Perched over a laptop, Linford Christie and Zharnel Hughes are trawling through the archives of 100 metres races. It is a juxtaposition of time, a 64-year-old and a 29-year-old, united by their cross-generation quests to become the fastest human on the planet.
Rarely have these British record holders — past and present — been seen together yet here they are, sharing stories and wisdom ahead of the Olympic Games.
‘Is this not in black and white?’ says Christie with a laugh, scrolling through YouTube for the grainy 9.96sec video of the sprint that won him Olympic gold in Barcelona almost 32 years ago. Christie’s public appearances are few and far between but he still looks like a man who could detonate on the track.
‘Sprinting’s like heavyweight boxing… you’ve got to strut your stuff,’ he explains, discussing body language before the starting gun. ‘It’s mind games. You know guys used to throw a bit of fluff into the next lane on the starting blocks? When I wore a bow tie, or a skeleton suit, one of my rivals said he was laughing so much that he couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing.
‘Usain Bolt did all his stuff in front of the camera to throw you off. Everyone’s doing it now. He pulled everyone out of their zone and into his zone.’
Zharnel Hughes (left) is aiming to become the Team GB star to win 100m gold at the Olympics since Linford Christie (right)
Christie triumphed at the 1992 Games in Barcelona becoming just the third Brit to achieve the feat (pictured above)
Christie held the British 100m record for three decades before Hughes (second left) set a new record in June last year
Hughes looks up in agreement. ‘Literally,’ responds the younger of the two, in his lilted Caribbean accent. ‘The guys from the US come in and hit their chest and shout, “USA baby!” Anything to get into your head.
‘I just stay there and focus on the track. Clear head. Whatever you’ve done, that’s behind you. The moment that starter says, “On your marks”, the world comes to a complete stop. Everything goes mute, you’re behind the line, making sure you’re properly set in, taking the last glance.
‘You can hear your heart beat, you can hear your competitors breathing. It’s very tense. When you hear, “Set”, you take that last breath. (He breathes in). Hold it. Hold it. “Bang!”’
That is when the muscle memory kicks in. We sit on a bench beside the track at Brunel University, where Christie works as a coach and Hughes trains on his trips back to the UK from Jamaica. They press play on Christie’s gold-medal race.
‘You guys had no drive phase back then, boy!’ says Hughes, immediately noticing how the sprinters’ heads come up the moment they leave the blocks.
Times have changed, so have techniques. Sports science has since proved you should keep your body forward and your head down. ‘It’s impressive to run 9.96sec without a drive phase. That’s crazy. Do your emotions come alive when you back look at that video?’
Christie pauses for thought. ‘They used to,’ he answers. There is a stadium named in his honour where he used to train on Wormwood Scrubs, Shepherd’s Bush, but life has moved on.
‘It’s history, isn’t it? It’s happened and you can’t go back there. We didn’t know about drive phase then,’ adds Christie. ‘The idea was to get to top speed as quickly as possible and hold it for as long as possible. Drive phase came through guys like Maurice Greene and John Smith.
Christie discussed how techniques have changed since his heyday during the 1990s
The 64-year-old also noted the role strength training played during his athletics career
‘We just had to get up and run. My power clean (weight lift) was 160kg, my bench press was 165kg. We just had to be really strong.
‘They say never train like a champion, always train like a contender, because champions have nowhere to go. It sounds big-headed but I knew I was going to win that race. The other guys weren’t as experienced as I was. Also, they had something I wanted. Leroy Burrell had already been world-record holder. The year before I came fourth… I hadn’t done anything.
‘I was training like a contender because I wanted to get to where they were. I used to put a picture of Carl Lewis under my mat. Every time I walked into the house, I’m stepping on him! That’s how much I wanted it.’
These days, Christie’s medals are tucked away beneath his bed. Gone are the days when his daughter would take them into school for show-and-tell. It was a different era, before Hughes was even born.
Hughes grew up 4,000 miles away in Anguilla, the British Overseas Territory which is not recognised by the International Olympic Committee. During his childhood, he would draw lines in the white sands with his finger and race his father down the beach. He raced his way on to the international stage and eventually pledged his allegiance to Great Britain.
Taking hold of the laptop, they switch from the pixelated images of the 1990s to the 4K, high- definition footage of today. This time it is Hughes’s race in New York last year, when he finally broke Christie’s long-standing British record by 0.04sec.
‘I didn’t think about the record,’ says Hughes, watching his race from a camera angle that he has not seen before. ‘It was a shock for me. I wrote down 9.83sec that morning. To see it actually come up on the board — 9.83sec — with the wind, I could not believe it. I was like “What! I wrote this time down this morning!”
Despite taking Christie’s record, Hughes insisted that he didn’t think about it in the moment
‘The old record stood there for so long. Comparing it to the rest of the world — Usain 9.5, other guys running 9.6, 9.7 — we were just stuck there. It takes time, patience and belief. I wasn’t thinking about breaking the record but my agent said, “Zharnel, you look really good, really dangerous, too lethal… I think this might be the year you break the record”.
With the race flashing past their eyes, they play it on repeat. ‘I got into the call room, put my spikes on and just said, “I am ready”,’ adds Hughes.
‘I knew I was running fast but I didn’t know it was going to be record fast. When I see how I ran up on Christian Coleman, knowing that guy gets out like a bullet, I knew I just had to stay relaxed. When you start thinking, “I’m ahead, I’m ahead, I’m ahead”, that’s when the s*** hits the fan.
‘When I hit top speed, tears were running down my face. It’s such a blur, you’re so light on your feet. I just have to remember to keep my shoulders down because sometimes I raise my shoulders a bit. I can hear coach (Glen) Mills’s voice in my head, “Shoulders down! Shoulders down!” Looking back at it, coach Mills said if I had maintained my knee lift then it would have been a 9.7sec. But the moment I relaxed and saw the line come… 9.83sec… goosebumps.’
There is no sense of resentment or wounded pride from Christie at losing his record. It felt like an overdue handing over of the baton, following a barren era for British men’s sprinting.
‘One of my athletes rang me and said, “Have you heard the news?”’ says Christie. ‘He said some guy has run 9.83 and I was like, “Nah! Who’s that?” Zharnel! I went on the internet to look it up. I thought it was a joke!
‘I was waiting for someone to run faster because then it means we’re progressing. Back then, 30 years ago, 9.87sec was fast. Now it’s not fast. Most countries had a national record that was way better than ours. I did that in 1993 — 9.83 is a decent time but I’m sure Zharnel will go quicker.’
Christie admitted that he initially didn’t believe it when he was told his record was broken
They bump fists. A mark of respect between two men who have dedicated their lives to pushing the boundaries of man’s capability. Those 10 or so seconds which are the purest test of the human body.
‘Winning is more important than times,’ adds Christie. ‘If you win the Olympics in 11sec you are still the Olympic champion. You could run 6sec and get nothing because there’s three guys in front of you. When I broke the British record I didn’t expect it, it just happened.’
Together, they move across to the starting blocks for a photoshoot. ‘What a thing this would be… to race against you,’ says Christie, looking at his successor. ‘Imagine if we saw this in real life, Zharnel Hughes against Linford Christie. It would be sold out!’
The pair are surrounded by Netflix crew — filming for the new series of Sprint — and the team from Hughes’s sponsor, Vita Coco. ‘I’m well hydrated with Vita Coco, every day,’ says the polished, brand-aware athlete. ‘I’ve been drinking coconut water ever since I was a little boy.’
In Paris, the stakes will be high. Hughes won bronze at the 2023 World Championships but no British male has won a medal in the most revered event of them all since Christie in 1992.
Today, he will run the 100m at the Diamond League meet at the London Stadium, in his first race since suffering a grade-one hamstring tear in June. It will offer the first indication of his form as he enters a summer of opportunity. Track and field is still searching for new superstars in the post-Bolt era and Hughes’s life could change in just under 10 seconds in the French capital.
‘My thing is living in the moment,’ says Hughes. ‘Thinking about bettering my craft.’
Christie’s eyes light up. ‘It’s gonna be interesting! There’s a few guys out there who feel just as good. The biggest obstacle is the trials. We say, “Make team or make tea”.
Christie backed Zharnel to go even quicker as he aims to secure Olympic glory of his own
‘After that, anything can happen. It’s the fight for No 1, it’s wide open. Bolt’s gone and it’s there for anyone who wants it.’
‘Honestly,’ adds Hughes. ‘Speaking about this right now is waking me up, ready to compete, I can feel those jitters. Obviously I’m hoping for a medal, yes.’
‘What do you mean A medal?’ replies Christie. ‘The medal!’
‘Correction!’ says Hughes, who changes the screensaver on his phone to an image of Christie in 1992. ‘I definitely want to put up a medal on my wall this year. It’s almost as if I’m following in your footsteps, man.’
l Zharnel Hughes is an ambassador for Vita Coco. Don’t miss their big summer giveaway, now live at www.vitacoco.co.uk for your chance to win Thirst Place.