Crystal Palace fan Martyn Rooney is a 400-metre runner who won Olympic bronze in the 4x400 relay at Beijing. He is currently based at Loughborough University and is training for the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled for this summer.
He may have a famous footballing surname but Rooney never contemplated a professional life in the sport: “I enjoyed playing when I was a kid but I never reached a decent level,” he says.
As an elite athlete, Rooney has always found team sports slightly alien to his way of thinking. “I was never very good at losing as part of a team.