Colin Murray's Gold Run
Colin Murray's quest to meet every living British gold medalist as London 2012 nears
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Week 1: Celebrating British Olympic gold
During this summer’s Olympic Games in London you’ll hear countless pointless statistics, like how the BBC is using enough cable to stretch to the moon and back five times and how visitors to the Velodrome will have drank enough bottled water to fill the Brent Reservoir. But here are some different kind of figures for you.
Over 7,000 miles travelled, 746 coffees consumed, 3 flat tyres, 47 arguments, 35 budget hotels and 4 broken and/or destroyed sat-navs. These stats relate to Colin Murray's Gold Run: my attempt to track down every single living British Olympic Gold Medallist to mark the arrival of the 30th games of the Olympiad...
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Week 2: Terry Spinks tribute
With ten living British Olympic Gold Medallists down and a mind-boggling, potential 104 still to go, I can only quote the immortal words of Mr Kris Akabusi: ''Good Grief!''.
Of course, I know just how far down the road I have travelled so far, but actually hearing Colin Murray's Gold Run on air for the first time last Sunday on was an interesting experience, made up of equal parts of nerves, exhilaration, excitement and eventual relief.
Week 3: Bradley Wiggins and James de Gale
"It's a great life and I have learnt to love it. I have learnt to embrace it. I have learnt to stop moaning about what it has given me.''
The words of Bradley Wiggins, during one of the first Gold Run interviews conducted on our travels, and this Sunday - after what seems like a lifetime - it will finally see the light of radio.
Week 4: "Hello, it's Daley here."
Tracking down the so-called superstars of British Olympic history isn’t actually that difficult, in the overall scheme of Gold Run.
You want Redgrave, you ring an agent. You want Holmes, you call a manager. You want Coe, just hang around Canada Wharf tube station for a couple of days.
Much more tricky is tracking down those Olympic heroes who have somewhat disappeared into a normal life, taking jobs ranging from teaching to dentistry, and from lawyer to, in the case of '56 boxing legend Dick McTaggart, rat catcher!
Week 5: Sir Chris Hoy's inspiration
From the very first Gold Run interview, myself and producer Nick Etherton did our utmost to uncover at least one thing connected to our Olympic interviewees that hadn't been talked about before. Or least made them think a little bit more about their moment - or moments - under one of the brightest of sporting spotlights.
Read more on the 5 live blogWeek 6: "It's not the winning, it's the taking part...it's fighting for Great Britain."
Before I met a single Olympic gold medallist it was my hope that those who had fallen from the limelight, or were never in it in the first place, would have their story documented. So in 20 years when anybody needed to know the tale of Judy Grinham, David Bond or Gillian Sheen, to name but three, they would only have to reach for the Gold Run archive.
Invariably, it has been those lesser known stories that have gripped me, that have enthralled me, that have left an everlasting imprint on my mind and, in many cases, my heart.
Week 7: Giving Duncan Goodhew the ceremony he never had
While Gold Run set out to chart the history of Great Britain's Olympic success, along the way it was also a privilege to hear first-hand accounts of moments outside of competition that will shape the event's history forever, for better or for worse.
From long jump champion Lynn Davies' account of Tommie Smith's Black Power Salute in 1968, to various gold medallists recalling the horrific terrorist atrocities of Munich 1972, the programme has acted partly as a potted history of the Games themselves.
But on one particular occasion we were able to change the past!
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