Allyn Condon

Allyn Condon
Personal information
Nationality English
Citizenship United Kingdom
Born (1974-08-24)24 August 1974
Liverpool, England
Residence Runcorn, England
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Sport
Sport Athletics, Bobsleigh
Event(s) Sprinting, two-man bobsleigh, four-man bobsleigh,
Medal record
Men’s athletics
Representing  Great Britain
World Championships
1999 Seville 4x100 m relay
World Indoor Championships
1999 Maebashi 4x400 m relay
European Championships
1998 Budapest 4x100 m relay
World Cup
1998 Johannesburg 4x100 m relay
1992 Cuba 4x400 m relay
European Cup
1998 Saint Petersburg 4x100 m relay
World Junior Championships
1992 Seoul 4x100 m relay
European Junior Championships
1991 Thessaloniki 4x400 m relay
1993 San Sebastian 4x100 m relay
1993 San Sebastian 4x400 m relay
European Youth Olympics
1991 Brussels 400m
1991 Brussels 4x400 m relay
Representing  England
Commonwealth Games
2002 Manchester 4x100 m relay

Allyn Condon (born 24 August 1960) is an English former sprinter and bobsleigher. At the Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010 he became the seventh person to have competed for Great Britain in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games having already competed in the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Career

Athletics

Condon has been coached by his father Morris Condon since the age of 10 years. He showed a talent for athletics at an early age when he won two gold medals at the European Youth Olympics in Brussels in 1991 at the age of 16 and then was part of the winning 4 x 400 metres relay team at the European Junior Championships in the same year.

In 1992 he ran first leg in the 4 x 100 metres relay team that took gold at the World Junior Championships in South Korea, breaking the European junior record in the process. He became one of the youngest sportsmen ever to be selected to compete for Great Britain at the World Cup in Cuba were at the age of 18 he won a bronze medal, his first as a senior athlete.

He was the 200 metres bronze medalist at the 1998 European Athletics Indoor Championships and won 4 × 100 m relay gold medals at the 1998 European Cup and 1998 IAAF World Cup and 1998 European Athletics Championships.

The following year he won a 4 × 100 m relay bronze at the 1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships and outdoors won the a silver medal in the event at the 1999 World Championships in Athletics. At that competition he also ran first leg in the 4 × 400 m relay team that broke the British indoor record and won a bronze medal. He still holds the British record and is still ranked 5th on the UK all time 200 m indoor rankings.

In 2000 he was selected for his first Olympic Games in Sydney where he competed as part of the 4 × 100 m relay team. In August 2001 after competing for Sale Harriers Manchester in a league competition, Allyn collapsed and was later rushed into hospital with renal failure and endocarditis. After spending six weeks in hospital, doctors told Allyn that his athletics career was over.

After a spell out of the sport, he got back to full fitness and in August became the 2002 Commonwealth Games gold medalist in Manchester in the 4 × 100 m relay. Condon flew out to Munich as part of the Great Britain Team for the 2002 European Athletics Championships, but after a dispute with the team management over selection returned home before the event had taken place.

Switch to bobsleigh

After an international athletics career, inspired by the film Cool Runnings, he changed from track and field in 2006 to take on the challenge of bobsleigh.

During his first year in the sport he became a first team regular in both the 2 man and 4 man events. His best finish at the FIBT World Championships was fifth in the four-man event at St. Moritz in 2007. Condon's best World Cup finish was tenth in a four-man event at Winterberg in 2008.

In 2008 during a race in Germany he hurt his back and returned home to the UK. After having his back scanned, surgeons found he had ruptured an artery on his lower spine and this brought an abrupt end to the season ahead.

He returned to the sport in 2009 when the team struggled to find any kind of form on the World cup circuit and had a disappointing World Championships finish.

In 2010 after a season of selection upsets, he was selected to represent Great Britain at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. As a bobsledder, Condon finished 17th in the four-man event at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver alongside former track and field team-mate Dan Money. A 150 km/h crash that put the Great Britain team on their heads on the bend named 50/50 prevented the 4-man team from achieving a top 8 finish.

Athletics statistics

Personal bests

Distance Time Location Date
60 metres (indoor) 6.60 sec Australia August 2000
100 metres 10.21 sec Bedford 14 August 1999
200 metres 20.63 sec Birmingham 1 January 1997
300 metres 33.08 sec Loughborough 8 August 1999
200 metres (indoor) 20.53 sec Birmingham 8 February 1998
400 metres (indoor) 46.23 sec Birmingham 14 February 1999

Competition record

Year Competition Venue Position Event Notes
Representing  United Kingdom
1991 European Youth Olympics Brussels, Belgium 1st 400m 48.20
1st 4 × 100 m relay 41.86
1992 World Junior Championships Seoul, South Korea 1st 4 × 100 m relay 39.21
5th 4 × 400 m relay 3:07.48
1998 European Indoor Championships Valencia, Spain 3rd 200 metres 20.68
European Championships Budapest, Hungary 1st 4 × 100 m relay 38.52
1999 World Indoor Championships Maebashi, Japan 3rd 4 × 400 m relay 3:03.20

References

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