Northants Olympian Derek Redmond shares lessons from the dark times

Best known for his unforgettable Olympic moment in Barcelona in 1992, Derek Redmond is a former British 400m sprinter who broke the British record twice and was part of the 4x400m relay team that won gold at the World and European Championships.

Now a sought-after motivational figure among Olympian speakers, he continues to inspire audiences with his remarkable story of perseverance, recovery, and mental resilience.

In this exclusive interview with The Motivational Speakers Agency, Derek shares the mindset that carried him through career-threatening injuries, Olympic heartbreak, and intense physical challenges—all grounded in a relentless belief in his own potential.

Q: You've openly described certain periods of your career as "dark times." What kept you motivated during those moments when everything seemed stacked against you?

Derek Redmond: “It's funny. It's interesting that you asked the dark times what kept me motivated because I always refer to those times as dark times. The reason I use the phrase "dark times" is because we can always shed some light on those dark times, and so it's interesting that you use that quote.

“There's one thing that I am a firm believer that gets you through the dark times—and you know, I had some during my athletics career. I spent from halfway through 1988 all the way up until 1991 injured, didn't compete, tried to train, would break down, had to have operations, go through all the rehab treatment, get back into training, break down, have another operation, go through all the rehab... and it was a bit like Groundhog Day.

“I was doing the same things over and over and over. I didn't compete for a couple of years, and lots of people always used to ask me, "What kept you going? Why didn't you give up?" And believe me. There were voices in my head telling me to give up.

“But the one thing—and there were lots of things—the one main thing that kept me going through those times was the belief that if I could stay healthy, I could be one of the best 400m runners in the world. It was that self-belief of what I could do. My opposition wasn't the competition, or my competition wasn't the opposition—my competition was my own body staying healthy.

“And I always used to say, "God help the rest of the world if I stay in shape for a couple of seasons and don't have any injuries because they won't know what's hit them." You have to have that belief in your heart of hearts that you can achieve whatever it is that you've set out to do—regardless of what people say, what people do, what if they laugh at you, all those sort of things.

“You have to believe it because there will come a time when that's all you've got to hang on to when you're going through these dark times. That's the one bit of rope that's going to help you walk towards the end of that tunnel—that self-belief.

“And I always say that if you don't believe in your heart of hearts that you can achieve whatever it is that you are striving for, then I would suggest that you're chasing the wrong dream. I do believe that you have to believe it in your heart, even when those people around you, those people closest to you, possibly don't believe you. You have to believe it, and that's the one thing that you need to hang on to.

“It certainly, during my career at times, during those dark days, dark weeks, dark months, dark years—there were times when that's all I had to hang on to. I had doctors and people in the professional world saying, "Derek, give up." And I couldn't give up because I knew I had a lot to give, and if you just give me a season, just give me two seasons, and I'll prove what I can do. And so, that for me was the main thing that kept me going—was that belief that I could achieve it.”

Q: Looking back across your career, what would you say was the hardest physical challenge you've ever faced—both in terms of exertion and mental resilience?

Derek Redmond: “Good question. The hardest physical challenge I've ever faced... that's a tough one.

“I mean, it's not so much a physical challenge but the challenge of having to realise that my athletics career was over. I managed to get from one sport to another—I got into basketball and then into rugby and a few other sports along the way. That was physical and mental, I would say.

“But physical challenge—obviously, Barcelona wasn't my finest hour. Pulling a hamstring in the semi-final of the Olympics and deciding to get up and finish—that was kind of done out of anger. Anger was part of it. I'm trying to think of a word that would sum up all that... emotions would be one of the words. That was something that sort of carried me through—just the want of me wanting to finish that race.

“There was some of the training that we used to do that was really tough. One of the things that was quite a physically and mentally tough thing to get through was knowing one week that you're going to do a training session, and it will absolutely break you.

“When I was in the States, we used to do this hill session—and the hill was 450 metres from the bottom to the top. It was a windy road, and we didn't always do 450-metre reps, but we would do different repetitions, different sessions on that hill—and it was a killer.

“At the end of that session—we used to do that hill every Monday—during that session, you would have either thrown up or, if you were really unlucky, you would have passed out because you just ran yourself into exhaustion.

“There were a couple of times I fainted and passed out during that session. What didn't help was it was in a part of America called Azusa, which is in California, and it was stupidly hot out there. I mean, there were times we were training, and it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit—96 degrees Fahrenheit.

“We used to have these little high jump mats at the side of the road, so if you were feeling a bit light-headed, you could go and pass out on one of these mats—or you would throw up. That was standard. That was tough physically.

“But mentally, what was even tougher was knowing that you were going back next Monday to do the same thing and have those same feelings and go through that same process again. That was sometimes tough—knowing you've got the session, and you get there, and a coach will tell you the session, or he'll tell you a few days before, and you'd be like, "Oh man, I've got to go and do this session with Phil, with this person, that person..."

“It was quite a world-class group that we trained with, and you knew you were going to be pushed, and you knew you were going to hurt at the end of it, and you knew you were going to throw up, pass out and feel like crap for the rest of the day—but you still did it.

“So those were some of the really tough physical and mental things that we would go through.”

This exclusive interview with Derek Redmond was conducted by Chris Tompkins of The Champions Speakers Agency.