London 2012 Olympics: Team GB's Lawrence Okoye hopes to repay headmaster's faith with discus medal On Friday night at Crystal Palace, Okoye put his considerable show back on the road after his recent disappointing European Championships, finishing third in a world-class event at the Aviva London Grand Prix and beaten only by two Olympic champions, Estonian Gerd Kanter and Lithuanian Virgilijus Alekna. What Okoye is doing now is still astonishing. In just two years and on a diet of six meals a day, he has hurled himself from absolute beginner to world No 4. Not astonishing to Dr Barnett, though. Even at 13, Okoye, whose father is a Nigerian entrepreneur and mother a Home Office official, seemed a boy of extraordinary gifts "both academic and sporting." He was a monstrous rugby talent, a giant winger who could run 100m in 10.97sec, plough like Jonah Lomu to the try line with tacklers hanging off him and who still believes he could be playing for England today if he had not been wooed by the siren of 2012 and decided impulsively to change direction towards the athletic discipline with which previously he had only experimented. I've always tried to make a difference to Lawrence, always believed in his abilities. He was also one of the brightest boys we've had through the school, with enormous academic flair which has earned him a place to read law at Oxford University," says Dr Barnett, of the lad who earned 10 GCSEs (nine A stars and an A) and four A-levels (2 A stars and 2 As). He is extraordinary in many ways. Not least in that Okoye can somehow seem winningly humble while simultaneously talking with rare confidence. Having met some of British athletics" luminaries like Colin Jackson and Jonathan Edwards, he now notes matter-of-factly: "I'm not going to be one of those people who's going to be average or ordinary. I plan on being the best, so hopefully I'll join these names. I definitely sense a once in a lifetime opportunity, a small window to do something unheard of here this summer, something special, to create a legacy for the rest of my life. Everything I've done, I've been successful at. I've no reason to doubt myself. Ask if he has ever failed at anything and he has to think hard. "The trials last year," he concludes. Having smashed the British record in his first serious year of throwing under the expert tutelage of coach John Hillier, he blew out spectacularly at the Alexander Stadium as he sought to qualify for Daegu. He had another huge disappointment in Helsinki at the recent European Championships, finishing last in the final after he failed to get a grip in the discus circle which had been left saturated by a downpour. It was, he told himself, just another learning experience and he has been practising in the rain in trainers during this miserable British summer ever since. The fruits of his efforts could be seen on Friday when he managed to hurl 63.33m in miserable conditions and he vows that "what happened to me in Helsinki will never happen again." Okoye believes he is unrecognisable from the novice whose poor technique unravelled at the end of last season. "I won't miss out again," he vows. With a frame designed to kick sand in Popeye's face, he may be the most extraordinary physical specimen British athletics has seen, with an intimidating presence to give anyone, including Germany's swaggering double world champion Robert Harting, "a scare." I think it's important to be in good shape and be a good role model for the sport. Throwing events in our country have had such a bad name because if you look at the people who have been representing us, they haven't been fit to, really. Post-Olympics, Okoye is fit for anything. He could start his law degree at St Peter's College. Or maybe have another crack at rugby. He has no idea, he shrugs, because he just cannot think of anything but 2012. "And fame is not the motivation," he says. The motivation is to make history, to prove the people like my headmaster were right. Dr Barnett has never doubted it. He has bagged tickets for both the discus qualifying session and the final and, having overseen the rise of top sportsmen at Whitgift from rugby's Danny Cipriani to footballer Victor Moses, he does not rule out the idea that he may soon be watching his school's first Olympic champion. "Because," he says, "we've always known Lawrence is something special."