A Father’s Day thought for Jim Redmond

Father’s Day is always a time for reflecting on all the support and encouragement I’ve received from my father, the same that I’ve tried to pass on to my children.  And it’s a day that I think of Jim Redmond.

Derek Redmond was a sprinter for the UK Olympic team in the 1992 Games in Barcelona.  He pulled his hamstring half-way through the race, forcing him to the ground.  Yet he got up and started hopping to the finish line,175 meters away.  His father, Jim, ran down from the stands, gathering his son onto his shoulder to help him around the track and across the line to finish.

For me, the event, and especially the exchanges between them as they came around the last turn, have always captured the essence of what it means to be a father, and to have one.