Young blade busy breaking all the rules

As the BBC cameras focus in on the Sheffield Arena this weekend for the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, a 6ft 2in black figure with abundant, braided hair and abundant skating talent seems certain catch the eye.

As the BBC cameras focus in on the Sheffield Arena this weekend for the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, a 6ft 2in black figure with abundant, braided hair and abundant skating talent seems certain catch the eye.

Even though his outstanding abilities will only be on show in the relay races this time around, Leon Flack is shaping up as a successor to Wilf O'Reilly and Nicky Gooch as Britain's No 1 - and a potential Olympic achiever - in only his first senior season.

At the age of 19, he can look back on not one but two hugely successful junior careers. Not only has he won the four national titles in speed skating, he has secured 15 British golds in roller skating, as well as two world silvers and, earlier this season, a silver medal in the senior European Championships.

Luckily for both sports, their fixture lists do not clash too often, which allows Flack to carry on his one-man double act. "The two fit nicely together," Flack said. "But it's hard to do both because the techniques are so different." If anything has to give it will be the roller skating, as speed skaters are beginning - belatedly - to benefit from the National Lottery's World Class Performance programme. And, of course, there is the Olympic dimension...

When O'Reilly raised the sport's profile in this country by winning Olympic gold when speed skating was introduced as a demonstration sport in 1992, Flack was only starting his career on ice. But two years later he sat in front of the television and watched Gooch - now his team-mate and confidant at the Guildford rink - win Olympic bronze in Norway after losing a silver when he was disqualified for pushing.

Flack's performance in the recent world trials, where he finished second behind Gooch, gave an indication of the competitive spirit he will bring to bear upon his ambition.

This young man is emphatic about his future. "I have always been very confident in my ability. My aim is to get medals at the Olympics and World Championships by 2002."

Flack's mother, Jacqui, has supported his involvement in the sport for the past 10 years, even though it has meant making considerable sacrifices in terms of time and money.

"It is an expensive sport, and money has always been tight for us because I'm a working-class single parent," she said. "For years, every time he got a birthday or Christmas present from myself or my parents, it was to do with skating. That was the only way we could afford to do it. We would say: 'Leon, what would you like for Christmas?' He would say: 'I need new blades, please.' I think there is a feeling in the sport that, if Leon can do it, everyone can do it. He's black, he's not middle-class, and he comes from a single-parent family. He's broken every single convention you can think of."

Not only that, but Flack is also asthmatic, a condition which is a legacy of steroid treatment he had as a youngster for a lung complaint. "The drugs actually harmed his lungs," Jacqui said. "The bottom third of his lungs have been left damaged." For many years, before competitions, Flack used to have to have osteopathy to expand his rib cage in order to take part. But he believes the practice of skating itself, with its vigorous use of the arms, has allowed his body to fight back. Nowadays, unless he has a close encounter with a cold or a cat, he does not suffer any symptoms, to the point where he no longer even carries an inhaler.

Flack's first encounter with the ice came as a last measure - he was driving his mother quietly bonkers. "Leon was hyperactive as a child," she said, "so one day when he was about eight I took him to a general ice skating session at the Michael Sobell Centre near where we lived in north London. It was partly desperation - I needed to tire him out! He took to it straight away, and the ice rink manager said there was something natural about the way he skated, and suggested he tried speed skating."

Soon the young novice was skating at the Alexandra Palace, before moving on to the Aldwych club at Guildford, where he began to make those who run the sport take notice.

But, as Flack wryly acknowledged, he has picked the wrong sport for mass adulation. When you ask him about the size of crowds speed skating attracts, he utters one word: "Crowds?"

Generally speaking, there are no crowds, only larger or smaller collections of friends and family to witness this most testing of disciplines.

A home World Championships with a captive audience would appear to be the ideal environment for this vivid talent to bloom still further, but the talent in question is biding his time diplomatically.

"I was a bit disappointed not to be chosen for one of the two individual places, but it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise," he said. "I can gain a lot of experience by competing in the relay, and I will be watching all the individual events very closely." By the time of next year's World Championships in South Korea, there is every chance that Flack will be the one under close scrutiny. But this weekend offers a tantalising preview.