Sprinter's daughter driven to win by his battle for life "Lynsey and her sister saw all that," says her mother Carol, a 57-year-old teacher from Edinburgh. They never knew anything other than having to fight but that seems only to have made her stronger. Because of his limited mobility, Mr Sharp usually has to settle for watching his daughter compete on screen, but now she's competing in London 2012 he is determined to try to be there in the Olympic Stadium to cheer her on. Mr Sharp, 58, says: "I have a lot of nerve pain as a result of the brain injury, so I never know how bad it is going to be from one day to the next. He adds: "Lynsey's got my sprint. Lynsey was just one at the time of her father's accident in October 1991. After a seven-year fight to bring his case to court, Mr Sharp was eventually awarded £1.5 million in compensation from the health authority. Lynsey has said that battle inspired her to pursue a legal career and she graduated in law from Edinburgh Napier University last month. "My daughters didn't have a normal dad like their friends, but they saw his determination in the face of complete adversity, through a strict programme of exercise he still does every day, to make the most of what he had been left with," says Mrs Sharp. Though Cameron and Carol Sharp divorced in 2000, they live near each other in Edinburgh and remain friends. "It was a struggle for us from the start," she says. He needed to concentrate on himself," she remembers. Despite winning the 800 metre event at the British Olympic trials, and the silver in Helsinki, Lynsey Sharp had fallen just short of the "A" qualifying team required for automatic selection for Team GB. By deciding to go with her anyway - this decision alone is said to have taken two hours of the six hour selection meeting - the authorities had to follow their own rules and leave out Simpson and Okoro who had made run the "A" standard. "It was obviously a very difficult decision and we both feel for those girls who didn't make it," says Mrs Sharp, "but in the trials and again in Helsinki Lynsey showed that she is a racer. In championships and in the Olympics, the prizes go to those who are good racers rather than those who can perform in time trials. Jenny Meadows, who won bronze in the World Championships of 2009 in the 800 metres but was also left out by selectors after a season ruine by injury, had said initially that she would appeal in not selected, but decided against. "If I did," she said, "I would be taking it away from Lynsey." "Jenny put it beautifully," says Mrs Sharp. I can't add to that. The other two who lost out - Jemma Simpson and Marilyn Okoro - are however appealing. What has been hardest for her daughter, though, have been the comments posted on social media sites opposing her selection. "There has been so much discussion because no one saw this scenario coming," says Mrs Sharp, "but she has now got to get all the controversy out of her head and concentrate on her training." The determination that has carried Lynsey to her Olympic dream was there from the very start, her mother recalls. The umbilical cord was wrapped three times round her neck and was strangling her. I think it was because she was such a long baby and I am very small. She was experiencing severe fetal distress, and the doctors were telling me we only had a matter of minutes to do the caesarean. I was terrified of anaesthetics. I didn't see her for two days after she was born. I was convinced she was dead because they took her to another ward. She'd swallowed all sorts of things in the womb in her distress. They even brought me a instamatic photograph of her to prove she was alright, but it was only when I finally held her that I could be sure. Athletics is on both sides of Lynsey's family. Mrs Sharp is also a former international athlete, having run in the 800m for Scotland in the 1982 Commonwealth Games. "Lynsey's already bettered my best time and, if she hadn't been injured earlier this year, would definitely have made the 'A" qualifying time." She adds: "There a piece of advice that Cameron gave Lynsey recently. "She's certainly got the quality," her mother says.