Donovan Bailey Shares His Memories Of Former Olympian And Fallen Soldier
Posted September 6, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Long before Mark Graham donned his army uniform and died for his country in Afghanistan, he was a promising athlete and such a dominant physical presence, even Olympic gold medallist Donovan Bailey couldn’t help but take notice.
“Mark was one of those guys from when he was very young, from when he was a junior, he could step on the track and he could eliminate a lot of competition by just sheer intimidation, and that’s not him being intimidating, just him walking in the room. So that’s a great memory that I have,” Bailey said.
Bailey and Graham both shared the Olympic dream. They were on the same team together in Barcelona. But the two first met when Graham was still in high school.
“If he stepped on the track, you said “Who is the big dude? Like that guy’s gonna kick my butt.”
At 18, Graham was already 6’4″ and heavily muscled.
“He was an awesome specimen,” Bailey recalls.
“One of the things I wanted to do was to kind of sit back, reflect and see the great things he’s done for this country as opposed to, you know, what happened.”
