Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Olympic swimmer who won gold in the 100m breaststroke at the 1980 Moscow Games; also campaigns for fitness and hair-loss support.
On the island
Eight records
Well, it's it's a piece of music that I used a lot to psych myself up for for the Olympic Games and for swimming. It's a piece by Bach, but been changed a little bit to Carter by Skye.
But it's absolutely terrific memories and and a bit of Greek music really brings those back.
And eventually we went to a hop, a little dance, and I knew at that point I'd lost her and they played Nielsen Without You.
I had my little rebellious stage. In fact, I I ended up in a university in America, North Carolina State, studying some business and economics. And the man there is the boss, Bruce Springsteen, Badlands.
Well, on every uh island you you get stuck on, you can always think it's greener the other side of the fence. Well, I thought I'd take something to remind me what metropolitan life is all about. So let's hear a bit of Chris Rea, Road to Hell, Part Two.
I would like to play the theme tune to Chariots of Fire by Vengelus, which every time I hear it brings goosebumps to the back of my head. In fact, it would ev even grow hair on the back of my head.
Well, it's a piece of music that, uh Reminds me of the first meeting of my wife, Brian Ferry Avalon.
O mio babbino caroFavourite
Well, it's a record that holds a lot of special things for me because my wife was on the way to Florence when I met her. My grandmother's called Florence, and in fact, Florence is a place that just captures something for both my wife and I. It's Kiri Takanawa's O Mio Babino Caro.
In conversation
Presenter asks
7:47How did you find out you were dyslexic, and how did that affect you?
I was fourteen when eventually I found out I was dyslexic. I remember about the age of seven or eight, sitting in English class and the English teacher came in and said, Duncan, would you read please? And I got up and I started on the first kind of Paragraph, and after a couple of words, I stuttered and stammered to a halt, and I just couldn't get any further. And there were a few laughs from the class and everything. I described it later. It's almost like a knife going into your self-esteem. And it really gave me a reason, I suppose, to look around for something I was good at. So I now thank it because for that reason I found swimming.
Presenter asks
9:19How did you lose your hair at the age of ten?
I was in a PE class and we actually did an assault course and there was this rope from the top of this well, midway up a tree, about eighteen feet off the ground, that went at an angle down to the ground. And I got up there and uh I was in a hurry. and I leant out as far as I could and grabbed the rope. And my my wrists, I was supposed about ten years old, were too immature to hold the weight and they just let go. So I fell some eighteen feet and and landed on the root of the tree on my lip. It became very swollen, got black eyes, and um a few months later I started to get bald patches. So we went to the specialist and they they they tried everything. They they they didn't know what was wrong, and and eventually they said the only thing they could attribute it to was the the fool.
The keepsakes
The book
J. R. R. Tolkien
one of the books that I've really enjoyed reading several times
The luxury
I'd get sunburnt out there, I'd have to protect it. And when it rains ... it's like a tin roof, it's very noisy inside, so protect me from that.
Presenter asks
11:16Did losing your hair change your character and make you aggressive?
Yeah, well I I suppose it I I did really feel uh uh a slight case of paranoia. But I I think that's a natural reaction of of a lot of people. They kind of feel very edgy about it. And it took me years and years to really overcome it.
Presenter asks
15:34How did you end up studying at North Carolina State University?
Well, um my father died in nineteen seventy two. um when I was about sixteen years old. I suppose it changed a lot because again it it um helped me find a direction in my life. And I suppose the real moment was my mother just coming up to me and saying, Duncan, um, we can't afford to keep you at Millfield any longer. What do you want to do with yourself? I suddenly, clear as day, knew that what I wanted to do more than anything else in the world was swim. And um I desperately looked around in Britain to how I could manage to to fit in my swimming and and carry on some kind of education. And um eventually the the coach, Paddy Garrett, said, Um how about going to American University? Now for somebody who is dyslexic this was quite a funny thing to to say, but I was really lucky because um out in the States they have an SAT exam, standard aptitude test, which is a little like an IQ test and I don't have a problem with IQ, it's reading or writing I have a problem.
Presenter asks
19:10How did you feel when you won the gold medal at the Moscow Olympics and they played the Olympic anthem instead of the national anthem?
My real moment had been minutes before. I was twenty five metres out from the end. A lot had gone wrong in the race, and I'd I'd actually had an injury for sixteen weeks before that. And I could feel the thing slipping, and I heard myself saying, Duncan, if you don't do something right now, you're not gonna win. And that's totally absurd. And and it all clicked together, touched the end, and I knew in my heart I'd won. And uh I grabbed the block. And I thought, I'm going to savour this moment, because it's never going to be quite the same after this. And they say when you drown, your whole life goes before your eyes. Well, in that case, I was drowning in my own emotion,'cause everything was there, my parents. The work, the people, where I was from. It was most extraordinary. And it was only a fraction of a second too. So w when I got up on the on the rostrum there and they played the this very long tune and and raised the um Olympic flags, I was already fairly flat.
Presenter asks
24:33Why did you give up competitive swimming immediately after winning your gold medal at age twenty-three?
I suppose, first of all, there's no reason to continue. I mean, ultimately sport. uh is probably the most self-indulgent thing you can do. Everything takes second place to your sport. And I it's funny, people are very understanding of that as well. I'm not sure why. I suppose it's so clear cut, either you win or lose. There's no grey.
“I think success or winning at something is is difficult and especially came difficult to me because it wasn't natural.”
“You get to the point where swimming or any any sport, anything, you've actually got to decide that you are good enough to win. And that's a very difficult thing to do.”
“I fell some eighteen feet and and landed on the root of the tree on my lip. It became very swollen, got black eyes, and um a few months later I started to get bald patches.”
“I think that throughout my teens. I used it. I said, well, you know, here I am a swimmer. I'm good at swimming. I've lost my hair. It all fits. So it kind of strengthened my belief in some kind of destiny, some kind of path in life that you have the choice to follow if you want to or if you choose to push yourself.”
“The other axiom I think is very exciting that I found from sport is you haven't seen life till you've seen death. And Bobsleigh certainly is that.”