Olympic star was inspired to compete by a nun

Jason Gardener at Kairos forum

One of the UK’s greatest sprinters was inspired to pursue running by a nun. Jason Gardener MBE, an Olympic medallist and former world indoor champion said: “I remember Sister Mary, the nun who was head of my primary school, bringing in sports medals and saying "If you're good and you work hard, you could win things too.”

“It was around the time of the 1984 Olympics, and at the time not much else was going well for me at school apart from running.”

Gardener, a pupil at St John’s Primary School in Bath, became an athlete nicknamed for his speed ‘the Bath Bullet’.

He led the Team GBsquad which won gold in the 100 m race in the 2004 Olympics in Athens along with Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish, and Mark Lewis-Francis. He said: “you don’t want to let anyone down, and they don’t want to let you down either.” The team won the 100 m relay by one hundredth of a second.

Gardener who retired in 2007 and is now a non-executive director of the board of UK athletics, was speaking at The Spirit in Sport, a one day conference held in Sutton’s Hospital, the Charterhouse London last week. He brought the Olympic gold medal along to the conference, organised by the Kairos Forum, which highlights the spiritual needs of the disabled.

The day included presentations by the paralympian Stefanie Reid, and the Special Olympic athlete Peter Loftus. Cristina Gangemi from the Kairos forum gave a theological reflection on the ‘value of the disabled body in sport’, while Dr Nick J Watson of the University of York gave a presentation titled: Christianity, Sport and Disability; a case study.

Professor John Swinton of Aberdeen University spoke on the topic: ‘What are bodies for? The virtues and the shadows of sport for people with disabilities.”

The Kairos Forum is a member of csan.org
www.csan.org.uk/ptmember/the-kairos-forum/