1968 was a record year for Sussex athletes at Olympic Games as four Sussex athletes were selected for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team for the Mexico City Olympic Games, which were the first Games to be held at altitude and this certainly had a bearing on results on some of the events.
Three Brighton & Hove Athletic Club athletes, Chris Carter (25.12.1942), Arthur Jones (5.10.1938) and Andy Todd (26.05.48) were included which was the most by any British Club that year plus Worthing & District Harriers’ all-rounder Pat Jones (20.06.42). Pat had moved to the Midlands and joined Birchfield Harriers who were then the best mixed club in the Country but I do not think she ever competed for another County as that would have broken her Sussex status.
The British team, to help cope with the High Altitude at Mexico travelled early to acclimatise and were involved in a pre-Olympic match. Worse was to come for Carter who injured his foot when clocking 48.3s over 400m. The injury did not heal properly before his 800m heat in the Games themselves and he did not qualify as he was expected to do.
There was a similar result for Pat Jones who had won the W.A.A.A 80 metres hurdles title in 1965 she also failed to survive the first round.
Pat, was a fine all-round athlete, who had several Sussex sprint and hurdles titles under her belt and was also the first-ever Sussex senior pentathlon winner in 1959.
Arthur Jones was a surprise inclusion for the 20km road walk as there were others with at least an equal claim for the third spot. The selectors may well have favoured Arthur as he was a very fair walker and I don’t think he was ever disqualified. In the event he finished 11th in 1:37:32s and was the first British walker to finish.
Arthur had earlier in the year won the A.A.A Two-mile track championship at the White City stadium on cinders in13:35.6s and as this was the last time the race was held over this distance e remains the A.A.A Two-mile walking Champion to this day. In 1967 he had won the Inter-county two-mile title, also at White City, at the White City Stadium in 13:35.8s.
Andy Todd was included in the team for experience, in these less commercial times this was not unusual at Major Games to take a promising younger athlete for experience and he was widely considered the most promising athlete in the country.
At the pre-Olympic match Todd clocked 51.15s, 400m hurdles but this did not really make up for not getting a place in the team for Heats of the 4 x 400m Relay.
He had previously won English Schools Senior titles over 120 yards hurdles in 1965 and the 440 yards flat in 1967. He had also finished fifth in 1965 in the high hurdles at the Mini 
Olympics in Mexico City and in 1967 went to the World Student Games in Turin but was unwell and had to withdraw from the 400m hurdles.
1969 saw him finish third in the European 400m hurdles in 50.38s having earlier become the first Sussex athlete to duck under 50.0sec with a clocking of 49.9s, a Sussex record that remained until Seb Rodger bettered it in 2013. In 1969 he ranked 7th in the World Rankings but his groin problems were to cut short Andy’s promising career. The problems prevented him from even training and although he was still third on the British All-time list in 1972 and third in an international match this was his final season at just 24 years of age.
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Charlie Da’Vall Grice (Brighton Phoenix), Rob Mullett (Lewes) and Sebastian Rodgers (Shaftestbuy/Barnet – Crawley - Eastbourne) were all selected to make the trip to Rio de Janeiro for what was nearly not the Olympic Games as the Brazillians, at one time, got so far behind with preparations that there were threats that the Games would be held somewhere else.
Grice, born 7th November 1993, was competing in his sixth Senior Major Games, and has just been featured with a Profile of his own, was the only one of the three to reach the final, being squeezed into 12th place
In another pedestrian 1500m final in Rio Charlie Grice just did not have the legs in the sprint for the finish and finished down the field. To make any Olympic final however is a tremendous achievement.
Grice gave himself a chance, passing the bell in seventh, but despite a 1.45 800m personal best this season he didn’t quite have the speed to contend for a medal in his first Olympic final.
Grice said, “I’m very happy to be here but was hoping to perform a bit better than that. It was very pushy and ‘shovey’ as always and I think I kind of panicked a bit and was surging, but my legs just didn’t have it today. I think they’re pretty tired from the qualifying rounds".
Two years later he just missed medals, finishing fifth in the European 1500m and fourth in the Commonwealth Games championships.
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Rob Mullett (Lewes) was born on 31st Juily 1987 at Greater Manchester to Jenny and Bill who were both athletes with Bill having been a Sussex record holder for the steeplechase and a top ranking international cross country runner, while Jenny won several Sussex titles both on the track and cross-country
Rob finished 12th in his heat of the 3,000m steeplechase and his progress came via four Sussex Schools s/c titles and five County junior titles. He was runner up in the AAA junior steeplechase in 2006 after winning the South of England title.
He also completed a hat-trick of British Steeplechase titles in 2015/16 and 17. But it was not until 2016 that he managed to run faster than his father, Bill, and he is current number two on the Sussex All-time list behind British record holder Mark Rowland.
Mullett retired from competitive athletics after Rio de Janeiro because of serious Achilles problems although in 2020 he has restarted training and doing some road races.
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Sebastian William Gregor Rodger was born in Brighton on 29th June 1991 and his appearance in the 2016 in the Rio Olympics was his sixth Major Games.
Competing in the 400m hurdles he clocked 49.54s, which is faster than any other Sussex runner has achieved but it was not quite fast enough to move him on to the next round.
Originally he was a member of Eastbourne Rovers but moved on to Crawley in 2009 before joining Shaftsbury/Barnet four years later. He was a talented all-rounder shinning particularly at hurdles and long jump plus Combined Events where he holds the County U20 record.
His first Major Games came in 2010 where he was a member of the 4 x 400m relay team that won the bronze medal at the World Junior Championships in Canada.
In 2013 he improved to a silver medal at Tampere in Finland in the European U23 Championships in the 400m hurdles in 49.19s, a time that remains in 2020 the Sussex record while in the same year he reached the semi-finals of the World Championship 400m hurdles in Moscow.
In the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 he failed to survive his heat of the 400m hurdles clocking 50.71s but later the same year he reached the semi-finals of the European Championships in in Zurich in 49.47s, which was the 11th fastest time.
In the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 a clocking 49.54s did not see him survive the first round and in 2018 he was in the World Indoor championships at Birmingham and ran in the heats of the 4 x 400m relays finishing second in their heat but missing out on the medals in the final. In the European Outdoor championships in Berlin later in the year Seb was a little below his best and did not survive the 400m hurdles heats.