Crates' Expectations

There is no dearth of stories about Danny Crates and his fearlessness. The one that I found particularly fascinating came from the Paralympic champion himself. Picture this: a one-armed man swimming in an enclosed space with huge sharks. Crates used to do it four times a day.

"I would call it the daftest position I've ever held in my life - a diver in a shark tank in an aquarium.

"There were 20 sharks in a tank. I had to swim with them four times a day, the idea being to convince the public that sharks are not the scary maneaters they are made out to be.

"It was quite good fun, though looking back I wouldn't say it was the most intelligent decision I made!"

That "daft position'' that Crates held for six weeks one summer was just one of the many jobs that he took up before he decided to concentrate on athletics. A gifted paralympian and motivational speaker, Crates was in Dubai recently to kick off the 1,000 days to London Olympics event. He has many stories to tell, all of which contribute to creating the image of a totally fearless man sprinting through life unaffected by the hurdles thrown in his path.

It's implicit in the parts he chooses to highlight when he tells, or rather abbreviates, his story.

Quiz him and he grins and says casually, "Yeah, I lost my arm in an accident." He doesn't exactly say, ‘So what?' But it's implied. "I moved on."

The story has to be extracted in bits and pieces. Crates lost his right arm at the age of 21 in a road accident in Australia. Ironically, he'd gone to that country to avoid another mishap after two accidents in England.

"I worked as an engineer in the petrochemical industry," he says. "Work was a bit scarce after my apprenticeship but that was not the only reason I decided to go to Australia. It was because of two car crashes. The first time I had a car crash, I got my car repaired [but] three days later somebody drove my car and crashed it [again].

"So, after two car crashes, I figured I'd go to Australia, because I thought it was safer than risking a third car crash in the UK!"

When it comes to the crunch, however, Crates is reticent. "I went to Australia, spent a year out there, had a third car crash and lost my right arm. Luckily, I had my year there, so I was quite pleased about that. I returned to the UK not to rebuild my life - that would be the wrong word - but to refocus my life."

Of course that was not easy to do. It took a while for Crates to come to terms with his loss.

"I still had to find a new life for myself,'' he says. For about six months after the incident, his life seemed to veer totally off-course. "I didn't necessarily go ‘off the rails'. It was just a way of getting over being 21 and getting over what had happened to me."

But something in him clicked and Crates, a man who always likes to look ahead, decided that he needed to get back in control.

"I've always been quite forward thinking and don't tend to look back too often," he says. "When things are going well you can sit back and bask in your glory, or move on and set bigger goals for yourself. "Likewise, when things are going bad, you can sit and wallow in what could have been, or you can move on and set things right."

He chose the latter option and decided to pursue... rugby.

"I had played rugby earlier, so I went back to my local rugby club and started training. A year after the accident, I had my first game of professional rugby with able-bodied players. That was the most important step I took on my road to recovery because that's when I realised that even though traumatic things may have happened in your life that needn't stop you from doing what you truly want to do."

This realisation also took him back to his childhood when he used to participate in athletics. "If you ask the outstanding person in any field - music, sports, anything - where they first discovered the passion for what they do in their chosen field, time and again you will hear that it was in school. School was where they learnt to first play the guitar, acted in their first play, were first introduced to athletics… I too had my first taste of it in school. One of my big messages to children is to take that chance when you first get it. You never know where it's going to lead you."

‘I wasn't special'

Crates had his first chance in school and progressed enough to join the local athletics club. But he was not confident enough to continue. "I was good, but I wasn't anything special," he says matter-of-fact.

"When I was 15, I decided that rugby was a lot more fun and switched allegiance. I represented Essex in England. I had dreams that I would one day play for England, but I guess I didn't have the drive and ambition that takes you from the good to the very good."

Despite playing rugby again, Crates still had no idea what he would do in the future. "I just played social rugby on weekends, thoroughly enjoyed it, but still didn't have an idea of what I would do in life until I had an opportunity to go back to Australia and work with people who had disabilities. I got inspiration working with them."

He occupied his time training physically challenged people, working with a charitable organisation, swimming with sharks, till he met some athletes. "They'd been to the '96 Paralympic Games and I listened to them talking about it. I can't say exactly what it was but I suddenly had this burning desire inside me to do it. It wasn't necessarily to be a champion, but to make the team.

"International athletics is a fantastic way of life. Athletes get to travel all over the world in competition and when it gets cold in England, as it inevitably does most of the year, you jet off to warm climates to do the training.

"So, I started training in 1997 and I got my first call up in 1998, which was the World Championships in Birmingham. I participated in the 400m and reached the final which was further than I expected. I placed eighth, but in my mind I was last. I wanted more."

So Crates trained for the next two years and, in 2000, made the big leap to the professional league. "It was one of the big changes I made in my life," he says. "I left my local training group and joined a group of international athletes. It led to a change in my lifestyle. I had trained as an athlete, but I had not developed the mindset of one. This provided the necessary shift: developing the attitude of giving it that extra bit; training in the middle of December when it's freezing cold and raining to boot."

Getting competitive

It was also a matter of cultivating the competitive spirit.

"When I won the bronze medal at the 2004 Paralympics, I didn't feel like I'd won anything; I felt I had lost the gold. It's so hard to take. But I learnt to look on [such failures] as small hurdles. That is what goaded me to win the next time. It took me a couple of years to look at the medal and accept that being number three in the world wasn't too bad. But I think that was what drove me on."

Crates finished fourth in both the 400m and 800m at the 2002 World Championships. "I discovered that I was better racing longer distances, so I made the decision to concentrate from then on the 800m and it proved to be the right choice."

Going into the 2004 Athens Paralympics where he won the gold, Crates began to feel the pressure of being the favourite for the 800m event. "My coach simply told me that I knew what to do, and suddenly I knew that was true. I was so focused that nothing could interfere with what I had to do. It was my day."

Crates also won gold in the 800m race at the European Championships in 2003, and again in 2005. He won gold in the same category at the World Indoor Championships in 2003. He had previously won gold running 400m at the European Championships in 2001. He also won the gold in the 800m race at the inaugural Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in 2004.

By 2008 things were going really well for him. "I was probably in the best shape of my life as I prepared for the Beijing Paralympics before my injury problems started," he says.

He had a back problem initially, and then damaged his calf and also had Achille's problems. "I always believed I would get to the starting line in Beijing but the closer it got, the tougher it became."

Leading up front

The day before the opening ceremony, Crates was told that he would be leading the Great Britain team out carrying the flag.

"For me, it was something special," he recounts. "My career has been full of many highs, and some lows, as in any athlete's career, but this was pretty much the pinnacle. This is the one I had no control over. This is the one that has to be given to you for what you've achieved."

Then came the low of not being able to participate. The nagging injuries flared up before the race and Crates had to bow out. "A couple of days later I went back to England because I wanted to get away from it all. Then I had to try to put it behind me and move on."

‘Move on' appears to be the big phrase in Crates' book and he certainly tries to live by the dictum.

"If Beijing had gone well, I would have probably retired. So, I wanted to put it behind me and prove that I still had what it takes to be a top-class athlete.

"By April this year I was once again running well and getting in shape. Then I suffered a minor tear in my hamstring four weeks before the BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester earlier this year. Because it was an international event and important for me to come back for, I probably returned a week earlier than I should have. I was training in South Africa in March this year when my coach called me aside and told me ‘Danny, you've got to slow down. You're going too fast.' That, according to me, was a positive thing.

"Later, when my physiologists tested me, they said I'd never been fitter, faster or stronger. I thought, ‘Wow!". The next day I had the best training session in my entire career."

Crates did participate and was just 600m short of the finish line when he tore his hamstring and had to quit. "I had to sit on the sidelines watching the race unfold without me. It was another really tough moment for me and I think it was probably then that I realised maybe I should retire."

Pride is not part of Crates' baggage. "I retired on the 25th of July this year, after 11 years as an international athlete," he says.

"It was a tough decision, after all the injuries of last year and the massive high of carrying the flag for the Great Britain team and leading the team out in the opening ceremony.

"To be forced out the next day due to my injury was a very tough call. So I decided that it was time to call it a day. I wanted to compete and if I could not compete in the London Games in 2012, which it was likely I wouldn't, then I thought, right, I'm going to be at the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace, and do it in style. And it was magical.

"When there are 80,000 people in a stadium and 79,900 of them are cheering for you, that's when you know you've made it. For me, London was so special."Today Crates is one of the most inspiring Paralympic athletes around and life has continued beyond the track. He's had a parallel career as a motivational speaker who's becoming increasingly popular because he speaks from his heart.

"As an athlete, I was called to address small local groups, schools and the like," he explains.

"The first speech I did was for the Women's Institute, which consists of older-generation women who must have their cucumber sandwiches and tea. Not quite the audience I had in mind, but I enjoyed it.

"I also realised I had a flair for it. I gradually started relishing the atmosphere; I love big stages and audiences. I also love speaking to small intimate groups, where you can interact personally.

"I've been at it for nine years now, and worked in Europe and Asia. Now that I've retired from sports I have more time to concentrate on this."

He misses the spirit of participating in athletics. "Retiring from competitive sports has been difficult, but I'm sure I'll find something else to give my all to," he grins. In the meantime, he plays rugby, and is a qualified diving instructor. Though, he gives the sharks a miss these days.

- Shiva Kumar Thekkepat is Feature Writer, Friday