Last updated at 14:43, Wednesday, 28 March 2012

OLYMPIC Games chief starter Alan Bell will prepare for the biggest moment of his career by repeating the phrase ‘On your marks’ hundreds of times.

STARTER:L Alan Bell CHRIS WEST

Bell will fire the starting gun for the highest profile events at this summer’s Olympics, including the 100m and 400m when Jamaican superstar Usain Bolt will defend his gold medals.

All eyes will be on the 61-year-old athletics official, who lives in Wetheral, at the beginning of the races.

Alan said: “I’ve only cried once at an athletics meeting. I cried at the closing ceremony in 2002 in Manchester (Commonwealth Games) only because I was sat there with my mates and said “we did it”.

“When somebody gives us the chance we’re better than anybody in the world. This year they’ve given us that chance again. London means that much.”

Alan’s high profile events have included the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, where he was chief starter, and the UK World Indoor trials in Sheffield.

World champion Yohan Blake and Jessica Ennis are among the track stars who will hang on to Bell’s every word over the next few months.

Bell said: “I’ll be doing a lot of starting in the build up to the Olympics and it will be great practice to have myself well prepared. At a major event like the Olympics, there is the intensity of doing so much starting as there might be 15 heats of the 100 metres and it is at such a big venue with such a big crowd.”

Bell was the starter when Bolt scorched 100 metres of track in an astonishing 9.58 seconds at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009 in front of 85,000 in the stadium and another 1.2 billion watching TV around the world.

But he ended Lightning Bolt’s dream of another gold medal at the World Championships in South Korea when he disqualified him for a false start after Bolt was out of the blocks too soon.

As millions of TV viewers watched the drama unfold, Bell kept his cool to again fire the starting gun before the race was won by Yohan Blake in 9.92 seconds.

Building up to the Olympics, Alan said: “It would be daft to say I wasn’t excited as the Olympics is one of the highest profile sporting events in the world.”

First published at 11:16, Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk