A little background on Alan Wells, for our younger visitors...
Born in Edinburgh, Wells was initially a triple jumper and long jumper and started to concentrate on the sprint events in the early 1970s.
Wells big breakthrough came at the start of the 1978 season when his times and victories began to indicate he may be a force to be reckoned with . It had been many years since a British sprinter had made any impresssion on the International scene and the sight of the powerful Scot taking on and beating top class competition was a major surprise for British Athletics fans . In August 1978, he won two gold medals (200 m, 4 x 100 m) and a silver one (100 m) for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, and became the fastest sprinter in the UK.
Wells never used the starting blocks until a rule change forced him to do so for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. Wells reached the final where he faced pre-race favourite Silvio Leonard of Cuba. In a close finish, both Wells and Leonard set a final time of 10.25 s, but Wells crossed the line slightly earlier to become the oldest Olympic 100 m champion at that time. The 200 m final was another close affair, but this time Wells lost to Pietro Mennea, who beat him by 0.02 s. With the British relay team, Wells finished 4th.
Following the Moscow Olympics there was a general feeling that Well's gold medal had been devalued by the boycott of the games by several major athletic nations the USA in particular . However he silenced many of the doubters by subsequently beating the Americans that came over for the remainder of the European Athletics season
