DON’T IGNORE A TUMMY BUG, WARNS OLYMPIAN

SIR STEVE REDGRAVE won five successive Olympic gold medals for rowing despite having ulcerative colitis and, later, type 2 diabetes. The former was diagnosed before the Barcelona Olympics and nearly stopped him competing, as he told sue Mott in december 2011. ‘IT BEGAN in South Africa where I had gone to train in 1992 and I went down with food poisoning. It seemed to clear up after taking medication but then it came back. I was going to the toilet six or seven times a day and my athletic performance was severely affected. They told me my lower intestine was inflamed and oozing with blood. I was losing blood, not absorbing nutrients and sometimes doubled up in pain.’

When Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent lost in the national trials for the Olympics in Barcelona, it was an event of pretty seismic proportions.

Hushed discussions began. The path of British Olympic history would have been entirely altered had the plans to drop Sir Steve gone ahead. But he was given two weeks, during which time the diagnosis was made. The condition is thought to be caused by the immune system attacking the body.

Medication (anti-inflammatory drug dipentum) was prescribed and Sir Steve made a recovery of sufficient speed to give one of the best performances of his 20-year career.

Following another flare-up after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Sir Steve was prescribed the immunosuppressive azathioprine to control the condition. He was also diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1997, possibly linked to the medication he was taking.

not many people would have put money on a man with colitis and diabetes with a packet of sugar taped to the bottom of the boat in case he felt himself falling into a glycaemic coma.

‘I took the view that whatever the difficulty, someone has got to win the gold medal. Why shouldn’t it be me?’