David Jenkins (sprinter)

Born in Pointe-à-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago, British West Indies, Jenkins was the son of an oil refinery manager.

Jenkins was educated at Edinburgh Academy, where he excelled at sport. From 1970 to 1973 he attended the University of Edinburgh (1970–1973) where, as a British Petroleum industrial apprentice. he received a BSc in chemical engineering.[6] He then went on to study at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, where he received a postgraduate diploma in business management and marketing (1974).[7]

In 1976, Jenkins was awarded a Travelling Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trusts. His project's title was "Community sport participation and provision", and the fellowship enabled him to visit the United States and West Germany.[7]

Jenkins was, for a few years in early 2000s, the US Representative for The Edinburgh Academy's Academical Club.[8]

Jenkins' first coach was Jake Young, then head of physical education at the Edinburgh Academy. In his youth, Jenkins was the European record holder at 400-metres for under 17 and under 19 years old. In 1969 he represented Great Britain's senior open team in Hamburg, West Germany, winning the 400-metres aged 17 years four months.[9] Jenkins' international athletic career spanned three decades, 1969 through 1982 starting on cinder tracks, to synthetic tracks from hand timing to electronic timing.

From 1970–1973 and again in 1980 Jenkins was coached by the then Scottish National Coach, John Anderson. He started off as Scottish 100/200/400 champion, followed by his first of 6 AAA's 400 metre titles. Also in 1971, still aged only nineteen, Jenkins won the 400 metres at the 1971 European Athletics Championships in Helsinki, the youngest British male athlete yet to win a European gold medal.

He went on to compete for Great Britain in the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich, Germany in the 4 x 400-metre relay where he won the silver medal with his teammates Martin Reynolds, Alan Pascoe and David Hemery. From 1973 to 1977 Hemery, a contemporary and 1968 Olympic hurdles champion, coached Jenkins.[10][11]

In 1974 he won the silver medal on the 400 metres at the European Athletics Championships in Rome as well as the gold medal in the 4x 400-metre with his teammates Glen Cohen, William Hartley and Alan Pascoe. The race announcer remarked that Jenkins had the "greatest run of his life", when he won the 4 × 400 m relay.[12]

In 1975 he was United States of America 400-metre champion, with his fastest time of his career 44.93 which was a British record at the time.[13] In 1975, Jenkins and his brother, Roger Jenkins, represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland v. Finland at Crystal Palace, London as the UK's No. 1 and No. 2 400-metre runners.[14]

Both David and his brother Roger feature prominently in the book A Life In A Day In A Year [15] by Peter Hoffmann which describes their athletics training at Meadowbank Sports Centre, Edinburgh and their racing careers between 1973 and 1978.[16]

Scottish documentary company, Pelicula Films, featured David Jenkins during his training in 1975 as he prepared for the 1976 Olympic Games (Montreal, Quebec, CA). The film, The Long Sprint: Diary of an Olympic Athlete, follows Jenkins from his training, races and the Olympic Games heats. Jenkins qualified for the Olympic 400-metre finals but did not medal. The documentary film was directed by Michael Alexander and won the Gold Grand Prix Award in the British International Sport Film and Television Festival, the Toronto Film Festival and the Turin Film Festival in 1977.[17][18]

In 1976 and 1980 Jenkins placed seventh in the 400-metre final at the Summer Olympics.

In 1977 Jenkins participated in the first IAAF World Cup in the 4×400-metre relay at the Rheinstadion in Düsseldorf, West Germany. He also won the 200 metres at the Jubilee Games event.

In 1978 he won a gold medal competing for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada in the 4 × 100 m relay, alongside Cameron Sharp, Allan Wells and Drew McMaster.

In 1980 he was U.K 400-metre champion.

He competed at the 1982 European Championships in the 4×400–metre relay team which won the silver medal in this event.[19]

He later admitted to having taken performance-enhancing steroids during his athletics career.

In 1998 former British 400-metre Olympic silver medalist Roger Black dedicated a chapter titled "The Jenkins Factor," in his autobiography How Long is the Course ISBN 0-233-99644-3 to Jenkins who was helping advise him in the final months of his 1996 Olympic preparation. Jenkins was credited with changing Black's philosophy on sports and competition.[20]

Jenkins claimed that during his career he felt pressure to uphold high competitive standards and so he used anabolic steroids. He said "It was the beginning of selling my soul, really."[21]

In January of 1986 Jenkins met with Juan Javier Macklis, who owned Laboratorios Milanos, a pharmaceutical plant in Tijuana, Mexico, that was contracted to supply medicines for the Mexican government. Together, Jenkins and Macklis manufactured anabolic steroids. With the help of Macklis' trusted colleagues, Jenkins then smuggled the drugs into the United States, which at the time was a felony. However, there was no precedent for a smuggling case of this magnitude, not to mention anabolic steroids had yet to be codified under the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S.[22][23] A federal indictment filed in the U.S. Federal Courts in San Diego named Jenkins as the mastermind of a complex network of more than 33 steroid-dealing co-conspirators. In April 1987, weeks before federal prosecutors filed the indictment, Jenkins was arrested and later entered a guilty plea for the trafficking of steroids worth approximately $100 million through the Tijuana border crossing. It was reported that at one time Jenkins and co-conspirators Dan Duchaine and William Dillon were responsible for up to 70% of the steroids trafficked in the United States.[1]

Jenkins was sentenced by Judge J. Lawrence Irving in US District Court San Diego to seven years in the Boron Federal Prison Camp in California's Mojave Desert. The Independent newspaper of Britain reported that Jenkins became an informant and was thus able to be released after serving only 10 months and 15 days.[24][25][26][27]

Admitting he "screwed up" by getting involved in the steroid-smuggling operation, while out on bail Jenkins became involved in a legal fitness enterprise.[21]

During the late 1970s Jenkins began his commercial career as the sales director at Reebok International in Bolton Lancashire, England. There he was involved in product development and testing. In addition, in the late 1970s he met with and visited Paul Fireman, head of a US sporting goods distributor, in Boston introducing him to Reebok and helping establish the then embryonic brand in the United States.[28]

In 1988 Jenkins started his nutrition company and began working on a protein powder, convinced that its muscle-building properties could be marketed as a healthy, legal alternative to steroids.[29] This is when he created and launched Pro Optibol.

Combining his engineering degree and manufacturing knowledge with his passion for sports, Jenkins went to work developing whey-based powders.[30]

• David Jenkins at World Athletics