{"id":278936,"date":"2025-07-21T03:14:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T03:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/278936\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T03:14:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T03:14:23","slug":"great-britains-4x400-relay-team-savours-really-special-gold-medal-after-28-year-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/278936\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Britain\u2019s 4\u00d7400 relay team savours \u2018really special\u2019 gold medal after 28-year wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

A member of Great Britain\u2019s men\u2019s 4x400m relay squad from the 1997 World Athletics Championships says receiving their gold medals 28 years after the race was a \u201creally special\u201d moment.<\/p>\n

Roger Black finally received his gold medal alongside team-mates Iwan Thomas, Jamie Baulch, Mark Richardson and Mark Hylton on Saturday at London\u2019s Diamond League meeting, at a sold-out London Stadium.<\/p>\n

The 1997 Athens race had been won by the American team, who were later stripped of their golds due to an anti-doping violation by team member Antonio Pettigrew.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live<\/a>, Black said not winning the race \u201cdefinitely affected\u201d the team but being able to celebrate almost three decades later was \u201cmore special\u201d as they were able to share the moment with their families and children, many of whom had not been born in 1997.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The U.S. 4x400m relay team of Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Chris Jones and Allen Johnson (l-r) after the Athens \u201997 World Athletics Championships final (Eric Feferberg\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, more importantly, we shared it with 60,000 British fans in there and a lot of them supported us back in the day,\u201d added Black, who also won gold with the British team in Tokyo in the 4x400m at the World Championships in 1991. \u201cI think pulling that together, it was actually a surprisingly emotional moment and we loved it. It was really special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moment was poignant for Black, who underwent successful life-saving surgery earlier this year to replace his aortic valve and repair his aortic root, the main vessel that transports blood from the heart.<\/p>\n

The results of the 1997 race were changed in 2008, when U.S. runner Pettigrew admitted to doping between 1997 and 2003. In 2010, the former sprinter was found dead at the age of 42 in his locked car with an autopsy saying he died by suicide after an overdose.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was an option of giving this gold medal to him (Pettigrew), I\u2019d rather him have the gold medal than him taking his life \u2014 his life is far more important to me than me having this gold medal,\u201d said Great Britain\u2019s Baulch, per the Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saturday also saw<\/a> the UK government confirm it will \u201cprovide significant funding\u201d and be \u201cbacking a bid\u201d to host the 2029 World Athletics and Para Athletics Championships.<\/p>\n

(Top image: Mark Richardson, Jamie Baulch, Roger Black, Iwan Thomas and Mark Hylton (l-r) receive their gold medals: Julian Finney\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A member of Great Britain\u2019s men\u2019s 4x400m relay squad from the 1997 World Athletics Championships says receiving their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,6869,4884,1144,7126,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-278936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-global-sports","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-northern-ireland","15":"tag-olympics","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114889049220692911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}