Jo Mersh looks back on her rollercoaster career

It’s 20 years since Jo Mersh landed the global medal she had dreamed of. It arrived after years of struggles and would prove to be her one and only major honour

“I’m sorry, I haven’t thought about that for so long,” says the woman on the screen, dabbing her teary eyes as her voice cracks with the emotion of a two-decade-old memory.

Even to Jo Fenn, her athletics heyday seems a lifetime time ago. For a start, she now goes by a different name, Mersh, after reverting to her maiden surname. She also lives more than 11,000 miles away in New Zealand and is a mother to two children. Unsurprisingly, her annus mirabilis of 2004 is not something that frequently occupies her thoughts.

But when she does recall the feeling of overcoming illness to surge down the home straight and claim world indoor 800m bronze almost exactly 20 years ago, it all comes flooding back.

“It wasn’t gold, but it was the medal I’d spent so long dreaming about,” she says, via video call from the other side of the world. “I was just so proud to do it for everyone, especially for Ayo [Falola, her coach at the time], who had worked so hard with me.

“It’s choking me up to think about it. And Ayo passed away [in 2015] so it’s even more special for me. He was such an amazing friend. We celebrated and went out that night for dinner, but I didn’t have a drink. Ayo told me to have a glass of wine but I said I had to focus on the Olympics. I wish I’d had a bloody glass of wine with him.

“2004 was by far my biggest year. Then not much happened after that.”

To athletics fans of a certain vintage, the name Jo Fenn will doubtless prompt recognition, likely swiftly followed by wonder at what fate befell a British middle-distance star whose flame seemed to flicker all too briefly.

Five months after making it on to the world indoor podium – where she claimed the only senior international medal of her career – Mersh competed in the Olympic 800m semi-finals. Her trajectory seemed only to be heading in one direction. And then it wasn’t.

She would only complete two more 800m races: one a few weeks later at the prestigious World Athletics Final in Monaco, and another in Loughborough in 2008 following a tumultuous four years, where she could only manage a time 10 seconds slower than she used to be capable of.

As is so often the case, injuries were to blame. But to focus only on those that ended her career is to neglect the barriers she had to…