Athletics: Fenn finally bounces back to tune up for medal run

British 800 metres hope for Commonwealth Games also pursues unlikely second career as singer and songwriter

A municipal recreation ground within earshot and indeed fume-inhalation of a busy motorway is not where you might expect to find one of Britain's most promising athletes preparing for the Commonwealth Games. Then again, perhaps it is. Plenty of movers and shakers in athletics, among them Denise Lewis, have lambasted the quality of facilities in this country.

Whatever. Ashton Playing Fields, in the lee of the M11 in Woodford, Essex, is where I meet Jo Fenn, 27, who, with Kelly Holmes opting to contest the 1,500 metres, is our brightest hope in today's 800m heats. And whether or not she qualifies for the semi-final and final, her very participation represents, after years of injury, a triumph of resolve.

She greets me warmly, and declares: "I am really, really confident. I'm ranked third in the Commonwealth at the moment, so I can be proud and confident that I have a good medal chance." The two ahead of her are Marie Mutola of Mozambique, and Diane Cummins of Canada. "Mutola's run 1min 56sec, and Diane's run 1:59.7, and I'm on 2:02. There's not much between us."

There being nowhere to get a drink at Ashton Playing Fields, we repair in my car to a cafe down the road. "I don't normally get into strangers' cars," says Fenn, "but I'll make an exception."

She's a real sweetie, open, friendly and bursting with enthusiasm for her event. She is similarly enthusiastic about her parallel career as a singer, as a backing vocalist with a rock covers band, The Business (available for weddings, birthdays and barmitzvahs), and a "quite Countryfied" solo artist. We'll come back to her singing. But first things first. When did she realise that 800m was her best distance?

"Only about four or five years ago," she replies. "In the English Schools [championships] I ran the 200, then moved up to 300m hurdles and dabbled with 400 hurdles and heptathlons. In the heptathlon, along with the javelin, the 800 was always my strongest event. And it's got everything, the 800. I loved watching Coe and Ovett. You need speed, endurance, tactical awareness. It's short enough to be exciting, long enough to be interesting."

It was only last year, however, in the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon, that Fenn realised that she had what it took to compete at the highest level. She finished fourth in her heat, missing qualification by a fraction, but still it was a deep and meaningful moment in her career, because a chronic case of shin splints had effectively ruled her out of track competition for years.

"I threw the javelin to remain competitive, but I couldn't run. I'd always had sore shins, but it got progressively worse. By 1994 I was in so much pain. I used to lie in bed and my shins would just be on fire with something called Compartment Syndrome. I saw so many different physios, it cost a bomb. Finally I went to see John Browett in Harley Street. He was the one who rebuilt Paul Gascoigne's knee [Fenn shows me a long scar on her right leg, the equal of anything Gazza can muster]. It took about three years to rebuild all my strength and fitness. Eventually I was able to do some winter training, which is the key to whatever success you have in the summer."

While she was injured, Fenn made ends meet by working as a receptionist in a hospital physiotherapy department. She hated it. "It was really stressful. I had to deal with some very irate people. Then I decided to become a 24-hour athlete. I started eating well, sleeping well..."

But she is not yet earning well. "Puma provide me with clothing, and I get massages paid for, but I'm not on a monetary contract. I'm not doing it for the money, although obviously it does pay well at the top end. There are grands prix where you can make loads. And I do want to buy a Volkswagen Beetle, one of the old ones."

Her biggest prize-money cheque so far is £1,000, "for coming third in a grand prix in Birmingham last year." To put that in perspective, I ask her what the world No 1, Mutola, earns?

A good-natured sigh. "She probably earns about £25,000 appearance money, then between 10 and 15 grand for winning, plus bonuses. If she runs under 1:56, she might get another £20,000. It is very lucrative at the top, which is where I believe I can be."

A strong performance this weekend, although there is no prize-money on offer, will substantiate that claim. Does she have a race strategy? "In the heat it's just to make the semi, then just to make the final, then to go for gold, definitely. But I want to be in command in each race. I don't want to get boxed in, because you can get tripped, or the front girls just kick and it's all over.

"So I might have to be quite physical, to play argy-bargy, because I guarantee that the girls from other countries will use their arms. The British girls are normally a lot more passive. We're quite polite. But you have to play them at their own game, and I've worked hard on my strength. I won't be afraid of knocking people about. I don't really worry about the others. Maurice Greene is famous for that. He doesn't worry about others on the track, it's about number one."

And what if, in accordance with her ranking, she wins bronze? Will she feel a tad disappointed?

"I would like to run sub-two minutes," she replies. "I know I'm capable of running 1:58, and if I run 1:57 and come last then I'll be delighted, because I'll have hit my potential. But if I run two minutes and come second I'll be disappointed, because my aim is to reach my potential. My personal best is two-tenths of a second off sub-two, which is nothing."

But still, I venture, a long way off the world record. She gives a strangulated cry of what I take to be awe. "Agggh. That's 1:53 by Kratchilova, a 19-year-old Czech, who did it in the late 1970s, I think. Nobody has ever got close."

Fenn adds that she will continue trying to better her personal best, until she feels that she can run the 800m no faster. "After that I might move up to 1,500. That's what people tend to do once they're not progressing any more in the 800. But there are other things I'd like to do. I'd like to get a record deal. I'd like to be a mother one day (she is married; her husband, Christopher Fenn, is an insurance broker). And I always wanted to play football for Arsenal Ladies one day. I'd be the Patrick Vieira, in midfield."

She was brought up in Leyton (supporting Orient too), and was intensely competitive, she says, from an early age. "I've got a twin brother and an elder sister, and from the age of four or five I used to race my brother Louis down our street, Claremont Road in Leyton. It's not there now. They knocked it down when they built the M11.

"My mum was quite sporty, too. She won a few races, but then started smoking and going out with boys, so she was really pleased when I took it up."

As with so many athletes, though, the truly totemic figure in Fenn's youth was an inspirational PE teacher. "Miss Middleditch, at Connaught School for Girls, in Leytonstone, was the one who encouraged me to join an athletics club, and took me down to Essex Ladies' Athletics Club at Walthamstow, where I got my first coach, Dave Belcher.

"I took it really seriously; I didn't go clubbing, I didn't have boyfriends. And my mum came down to the track with me, rain or shine. We didn't have a car, so we'd get the 97 bus from Leyton to Chingford Road, and she'd sit there until I'd finished training, then we'd get the bus home.

"She's still my biggest fan, while my dad's like, 'what do you do, Jo? Is it the 400?' But I know he's really proud, too."

Her dad, Alan, is white. Her mother, Marie, originally from St Lucia, is black. Fenn says that she has only once experienced racism. "When I was about 17, at college, I was talking to a friend who was half-Filipino about where our parents were from. And this other girl said 'I'm glad I'm not bits of crap mixed up together.' Such ignorance, but I still went home crying, and my mum and dad sat me down and explained that I had the best of both worlds. I've always believed that."

Certainly she has acquired each parent's passions; her mother's for athletics, her father's for jazz. "We were brought up on Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan. Ella's my ultimate icon, more so than any athlete."

None the less, which athletes does she most respect? "Marie Mutola, because she's been at the top for a decade. And Kelly Holmes because she's had her fair share of injuries too. But actually I respect anyone who puts on spikes and gets on the track. I even respect people who just get out and jog, anyone who wants to better themselves."

As for the divine Ella, she continues to inspire. "I get so turned on by athletics that sometimes I need to switch off, which I do by just listening to Ella. And I have certain songs I listen to just before a race. One's a song I wrote, called 'You Can Run So Fast', quite a dancey song with a really uplifting beat."

On the eve of the heats, she tells me, she will follow her ritual of doing her room number's worth of sit-ups. It is a ritual I might adopt myself, I say, as long as I am given room one. She laughs. "There is a limit. The most I'll do is 300."

I smile weakly. Any other rituals? "Well, I do have one superstition, which I shouldn't. I like to have a four or an eight in my lane number or on my bib. If I haven't I think 'oh no,' which is not good, is it? But if I do get it I always smile. Because eight's my lucky number. I like it because it's round and symmetrical, and I'm a Libran, into equilibrium."

Her belief in astrology apart, she certainly seems admirably balanced, with enough going on in her life that if today's heats go pear-shaped (very unlike her beloved eight), it will not seem like the end of the world.

In any case, a week after the Commonwealths comes a bigger challenge, the European Championships in Munich. "And I'm ranked about 13th in Europe, so to make that final would be amazing, especially as there are about two million Russians all running sub-two..."

Not to cast aspersions on those two million Russians, I say, but has she ever encountered drug use in athletics? "Yeah," she says, wide-eyed.

"Before an event last year I was looking at Dosantos from Brazil. I looked at her chin, and no joke, it was bigger than yours."

Oh, thanks very much. Can't we use someone else's chin as a big chin yardstick, perhaps Fran Cotton's? But Fenn, warming to her theme, misses the irony. "She just looked like a bloke, and sure enough four or five weeks later she got done for drug abuse. Hopefully they will get the cheats, but then some countries are very poor. If it means clothing their families and putting food on the table... I'm not saying I condone it, but people will do these things." As I say, she's admirably balanced. And as we part she gives me one of her CDs. She can sing, too.

Jo Fenn: The life and times

Name: Joanne Fenn.

Born: 19 Oct 1974, Leytonstone, London.

Height: 5ft 6in (1.72m).

Weight: 8st 9lb (55kg).

Family: Christopher (husband), Marie (mother), Alan (father), Louis (brother).

Event: 800 metres.

Personal Best: 2min 2.1sec.

Coach: Ayo Falola.

How she started: Fenn was a successful junior hurdler at school in Britain a dozen years ago, but a series of injuries and operations stalled her senior breakthrough until a year ago. Switched to javelin throwing during much of her injury spell, and became junior champion for Essex.

Career highlights: 2001 World Indoor Championships, Lisbon (4th). Won AAA European trials in Birmingham in July.

Interests: Composes and sings her own blend of "rock and country with a touch of jazz." Fronts a band called The Business. Published songwriter with contract in Country-singing capital of the world, Nashville.

She says: "Singing makes me happy and, ideally, I'd like to do both but running is more important at the moment. I'd love to be going to the Olympics, and win a medal, with a No 1 hit single in the charts".