Allyn Condon (born 24 August 1974) is an English former sprinter and

bobsleigh Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of 2 to 4 athletes make timed speed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobslei ...

er. 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 The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

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 medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

s at the European Youth Olympics in Brussels in 1991 at the age of 16 and then was part of the winning

4 × 400 metres relay The 4 × 400 metres relay or long relay is an athletics track and field, track event in which teams consist of four runners who each complete 400 metres or one lap, totaling 1600 meters. It is traditionally the final event of ...

team at the European Junior Championships in the same year. In 1992 he ran first leg in the

4 × 100 metres relay The 4 × 100 metres relay or sprint relay is an athletics track event run in lanes over one lap of the track with four runners completing 100 metres each. The first runners must begin in the same stagger as for the indiv ...

team that took gold at the World Junior Championships in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, breaking the European junior record in the process. He became one of the youngest sportsmen ever to be selected to compete for

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

at the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

where at the age of 18 he won a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

, his first as a senior athlete. He was the

200 metres The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400-metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slight ...

bronze medalist at the

1998 European Athletics Indoor Championships The 1998 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held from Friday, 27 February to Sunday, 1 March 1998 at the Palace of Luis Puig, Valencia, Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western ...

and won 4 × 100 m relay gold medals at the 1998 European Cup and 1998 IAAF World Cup and

1998 European Athletics Championships The 17th European Athletics Championships were held from 18 August to 23 August 1998 in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. Men's results Track 1990 , 1994 , 1998 , 2002 , 2006 , Field 1990 , 1994 , 1998 , 2002 , 2006 , Women's results ...

. In 1998 he also represented

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in the 200 metres event, at the

1998 Commonwealth Games The 1998 Commonwealth Games ( Malay: ), officially known as the XVI Commonwealth Games (Malay: ), were a multi-sport event held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The 1998 games were the first held in Asia and the last Commonwealth Games of the 20th cen ...

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, Malaysia. The following year he won a 4 × 400 m relay bronze at the

1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships The 7th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held in the Green Dome Maebashi stadium in Maebashi, Japan from March 5 to March 7, 1999. It was the first time the Championships were staged outside Europe or North America. Primo Nebi ...

. At that competition he ran first leg in the 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. At the outdoor World Championships, he won a silver medal in the event at the

1999 World Championships in Athletics The 7th World Championships in Athletics, a World Athletic Championships event held under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Estadio Olímpico de Sevilla, Seville, Spain, between the Augus ...

. In 2000 he was selected for his first

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

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 Kidney failure, also known as renal failure or end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney fa ...

and

endocarditis Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves. Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, o ...

. After spending six weeks in hospital, doctors told Allyn that his athletics career was over. After a short time out of the sport, he got back to full fitness and in August became the

2002 Commonwealth Games The 2002 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XVII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Manchester 2002, were an international multi-sport event for the members of the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth held in Manchester, England, ...

gold medalist in Manchester in the 4 × 100 m relay. Condon flew out to Munich as part of the

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. In 2003 he was a finalist in the 200 m at the ((World Indoor Athletics Championships , 2003)) but was unfortunately disqualified after getting two false starts. He refused to leave the track despite the disqualification, holding the event up for a period of around 10 - 15 minutes. After huge support from the home nation crowd, he was allowed to run under protest, but was later disqualified anyway.

Switch to bobsleigh

After an international athletics career, inspired by the film '' Cool Runnings'', he changed from

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

in 2006 to take on the challenge of

. During his first year in the sport he became a first team regular in both the two-man and four-man events. His best finish at the

FIBT World Championships The IBSF World Championships (known as the FIBT World Championships until 2015), part of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, have taken place on an annual basis since FIBT World Championships 1930, 1930. Starting with 2002, no Wo ...

was fifth in the four-man event at

St. Moritz St. Moritz ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is a high Alpine resort town in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about above sea level. It is Upper Engadine's major town and a municipality in the administrative region of Maloja in the Swiss ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

. Condon's best World Cup finish was tenth in a four-man event at

Winterberg Winterberg (; Westphalian: ''Winnenmerg'') is a town in the Hochsauerland district of North Rhine-Westphalia, central Germany and a major winter sport resort of the Wintersport Arena Sauerland. Geography Winterberg is located in the middle ...

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, becoming part of a select group to have competed at both the Summer and Winter Olympics. As a bobsledder, Condon finished 17th in the four-man event at the

2010 Winter Olympics The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games () and also known as Vancouver 2010 (), were an international winter multi-sport event held from February 12 to 28, 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

alongside former track and field teammate Dan Money. A 150 km/h crash that put the

team on their heads on the bend named 50/50 prevented the four-man team from achieving a top eight finish.

Athletics statistics

Personal bests

Competition record

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Condon, Allyn 1974 births Living people English male bobsledders English male sprinters British male sprinters British male bobsledders Olympic athletes for Great Britain Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Olympics Olympic bobsledders for Great Britain Bobsledders at the 2010 Winter Olympics Commonwealth Games gold medallists for England Athletes (track and field) at the 1998 Commonwealth Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2002 Commonwealth Games World Athletics Championships medalists European Athletics Championships medalists Alumni of Brunel University London Sportspeople from Liverpool Athletes from Liverpool World Athletics Indoor Championships medalists Medallists at the 2002 Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games gold medallists in athletics