The passing of pop stars

Over the past few months there has been one announcement after another about the deaths of great music stars. Bowie probably drew the greatest amount of tributes but it got to the point where we all started saying something about sex, drugs and rock and roll finally catching up with the hell raisers.
One after another the mighty have fallen and the deaths have reached scary proportions. In fact from what we have read about many of them it was something of a miracle that some of them lasted in their seventies.

This morning I read the news that Julian Jenkinson, one of my sports greatest hero's had died suddenly. He appears to have suffered a heart attack whilst he was out on a training ride. This was a dreadful shock to many of us. He had a remarkable career in Triathlon. He was former British Iron Distance record holder, maintaining that record for 13 years from 1996-2008.

To me he was certainly somebody to be proud of; He was an elite athlete at a number of the international events that I competed in. He was very down to earth and would stop to chat to anybody and give them advice if they needed it.

When I speak of my own success, I always add that I am competing on the age group team, as if my medals were not so important. Years ago my husband Steve and I shared a table with Julian at a sports dinner and awards evening. The conversation turned to cycle races that we had all taken part in and how we had got on in them. Julian mentioned that he had seen in Cycling Weekly that I had won the women's race in a 100 mile time trial. I was so taken aback that he had remembered that, and immediately tried to make less of it by explaining that the only reason I was shown on the result sheet as the women's winner was that all the other women had dropped out at some point because they were not happy with their times, so actually saving themselves for another day. The great and successful Julian Jenkinson, very seriously told me off for that and said that it was a fair and square win and I need not feel that it was anything but that.

He was same to everybody, never above himself and funny into the bargain. Once we were all on the GB team at the World Long Distance Championships in Nice and I recall that he made a big point of not liking the team kit that year. When challenged he turned the question back and asked why the kit had big splashes of silver on it and pressed the point by asking where was the silver on the Union Jack Flag. I seem to recall there was humorous photo call along those lines.

A giant in the sport of triathlon, he will be very sadly missed, certainly by me, but well remembered.