At 6ft 6in tall and nearly 22 stone, Olympic discus thrower Lawrence Okoye ought to be hard to miss.
Hard to miss: but Mayor Perry managed to overlook Croydon discus thrower Lawrence Okoye
But that’s what Croydon’s hapless Mayor Jason Perry did at the weekend, failing to give a shout-out to the only athlete competing at the Paris Olympics from the borough’s largest and longest-established athletics club.
With piss-poor Perry, the failure to mention the Croydon Harrier is believed to be an error, rather than a deliberate sleight, even though Okoye’s club based at the council-owned track complex of Croydon Arena has had plenty of council-inflicted adversity to cope with over the past four or five years.
Okoye’s omission was not the only blunder committed by Perry, as the £82,000 per year Mayor sought to bask in some of the reflected glory of competitors with Croydon links at the Paris Games.
In fewer than 100 words, in his weekly message to the borough (which Inside Croydon reckons is read by less than 1% of the Croydon population), Perry managed to get the wrong sport altogether for Joe Choong, the defending Olympic champion in the modern pentathlon, and misidentified the sixth form attended by sprinter Imani Lansiquot, while also managing to sow confusion of when events are taking place.
But apart from that…
On the council’s website, Perry has written: “Croydon is fortunate to have many talented young people, so it’s no surprise that we have a rising star at the Olympics. Runner Imani-Lara Lansiquot, who has lived in Croydon since she was 10 and attended St Joseph’s Primary School, Coloma Covent Girls’ School, and Trinity Sixth Form College, will compete on Friday in both the 100m heats and, hopefully, the 4x100m relay final. I’m sure we will all be cheering her on to win a medal.
Golden boy: Joe Choong has won Olympic gold and two world titles since 2021, in the modern pentathlon
“Also, good luck to Whitgift’s Joe Choong as he prepares to defend his Pentathlon Gold on Thursday (August 8).”
Lansiquot actually attended the sixth form at Trinity School, in Shirley Park, the large, fee-paying school, where she enjoyed a sports scholarship while taking A levels. There is no such establishment as Trinity Sixth Form College.
And despite what Perry said, the final of the women’s 4x100m relay is not until this coming Friday, August 9, when Sutton and District Harrier Lansiquot teams up with, among others, Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita, and has a fighting chance of a medal (they won bronze in Tokyo three years ago).
In her individual 100m semi-final on Saturday, Lansiquot, 26, clocked 11.21sec for fifth, so did not progress to the final.
Choong is a former pupil at Whitgift School, and competes in the sport invented by the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, in which he has to swim, ride a horse, win some fencing bouts, shoot a pistol and run cross-country, sometimes, in the modern format, all at once.
Whoops: Mayor Jason Perry is not a details man, clearly
The pentathlon, meanwhile, is a multi-event in track and field athletics.
Since winning his Olympic gold, Choong, 29, has won the world title in 2022 and 2023, so goes into the competition in Paris as one of the favourites, as well as burdened with Perry’s expectation.
Perry’s sudden enthusiasm for sports that don’t involve him receiving free drinks and food in the corporate hospitality at Selhurst Park also betrays what he, or Mrs Perry, chooses as their monthly magazine read. Lansiquot graces the cover of the latest edition of Tatler, the posh people’s monthly which normally focuses on high society, fox hunting balls and such like. Its readership is said to be the wealthiest of all Condé Nast’s publications (surpassing even Vogue).
Posh mag: Mayor Perry’s monthly subscription
Since buying their £1.2million mansion close to Lloyd Park, the Perrys must be aspiring to bigger and better things.
Pity, then, that Perry failed in his duty as Mayor of Croydon to give a mention to all of the people from the borough who have been good enough to win the honour to represent Britain at the Olympic Games.
Okoye was, literally, the poster boy for the 2012 London Games, and while he has won a couple of medals at European and Commonwealth Games level since his return from an unsuccessful dalliance with American football, the former Whitgift School pupil (yes, another one) has generally underperformed at big meets.
In 2012, when aged just 20, he had set the British discus record 68.24 metres and made it into the Olympic final at the London Games.
In Tokyo in 2021, in his comeback to the big Olympic circle, Okoye had three no throws in qualifying, so didn’t progress.
It was a bit better this morning, in qualifying in Paris, where Okoye threw 61.17m with his first effort, but failed to improve with his next two tries and so tramped out of the ring, disappointment clear on his face.
If only Mayor Perry had given him a bit of a shout-out on Friday, it might have been all so different.
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