it seemed, Danny would go to the UK School Games and come back champion. Whenever those UK School Games came round, the following Monday morning you almost knew that your school email inbox at Newham Secondary would deliver the same news: that Danny Powell had won the 100 metres. Again. This meant that he was the best young sprinter in the country. Still. Indeed, pretty much everyone who had ever met Danny knew that, one day, he would be a professional athlete.
But where the whole Danny story got a bit ridiculous was when he told them that in the summer holidays after his A levels, he was going to beat Usain Bolt.
Oh, yeah, Danny? No one beats Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt is the fastest human being of all time. Dream on, Danny.
Danny hated the idea of being a show-off and so he had not intended to let it slip. He loved to run and he loved to win. It was, by far, the best thing in his life. But he never bragged. Not around school. Nowhere. He never wanted other people to think that he was a show-off, a swank. And so his dream of beating Bolt was one that he kept completely to himself. And if it wasn’t for a robbery, from right under his nose, then it would have remained there.
It happened one day during school lunchtime. He wished it hadn’t. And it was the stupid thief’s fault. Such a stupid, dozy, hopeless thief. Danny was hanging around the school gates, the place he and his mate, loudmouth Anthuan, and a bunch of their mates in the sixth form always hung out at lunchtime.
No one saw the thief coming. He was probably only twenty years old, average in height and average in looks. He wore dark jeans and a dark T-shirt, but they only realized all that afterwards. At the time, all anyone realized was that with one slightly nervous and aggressive sweep of his arm, he had ripped off the shoulder bag that Jess had hanging loosely from her shoulder. He did it with such force that Jess, yelping in shock more than pain, fell to the ground.
Danny knew that it was wrong to get involved. Keep your nose out of trouble. That’s what his father always told him. So he stood and, for about two seconds, he watched as the bloke hotfooted it down the pavement. A series of thoughts flashed through Danny’s mind: Should I let him go? Should I stay out of trouble? Might I get hurt? And should I stay here and look after Jess? And then, in that very split second that he had persuaded himself to be cautious and avoid trouble, the thief stopped running and turned, and it seemed that he was smiling. He may just have been panting, out of breath, but from where Danny was standing it seemed that he had a triumphant grin on his face. And that was that. Danny was off.
The sight of Danny Powell at full speed is astonishing. He has a long stride and a natural balance, which combine into a beautiful elegance. So, when he is sprinting, it doesn’t look as though he is trying hard – it hardly seems as though his feet touch the ground; it is more as if he is gliding. But, boy, does he move fast.
He flashed like lightning down the road. It was about two seconds before the thief turned again and realized that he was being pursued and, at that stage, his smile disappeared for good. Danny started closing on him quick and as the distance between them was rapidly disappearing, passers-by moved out of the way and stopped and stared. As Danny got even nearer, the difference between his speed and the thief’s was so great, it was almost funny. The thief’s arms were pumping hard, flailing desperately from side to side but, compared to Danny, he was going so slowly it was like he was running in treacle.
Danny got closer and closer: thirty metres away, twenty-five metres, twenty … Suddenly, he was almost able to touch him when the thief turned round, saw that he was beaten and dropped the bag.
And that was when Danny stopped running. He didn’t want to catch the thief. What would he have done to him? Fought him? He had never fought anyone; he wouldn’t know what to do.
So he just stopped running and picked up Jess’s bag. And that was that. End of episode. At least so he thought.
The next day at Newham Secondary, they had school assembly. School assembly was held every Thursday and it was usually pretty dull. During school assembly, Danny and Anthuan and most of their friends would have their mobile phones out and would be busy texting each other. If you got caught with your mobile phone during assembly, it would be confiscated for the rest of the day. But hardly anyone ever got caught, at least not Danny or Anthuan; they were far too smart for that.
Up on the school stage stood the headmaster, Mr McCaffrey. As teachers go, Mr McCaffrey was OK. But he loved the sound of his own voice – and so he loved Thursdays and school assembly because that was his chance to be centre stage and do lots of talking. Mr McCaffrey also had a greying goatee beard that he seemed rather fond of even if he was slightly too old for it. He would stand and talk and stroke his goatee at the same time. Danny often wondered if Mr McCaffrey had any idea that barely anyone ever listened to a word he said.
Danny scrolled down the inbox of his phone. He was hoping for a text from Ricky, his brother. He adored Ricky, but Ricky was a student, away at university, and he never got in touch. Danny hated that. He missed Ricky. But he thought he might get a text from him today.
It was then, suddenly, that Danny’s attention to his phone was ripped away. Anthuan gave him a hefty nudge in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Dan,’ he whispered, out of the side of his mouth. ‘Listen up, Dan, he’s talking about you.’
Anthuan was right. Up on stage, Mr McCaffrey was babbling on, as ever, but he was now babbling on about a robbery incident the previous day. Oh no, please no! thought Danny. He hated the idea of being the centre of attention.
‘… and this thief thought he had got away with it,’ was what Mr McCaffrey was saying, ‘but he hadn’t accounted for the fact that at Newham Secondary, we happen to have the fastest young schoolboy in the country. So well done, Danny Powell.’
Mr McCaffrey then started clapping and there was a flutter of applause around the school hall. Danny looked down, trying to avoid everyone’s stares. But then Mr McCaffrey carried on: ‘And so I would like to ask Danny Powell to come up here for a minute.’
Oh no! You can’t be serious! thought Danny. But the headmaster was. And it was on stage that the day really took a turn for the worse.
‘Danny,’ Mr McCaffrey said, turning to him, ‘well done. You have made us all proud.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Danny replied.
‘And here we are, at the start of the athletics season. Have you got any big plans?’
Danny felt flustered. What should I say? he thought. So he decided he may as well be honest – and he just said: ‘Yes.’
‘Would you fancy running in the Olympics?’ Mr McCaffrey asked.
‘Of course,’ Danny replied. ‘Who wouldn’t?’
‘Exactly,’ said Mr McCaffrey. ‘Good luck, Danny.’ And Danny had just started walking off the stage when Mr McCaffrey said: ‘One other thing, Danny …’ So Danny stopped. ‘… I don’t suppose you could beat Usain Bolt, could you?’
Danny paused. What should I say? What should I say? And before he could stop himself, he told the truth. ‘It’s going to be tough, but that’s certainly the plan, sir.’
The second that Danny had let that sentence fly from his mouth, he wanted to catch it and take it back again. The school hall erupted with squeals and whistles and quite a lot of laughter. And Danny couldn’t stand people laughing at him.
Five minutes later, when assembly was over, the school hall had emptied and the students had piled out into the open air, he was made to feel even worse. ‘Dream on, Danny!’ was the first comment that was flung his way. ‘Danny, I hear Usain Bolt’s really scared.’ ‘Danny, Bolt could beat you on one leg.’ And: ‘Danny, what planet are you on? Come back down to earth, you might enjoy it down here.’
Ha! Ha! Very funny, the lot of you, thought Danny as he turned left out of the school hall towards the classrooms. He hated people thinking he was arrogant. But what he hated the most was the idea that people didn’t believe in him, that they should laugh at the very idea that he was going to beat Usain Bolt. I’ll prove them all wrong, he said to himself. ‘Bolt could beat you on one leg,’ they said. How he wanted to ram those comments down their precious little throats.
For the rest of the day, Danny was not allowed to forget it. Most people were too scared to say anything, but he could see them smirking to each other.
Some were brave enough to comment. ‘Usain’s got no chance!’ was one sarcastic comment. He hated that.
‘Good luck against Bolt!’ were the words of one younger boy. And he probably meant it, but Danny didn’t like that either.
At the end of the school day, feeling thoroughly dispirited, Dan sought out the company of Anthuan. But that didn’t turn out to be a very good idea either.
‘Are you coming out to the movies tomorrow night, Dan?’ he asked.
‘I can’t,’ Danny replied. ‘I’ve got to train, haven’t I?’
‘We’re all going,’ Anthuan said, slightly pleadingly, as if trying to play on Danny’s conscience.
‘I just can’t,’ Danny replied, shrugging. ‘You know that. Training. I’ve got to train. I’ve always got to train.’
Anthuan seemed disappointed and went quiet. They walked out of the school gates together. And then Anthuan asked him a question that really surprised him. And the way he asked it suggested that he was slightly uncomfortable about it himself.
‘Dan,’ he said, ‘do you really think you could beat Usain Bolt?’
Danny stopped walking, paused for a second and then answered: ‘Ant, I know it sounds crazy, and I know I sound stupid when I say it. But this is my dream. The Olympics are coming. I’ve got a one in a million chance of beating that guy. So yes, I do think I have a chance. It’s a slim one, but it’s still a chance. What do you think?’
Anthuan looked down at the ground and furrowed his brow as if he was thinking seriously. ‘I think you’re my best mate in the world, Dan,’ he replied slowly. ‘And I don’t want to be hard on you. But I hate seeing people laugh at you like they did today, you know that. So come on, Dan. You’re so young still and maybe you should remember that. You could be out having fun tomorrow night, but you don’t want to. Do you really think you’re ready to race Bolt? I just can’t help feeling that if you raced Bolt now, he’d have time to finish the race and eat a cheese sandwich before you came through the line.’
Dan looked at Anthuan with disgust. He felt angry and let down. ‘Oh, right, I see. So not even my best mate believes in me. See ya.’ And with that, he trotted off down the road and jumped straight on the 215 bus, leaving Anthuan standing alone.
Danny was furious. But, more than that, he was really upset. Not even Ant believes in me, he thought to himself. I’ll just have to prove him wrong too.
If you are an athlete like Danny, then you have one dream, one massive dream that spills from side to side in your head like water in a glass. It washes over you and it never washes out; it dominates your thoughts and it gets in the way of the rest of your life. It can be a disaster for your schoolwork because it makes it so hard to concentrate on anything else. The Olympics. You spend every spare second of your life dreaming about the Olympics.
Sometimes Danny’s dad, Roy, would catch Danny daydreaming and he knew instinctively what Danny was thinking about. ‘Get on with your studies, my boy,’ he would say. ‘Forget the Olympics.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Danny would reply. But he was lying and he knew his father knew he was lying and so he would smile cheekily too.
It was impossible to forget about the Olympics. How could you forget about the Olympics when they were right here on your doorstep?
The summer Olympics were only two and a half months away. The London Olympics. London 2012. The greatest show on earth. That was what they sometimes called the Olympic Games. ‘The greatest show on earth.’ And here they were, the Olympics, in his very own city.
But the Olympics were not only in Danny’s very own city, they were in his very own neighbourhood. Danny lived in east London, in a neighbourhood called Stratford. And the Olympics? They were heading for Stratford too. The Olympic Stadium, the very stadium where Bolt would be running, was barely three kilometres from Danny’s house.
In fact, Danny had lived with the whole project from beginning to end. Every school day for the last four years, he would turn left out of his house in Widdin Street and head 200 metres to Anthuan’s house, and together they would walk to Newham Secondary, taking a short detour via Bridge Road where they would witness first-hand the Olympics coming to life.
Bridge Road was on the edge of what seemed like a monstrously large building site. This was the huge plot of land that would be built into the Olympic Park. In Danny’s mind, the Olympic Park was going to be the biggest playground in the world: it would have athletics, swimming, hockey, cycling, basketball. You name it, pretty much the entire Olympic Games was going to happen here.
At first, Danny and Anthuan could see nothing from Bridge Road because the entire building project was going on behind a high, blue fence. All they could tell was that the building site made a deafening noise and threw a haze of dust up into the air. But, around three years ago, things started to change. One day, when they were walking to school, they got their first glimpse of one of the new buildings, covered in scaffolding, poking its head above the fence, as if it was finally saying hello to the world. And this building simply got taller and taller, and as it neared completion, it became increasingly obvious that this was the main Olympic Stadium, the stadium for athletics, the stadium where Usain Bolt would run.
‘Imagine Usain in that place,’ Danny and Anthuan would say to each other, laughing. They could not believe their luck: that this was all going to take place here. And soon they had renamed the Olympic Stadium ‘Bolt’s Second Home’.
But it wasn’t just Bolt’s Second Home they could see. If they took another route, which afforded a better view into the park, they could see a whole team of buildings all slowly rising out of the ground until they were huge, gleaming, beautiful. And they were so close you could almost touch them. The aquatic centre, which was where the Olympic swimming and diving would take place, looked really cool; it had a strange, undulating roof that was designed to make it look like a stingray. And then there was the velodrome for the cyclists, the arena for basketball and a whole lot more. With some of the buildings, the boys had no clue what sport would be taking place there. But no matter, it was just so tantalizing to imagine the best athletes on the planet all coming here, right to their doorstep.
And to think that Danny’s dad expected him to forget about the Olympics! Danny knew his A levels were important. But he also had a feeling, as if it was something in his blood and in his bones, that the Olympics were important too. Danny felt drawn to that Olympic Park, as if he was caught by some kind of magnetic force. Sometimes, when he was on his own on the way back from school, he would stand and stare at the park and allow himself to drift off in a long Olympic daydream.
But Danny’s dad could hardly pretend that the Olympics weren’t important. Danny’s dad loved the Olympics. Every four years when the Olympic Games came round, he always made the entire family sit round the TV and watch it. First and foremost, they would watch the athletics, but they seemed to watch absolutely everything: the swimming, the gymnastics, the boxing, the judo, the wrestling, the taekwondo – all these weird different forms of fighting that seemed to be banned in the house but for which you could win medals at the Olympics!
Danny’s mother loved the gymnastics. Danny’s father loved cheering on the Africans in the long-distance running events. Danny’s older brother, Ricky, pretended that he wasn’t interested, but, whenever the weightlifting was on, he would sit there watching, absolutely entranced, cheering on the big men from Russia and Bulgaria. No one quite understood why he suddenly became Russian or Bulgarian over the period of the Olympics, but there was no talking him out of it!
And Danny? For him it was simple. His first memory of the Olympics was when he was six, although he could remember them four years later and four years after that too. But he had a very specific recollection of one specific moment in each of the Olympics that he had seen. It was as if he had a special place in his mind for storing away the memories of one race, one race every four years: the men’s 100 metres, the race to be the fastest man on earth.
And that was why he felt he already knew Usain Bolt. He had never met Bolt, never even seen him in the flesh, but, when he watched Bolt win the Olympics in Beijing four years earlier, he had been absolutely entranced. He had recorded the race on the TV and he must have watched it a hundred times since. More like a thousand times. He was mesmerized by Bolt’s long stride and by the speed with which his feet left the ground. And he could not believe that Bolt was so much better in Beijing than everyone else, so much better that he had started celebrating his victory long before he had even got to the finishing line.
The night that Bolt had won the 100 metres in Beijing, Danny had found it hard to sleep. He kept on replaying the race over and over in his mind. At two o’clock in the morning, when he had pretty much given up trying to sleep, he had sneaked downstairs, switched on the TV and watched the race again. He watched it in slow motion; he watched it fast; he watched it with the sound turned down and with the sound turned up.
How did Bolt do it? That was the question rattling through Danny’s mind.
But really there were other questions that he wanted answering: Could I do it too? Could I come to the Olympics, when they are in London, and run that fast too? Would it be possible, here in London, for me to beat Usain Bolt?
Danny stepped off the 215 bus, turned off the road, into the car park and towards the broad building ahead. This was his training facility, the place where his dream was allowed to grow. In school, they could laugh at his dream, but here is where it was nurtured. This is where it seemed real.
Danny had a regimented life: he would get up in the morning and go to school; after school he would go to training, then back home, supper, homework and bed; school, training, home, homework, bed. Over and over again: school, training, home, homework, bed, pretty much every single day. If you want to be Olympic champion, you have no alternative, at least that is what Steve the Spike told him.
And Danny liked listening to Steve. Steve was possibly both the smartest and the meanest coach in the world. Maybe the best coach in the world too. But he was probably the only person on the planet who really believed in him. Danny was eighteen; he was still at school, he hadn’t even taken his driving test, and yet Steve completely and utterly believed that Danny could win the Olympics.
So he believed and trusted Steve. It didn’t help having Anthuan telling him the opposite: don’t train, don’t go home to bed, come out to the movies with your mates. There were so many times that Danny wanted to do exactly what Anthuan told him. He wanted to go out with Ant and the others; he knew how much fun they had and he wanted that for himself too.
But he had a dream, and he was determined to follow it. And he knew that was more important.
When Danny arrived at the Lee Valley Stadium to train, he also knew he had to clear out of his head everything that was supposed to be inside his head at school: A levels, history, business studies, sports science and all the rest of it. He had to turn off one switch and flick on another. Turn off school and turn on running. Running fast. Every single second of his time down here at Lee Valley had to be devoted to that one single goal: training his legs to get from the start of a 100-metres race to the finish line as quickly as they possibly could.
Steve the Spike called their training centre ‘The home of speed’.
‘Feel the need for speed, Danny!’ he would say. And almost every day his greeting to Danny would be, ‘Hello, Speedboy.’ That was his nickname for Danny, Speedboy, and Danny liked it. ‘Hello, Speedboy,’ Steve would say, ‘you brought your speed today?’
But today, as Danny pushed open the door into the stadium, he knew he wasn’t in the right frame of mind. He mumbled a ‘Hello’ to Gladys, the nice lady who worked on the reception desk, but he was distracted. He wasn’t thinking about speed. In fact, he had probably left his speed behind. He was thinking instead about Ant and what he had said about Usain Bolt and the cheese sandwich. And he could feel a deep sense of anger within himself. Ant had said that Usain Bolt could finish the race and eat a cheese sandwich before Danny came through the line!
The cheek of it, he thought to himself. But he hated the fact that this was making him cross. How can Ant and a cheese sandwich make me so angry?
‘Hey, Speedboy!’ Danny heard Steve’s voice almost the second he walked through the door. It was loud and excessively enthusiastic. ‘There are now seventy-one days to the Games. Are you ready to train hard?’
Danny rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, Spike,’ he said unconvincingly. Steve the Spike was like a walking countdown clock; every single day that Danny came to training, Steve would tell him how long to go until the Olympics.
‘Good!’ barked Steve. ‘Get changed, and then I want to see you down in my office in five minutes. We’ve got plans to make. And then I’m going to kill you.’
Steve the Spike always seemed to have two things on his mind.