Steve Backley
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Stephen James "Steve" Backley (born 12 February 1969) is a former British athlete specialising in the Javelin. Although he is considered one of the greatest javelinists of all time, Backley never won Olympic gold medal.
He has been a firm fixture in the national athletics team for over fifteen years and is the only British track and field competitor to win medals at three different Olympic Games.
Steve enrolled at Loughborough University in October 1988 to study for a BSc Honours degree in Physical Education, Sports Science and Recreation Management. Although he completed his first year there and remained a student until 2002 the time he knew he must dedicate to sport prevented him from completing his studies.
The university did however honour him on Monday December 16 2002 with the degree of Doctor of Technology honoris causa.
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1987
Steve picked up his first significant title, throwing 75.14 metres to pick up the European junior title, ahead of Vladimir Zossimovich (73.24) of Russia and East German Raymond Hecht (72.78).
2000
Steve started the year recovering from a knee injury on which he had had surgery during the previous winter and only had a seasons best of 82.19 gained in a match in Glasgow, Scotland against the USA. The injury forced him to withdraw from the European Cup Super League meeting in Gateshead, England in early July.
In only his second competition of the year, Steve improved to record a respectable 85.84 whilst being runner up to Finlands Aki Parviainen in the Norwich Union Grand Prix in early August and improved again to record 86.70 in winning the AAA Championship a week later whilst defeating Nick Nieland who had recorded a personal best of 85.09.
Steve was now heading to Sydney, Australia for the 2000 Summer Olympics in a much improved state of mind in an attempt to win his first gold medal.
He beat the qualifying mark with his very first throw of 83.74 to join team mate Mick Hill in the Saturday final. They both however would have took notice of the enormous qualifying throw of 89.39 by the Czech, Jan Železný.
At the end of the first round Steve only sat in fourth place but set a new Olympic Record with his second throw of 89.95. He must have thought that he was within of the Olympic gold he so desired but in the third round two-time champion Zelezný made it three in a row breaking Steve’s shortly held record with 90.17. With no further improvement Steve took home his second Olympic silver in a row with Sergey Makarov taking bronze and falling one place short of the medal achieved by his father Aleksandr at the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics in the same event.
Jan Zelezný now held three Olympic golds and one silver making him without doubt the greatest exponent of the javelin the world had ever seen.
2001
With the IAAF world championships to look forward to Steve threw over ninety metres for the first time since 1992 at the British Grand Prix at Crystal Palace on July 22. He had trailed behind Latvian Eriks Rags (86.47) and American Breaux Greer (85.91) who had both produced personal bests before he pulled out a huge 90.81 with his final throw.
This should have given him an enormous for boost for the worlds in Edmonton, Canada but on August 10th Steve had not taken his A-game to the show. He could only manage 81.50 in the qualifying rounds and when both pools had finished this left him way down in thirteenth place. One consolation was that his team-mate Mick Hill had qualified well, but even this good news was short lived as Mick unfortunately picked up an injury and only managed to record one distance in the final, finishing last.
Jan Zelezný took gold with a championship record of 92.80 ahead of Aki Parviainen (91.31) and Konstadinós Gatsioúdis of Greece (89.95). American, Beaux Greer once again increased his personal best to 87.00 in finishing one place outside the medals.
Such was his disgust at his performance he had been contemplating retirement but re-appeared in Gateshead, for the Norwich Union Classic and gained a little revenge by beating world silver medallist Aki Parviainen with a throw of 86.74. Of his six throws this day five of them would have qualified for final nine days earlier.
Steve then travelled to Brisbane, Australia in September to take part in the Goodwill Games but despite leading after two rounds, the up and down season continued and he could not improve to leave Zelezný on top once again ahead of Erik Rags and Breaux Greer.
2002
It was going to be a busy with two major back-to-back competitions, the Commonwealth Games July 25 – August 4 and the European Championships August 6 – 11.
Wednesday, July 31 was the first test and with no major competition he knew that he had reclaimed his Commonwealth title after his very first throw of 86.81 in the City of Manchester Stadium. Runner up Scott Russell of Canada was nearly eight metres back with (78.98) and England's bronze medallist Nick Nieland managed only 78.63. This gave Steve a hat-trick of Commonwealth titles.
The European championships in Munich would be much stiffer task with all of the worlds leading exponents on show. Producing an opening throw of 86.29 and then surpassing that marginally in the third with 86.37 it was obvious that he was in form but he still trailed behind Russian leader Sergey Makarov who had sent out a massive 88.05 first round throw.
World record holder Jan Železný again found the European title beyond him and did not manage to record a distance so was eliminated after the third round. This seemed to inspire Steve and the reigning champion went half a metre past the leader in the fifth with 88.54. Makarov couldn’t respond to this and ended up with silver with the baseball capped Germany's Boris Henry taking bronze with 85.33. This fantastic achievement made Steve the first British athlete to win four consecutive European championship golds.
2003
Steve began the year having problems with a knee injury, but with an early season win in Sweden under his belt another victory July 13 at the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Gateshead throwing 85.69 defeating Boris Henry (83.52) and Aleksandr Ivanoc (81.69), he put these firmly behind him, A couple of weeks later at the North Down International at Bangor Northern Ireland his opening throw of 81.42m was once again good enough to see off the competition.
It was therefore disappointing when after managing to qualify for the final, only in seventh position, at the IAAF championship Stade de France, Paris, on the final weekend of August, his third and best throw of only 80.13m could not take him through to the last eight in the Sunday final. Sergey Makarov took the title with 85.44 ahead of Andrus Värnik 85.17 and Boris Henry 84.74 with these all being recorded in the first round.
2004
In Steve's final year of competition, where he was hoping to add to his Olympic medal haul, he struggled to find form and at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, in a wide-open field, he only made the final as the last non-automatic qualifier. In the final his third round throw of 84.13 metres pulled him up to fourth place but he could not improve on this and finished in that position unable to medal at his fourth consecutive games.
Record
Steve's current personal best 91.46 metres achieved on January 25 1992 at North Shire City, New Zealand
Other Items
Steve has broken the world record three times. He was awarded the MBE in the 1995 New Year’s Honours list and then an OBE in 2003. He is married to wife Clare.