Steve Cram, the Olympic silver medallist and BBC athletics commentator, has returned to screens this week for the European Athletics Championships. His career as a middle-distance runner was marked by formidable performances across three Summer Games, though a series of ill-timed injuries dashed his hopes of gold.
After retiring in 1994, Cram moved into coaching and broadcasting, but personal tragedy struck in 2001 when his younger brother Kevin died suddenly while running in Cardiff. Kevin was just 39.
A delayed notification
Cram did not learn of his brother's death until two days later, as authorities struggled to identify the body. In a 2009 radio interview, Cram recounted: “Kevin sadly died in a freak accident on a May evening back in 2001. He apparently tripped up – no-one saw it happen. He was in Roath, where he lived, heading up towards the park. He fell, fractured his skull and died on the spot.”
He added: “As tragic as anything like that is going to be for any family, what made it worse was we weren’t notified for nearly two days. His girlfriend was away and he was meant to be away himself. He ran a bookshop and would go away on buying trips – he was meant to be on a three-day trip. But he’d gone back a day early and gone for a run that night.”
“It was a warm evening so he was just wearing shorts and vest and no identification. He was 500 yards from his home but, as in big cities everywhere, he might as well have been 500 miles away. So they had no way of identifying him.”
Support from Gabby Logan
Cram was at a dinner with BBC colleagues, including Gabby Logan, when he learned of the tragedy. Logan had also lost a brother, Daniel, who collapsed and died at 15 from a rare heart condition. Cram said: “Her 15-year-old brother Daniel collapsed and died in 1992 from a rare heart condition no-one even knew he had, when he was having a kickabout with their father, so she understood exactly how I felt.”
Following Kevin's death, Cram partnered with Reebok to launch the CramAlert ID wristband, which helps identify people quickly through a call centre holding personal details.
Life after tragedy
A year later, Cram met Allison Curbishley, a former athlete who made her Olympic debut at the 1996 Atlanta Games in the 4x400m relay. She competed again in Sydney in 2000, and won gold in the 400m at the Under-23 European Championships in 1997. She also helped Great Britain secure bronze in the relay at the 1998 European Championships and won silver in the individual 400m for Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.
At 27, Curbishley retired due to a recurrent knee injury requiring several surgeries. Cram and Curbishley have lived in Northumberland since, working for the BBC on television and radio and running their own media and events company.
