Athletics: Adam Gemili
This time last year Adam Gemili had yet to get into his stride as a sprinter. He had only just made the decision to give up a career in football as a right-back with Dagenham & Redbridge to concentrate on athletics. He had just turned 18 and had a promising 100 metres personal best of 10.38sec.
Twelve months on, the 19-year-old from Dartford has clocked 10.06sec for second place in an Olympic 100m semi-final and 10.05sec for a World Junior Championship record. He is a faster teenager than Usain Bolt or Yohan Blake were. Indeed, if Gemili maintains his progress under the guidance of coach Mike Afilaka in 2013 he will become the first teenager ever to break the 10 seconds barrier for 100m.
That is the measure of the exceptional talent British athletics has found on its hands in the wake of London 2012. Promisingly, Gemili did not just cope with the pressure of being thrust into the home Olympic arena, with an 80,000 crowd cheering for him; he positively thrived on it.
Britain does not have the best of records for nurturing junior world-beating sprinters through to success at senior level, but here's hoping...
