Tom McKean in the 800m at the 1989 World Cup (© Getty Images)
Such was the ferocity of the rainstorm that threatened to submerge Montjuic Stadium on the opening night of the 1989 World Cup of Athletics, it would have been little surprise had Tom McKean’s Great Britain vest shrunk to half its size by the time he had completed two laps of the aquatic Barcelona track.
Thankfully, the singlet held its shape as McKean powered his way to a victory that showed how huge a talent he was as an 800m runner.
And now, 35 years on, thanks to McKean’s generosity, his dried-out singlet which he donated to the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA) during the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March will be added permanently to the museum’s 3D online platform in December.
He was 25 when he travelled to Barcelona at the end of the 1989 track season as part of a British men’s team competing in the World Cup for the first time after winning the European Cup on home ground at Gateshead.
McKean was, he confessed, a man on a point-proving mission in an arena that was being renovated in readiness for the 1992 Olympics. He had burst on to the international scene in 1985, with an upset 800 win against Steve Cram in Gateshead, followed by what proved to be the first of a record four successive European Cup triumphs in a bruising two-lap encounter in Moscow.
Then came two hard-earned major championship silver medals in 1986.
Proudly wearing a Scotland vest at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, McKean clocked a Scottish record of 1:44.80 as runner up to a majestic Cram (1:43.22), with future world and Olympic medallist Peter Elliott in the bronze medal position.
McKean subsequently got the getter of Cram in an epic three-way British battle for the European 800m crown in Stuttgart but was narrowly pipped by world record-holder Sebastian Coe. His consolation was a continental silver and another Scottish record, 1:44.61.
When it came to making a mark at global level, however, McKean was struggling to hit the target.
He travelled to the 1987 World Championships in Rome as one of the leading medal contenders but wound up last in the final after what might be termed a tactical disaster-class.
At the Olympic Games in Seoul the following year, McKean was disqualified at the quarter final stage for pushing and shoving his way through the field on the home straight.
Derided in the British tabloid press as ‘Tom McFlop’, he was determined to make the most of his big chance back on the global stage in Barcelona in 1989.
The rain that delayed the start of the fifth track and field World Cup was still bucketing down when McKean took his place on the start line. It was home from home weather for a Scot, but for a son of the Rift Valley, the conditions were less than ideal. Kenyan Nixon Kiprotich had finished 1.11 seconds ahead of McKean in Brussels two weeks earlier and the African representative sought to assert himself from the off, leading through halfway in 52.33.
McKean was content to bide his time in third place, behind Tomas De Teresa, before easing past the Spaniard halfway down the backstraight on the second lap and then moving alongside Kiprotich around the final bend.
Coming into the home straight, McKean forged ahead and held on to his lead, despite a late surge on the outside by Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Jens-Peter Herold. McKean crossed the line 0.10 clear of the fast-finishing East German in 1:44.95, with Kiprotich in third. In doing so, the rain-soaked Scot followed in the footsteps of two of the all-time greats of the 800m: the Cuban colossus Alberto Juantorena, winner of the men’s 800m at the inaugural World Cup in Dusseldorf in 1977, and 1981 winner Coe.
Coe earned his victory representing the European team, but McKean became the first Briton to win a World Cup event representing Great Britain. He was followed over the course of the weekend by Linford Christie in the 100m and Steve Backley in the javelin as the British men secured third place behind the USA and Europe.
“I hope this proves a point,” McKean told the British press corp. “I keep getting told I can’t run in big races but I felt I was in command, in the right position all the time. It’s got to be close to my best ever run.”
McKean’s fastest ever run also came in 1989. He improved his Scottish record to 1:43.88 with a victory over Kenya’s Olympic 800m champion Paul Ereng at Crystal Palace in July that year.
In 1990 he scaled the twin peaks of European indoor success in front of a raucous home town crowd at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow and European outdoor gold on the banks of the Adriatic in Split.
Before hanging up his spikes and concentrating on a career in the police force, McKean also savoured a second global success. Deploying a trouble-minimising strategy that had become his trademark, he shot into the lead in heat, semi and final at the World Indoor Championships in 1993. McKean’s gun-to-tape victory was another world-beating masterclass in 800m running, this time under cover from the elements in the Toronto Skydrome.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics
