He grew up in a children's home in East London. Roger grew up as a grammar school boy on the South Coast, heading for a career in medicine. On paper, their worlds should never have touched. But geography — and a shared, relentless hunger to be the best — changed everything.

In this episode, two-time Olympic silver medallist Roger Black MBE celebrates the brilliant human at the centre of his story: Kriss Akabusi. The man the public knows as larger than life, infectious, joyful. The man Roger knows as the most committed, self-aware, and quietly methodical athlete he's ever encountered.

Together, they trained, sacrificed, and pushed each other toward heights neither might have reached alone. Their partnership culminated in one of British athletics' most iconic moments — the 1991 World Championships Men's 4x400m relay in Tokyo, a race you can watch here: https://youtu.be/9a1r9NC_Po0?si=OT9NzC8G8znAYsJi

But this conversation goes far deeper than gold medals. Roger reflects on what Kriss saw before Roger saw it in himself, why their differences were never obstacles, and how the most transformative people in our lives are sometimes delivered to us simply by geography — by the extraordinary accident of being in the same place at the same moment in time.