Cycling legend Anna Meares takes title as toughest athlete

I’VE been blessed over the years to see some pretty tough athletes in action up close. A few stand out in the memory, writes MIKE COLMAN.

I’VE been blessed over the years to see some pretty tough athletes in action up close. A few stand out in the memory.

I saw Tim Horan on the comeback trail after the worst knee injury imaginable.

Queensland were playing NSW at Ballymore.

The Waratahs had some up-and-coming winger who was said to be the fastest thing on two legs. I can’t remember his name, but it was on everybody’s lips at the time. Let’s just call him The Next-Big-Thing.

The NSW five-eighth put through a grubber kick into the Reds’ in-goal. The Next-Big-Thing hared off after it. Tim turned and joined the race.

I’ll never forget it. Not so much that Tim got the ball first, but what he did next. When it bounced up into his arms he ran over the dead-ball line and, without breaking stride, spiked it like an NFL running back scoring a touchdown.

Then he jogged back, without giving The Next-Big-Thing a second glance.

Like I said, I can’t remember that winger’s name. No one can.

Tim Horan during showed incredible toughness to come back from the worst knee injury imaginable.

Boxers can be tough, needless to say. I was ringside when Jeff Fenech was dropped by a Mexican named Martinez in Melbourne. He climbed back up and whaled away like a threshing machine for 12 rounds, never easing up for a second and winning on points.

At the victory party a few hours later I put out my hand for a congratulatory handshake. He shook his head and, with a grimace of pain, showed me a broken right hand the size of a Christmas ham.

I apologised and offered my other hand. He shook his head again and half raised his broken left hand, which was in worse shape than his right.

There’s plenty more. Allan Border every time he walked out to bat; Alfie Langer and Geoff Toovey, the smallest men on the field taking on the biggest; just about every jockey I’ve ever seen as they sit astride a 550kg beast travelling at 70km/h surrounded by a heaving, snorting, straining pack of similarly sized animals moving just as fast in a mad stampede for the finish line.

Boxer Jeff Fenech was incredibly tough.

But for all that, the toughest athlete I’ve ever seen up close was Anna Meares, track cycling’s greatest-ever champion who retired this week.

It was at the Beijing Olympics, eight years ago.

You all know the story, how she broke her neck in a fall in the US. How the doctor said she was lucky to walk again, but eight months later she was back on the track at the Laoshan Velodrome, winning Olympic silver in the sprint behind long-time rival Victoria Pendleton.

But it was the semi-final to get into that gold medal race that provided some of the best sporting theatre I’ve been lucky enough to witness.

She was up against China’s Guo Shuang, the local hero: dressed all in red and looking for all the world like a fighter pilot ready to shoot down anyone who strayed over Beijing airspace.

Anna Meares in action during the Rio Olympics. Picture: Adam Head

Laoshan had one of those timber tracks that give off a rattling sound like a runaway train when the bikes go past and the roar of the patriotic crowd made this about the most hostile workplace possible.

Not that it worried Anna. She not only beat Guo Shuang and silenced the crowd, she did it after having the result of what would have been the winning race for the local girl nullified on protest, then went back out and won the decider unfazed.

After that, the 2-0 win in the final to Pendleton was forgettable — but not to Anna. Four years later she turned the tables in London, once again having to shut up the vocal local crowd.

Man, that was one tough lady. Thanks for the memories Anna, you were something else.

Anna Meares shows off her gold medal after defeating Victoria Pendleton at the London Olympics.