Linford Christie OBE – Keynote Speaker

Undoubtedly Europe’s greatest ever 100m sprinter, Linford Christie became the Olympic 100m Champion after winning the Gold Medal in Barcelona, 1992. In an International career spanning seventeen years, Linford competed over 60 times for his country and won more major championship medals, 23, than any other British sprinter.

Linford is the only British athlete to have won Gold medals in the 100 metres at all four major competitions and was the first European to have run sub ten seconds. His fastest time 9.87 seconds, recorded when he won the 1993 World Championship in Stuttgart, is the European record.

Amongst the numerous awards bestowed upon Linford Christie was the prestigious 1993 ‘BBC Sports Personality of the Year’ and ‘European Athlete of the Year’.
He has worked as a technical commentator in Athletics and has presented many sports specific programmes over the years. Linford was CNN’s lead commentator throughout the Olympic Games Period when he analysed the athletics and provided his expert views having been in the sport for over 30 years. He is also one of Britain’s most successful Coaches and had 5 Athletes competing in the London Olympics.

Linford Christie launched Street Athletics in June 2004 in conjunction with Manchester City Council, in an attempt to find the raw sprinting talent that is being lost to other sports and computer games. The scheme was extended to cover 4 cities in 2006. Since 2005 the project has grown and become more successful, visiting its greatest amount of venues, 22, in 2009 and still going strong in 2014.