Other London 2012 stories

"I have two good-luck charms. Firstly, a conker my Mum picked up and gave me the day she dropped me off at Fitzwilliam for my first Michaelmas term. Secondly, a St Christopher medal my sister gave me before my Ironman Triathlon in Switzerland.”

“Winning is a drug that’s hard to break away from!”

“Our 1952 Olympic hockey team (those that are left) still meets for lunch annually, 60 years on ... Any sportsman or woman likes to win, but the friendships you make last far beyond your playing days.”

Capped by England at the end of his first year, played Test rugby throughout his time as an undergraduate, and the first person to captain both rugby and cricket at Cambridge, the national anthem "still makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise."

Richard went up to Magdalene College in 1960, where he hunted with the University Drag and point-to­-pointed alongside his Engineering studies. “During my second year I acquired a young untrained Irish horse called Barberry, whom I col­lected at Euston station off the train from Ireland and took straight to Cambridge...” And the rest is British equestrian history.

“A club patron presented each of the Cambridge crew with a piece of snakeskin that was to be hidden in our socks on Boat Race day. Everyone did it… I’ve still got mine.”

“We took our sport seriously, no doubt about it. But the fun we had out of it was enormous: so many happy memories, of so many marvellous people.”

“I was terrible at football, and too wet for rugby. To my surprise, after a year or two at rowing I turned out to be quite good.”

Sporting heroes: “Growing up, it was Daley Thompson and the heroes of the 1984 Olympics. Now it’s Katherine Grainger, Great Britain’s best woman rower.”

When word reached the University’s Rugby Union Football Club that Eddie Butler had played for Pontypool in the September before matriculation, he was hunted down immediately.

“I remember thinking, ‘that looks ridiculous… I’ve got to try it!’ ... It was the fastest, most terrifyingly brilliant thing I had ever done.”

In summer 1963, Emmanuel Athletics Club had a tour to Ampleforth, Trinity College Glenalmond and Gordonstoun.  In Gordonstoun Prince Charles was a pupil, and watched the races we ran.

I came up to 'read'  for a PhD in Economics (Pembroke) from Australia in 1970. I made friends with fellow ahtletes John Ellicock (Engineering, Emma, 1968, fellow high-jumper) and Ben Bolton-Maggs (Medicine, Corpus, 1968) which have endured for more than 4 decades.

The Varsity Golf Match, played at Hunstanton in March 1962, ended in a tie with Cambridge’s David Simons missing a 3 foot putt for the victory.  This was only the second tied match in 80 odd years.

I was watching the rowing when I was surrounded by a group of young children who were waving programmes and pens under my nose.

Beating Caius, singing on the river and wearing only underwear at Boat Club dinner