After a double-session training day on an unseasonably balmy October afternoon in Middlesbrough, Louie Hinchliffe steps outside to leave his new coach, Richard Kilty, rehabilitating a recently mended achilles. It was little over two months ago, seconds after Hinchliffe had handed him Team GB’s baton in the Olympic 4x100 metres heats, that Kilty’s achilles ruptured. Somehow, he managed to complete his leg, keeping Britain on track to win bronze in his absence the following evening.
For Kilty, 35, the Olympic medal was a swansong to a career that had included every major international podium. The achilles tear, and subsequent surgery, would confirm his intention to retire from the track. For Hinchliffe, Britain’s new great sprint hope, it was a first international medal to follow his maiden national 100m title. Teammates at opposite ends of the career spectrum.
