Dean Macey gears up for his final attempt to land the biggest catch of all

I'm just a big dumb athlete from Canvey Island, who loves his fishing and his beer and his burgers.” This is not your normal response to questions about pro-Tibet demonstrations, but Dean Macey is not your normal athlete. He does not deal in mealy-mouthed niceties and so he talks of jacking it in and a***-kicking before curtailing the interview because his maggots are overheating.

Macey has not competed in a decathlon since he won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 2006, but after three elbow operations and a slipped disc he is still planning to gain an Olympic qualifying mark and go to Beijing. It has been a trawl through purgatory for Canvey’s tattooed totem, but at least he has his fishing. “There’s nowhere I’m happier being miserable than on a riverbank,” he said. “I’ve got the bleeding plague. I’ve been coughing my guts up for ten days. But the good thing about being ill or injured is I can fish. And I’m not one of those hairy-a***d anglers, I still look good when I feel s***.”

Macey is only 30, but he has already been through several wringers. He needs to achieve the Olympic qualifying standard of 7,700 points by July 23, but has been here before. He had spent almost three years on the sidelines before he dragged his patched-up body through a meeting in Hexham in time for the Athens Olympics in 2004. When he got there he came fourth for a second successive Olympics.

He thinks he can win a medal in Beijing, but would advise people to put their money elsewhere. “It’s not out of the question,” he said. “If I nail every event and the others screw up one then I’m in the mix. But this far out, without a qualifier and sitting here with the stinking man flu, I don’t feel like a medal prospect.”

Everyone wants Macey to make it. Apart from the good company, he is a triumph of resilience. The latest setbacks have been the most serious and he has contemplated retiring. “I had to spend 2 months doing bugger all when I slipped the disc in my back before Christmas,” he said. “The only exercise I was allowed to do was walking a mile. That might be exercise for some lardies, but I’m a professional. I’ve seriously considered jacking it in. If I had a trade and could go and earn a few quid then I would’ve done.”

The physical and mental pain has taken its toll. You get the impression that he is happier talking about his column in the Angling Times and giant catfish. “I wouldn’t want to make fishing a living because my love of athletics certainly suffered over the years because it was a job,” he said. “I’m looking forward to when I hang up my spikes and can go to the track, run 80 per cent and be satisfied rather than thinking that’s copping out.”

His main problem is the javelin because of his elbow and he has not started hurdle training. “I’ve competed in pain all my life, that’s not an issue, but the amount of crap I’ve been through with this elbow … it’s the one thing that makes me feel sick with pain is the javelin,” he said.

The elbow and back mean that he has lost more than seven months’ training. He went to America earlier this year, where he did “seven weeks’ work in a month”, but the “man flu” has put him back. He will not risk competing before he goes for the qualifying mark, probably in Hexham again, and plans to get 8,000 points. That three men achieved more than 8,600 points last year, led by Roman Sebrle, the world and Olympic champion, shows the scale of the task.

If this is Macey’s last year of competition then you cannot help but think that he has been unlucky. He has sledgehammer honesty and needs to be coerced into assessing the what ifs. “I don’t like to be the ‘if only’ type, but, OK, if I hadn’t got injured then maybe I could have kicked the world’s a*** as opposed to the world kicking my a*** over the last few years,” he said. “There have been some soft silver and bronze medals given out. Maybe half a dozen I’d have won.

“But I don’t play on the medals I’ve won, either. When I won the Commonwealth gold, everyone came round the house and had their picture taken with it on. They said, ‘Put it on, Dean,’ but I haven’t put it on since the day I took it off. I’m not bothered if I never see it again. I’m not in it for that.”

He is still the same Dean Macey, still in thrall to Canvey’s marvels. “If you never wanted to then you’d never have to leave the island, well, not unless it floods and then you float away in a dinghy,” he said. “I’ve still got a good relationship with the punters, but I’ve grown up. I don’t go out and get in punch-ups any more. I wasn’t a bad lad, just misunderstood. Everyone who’s ever put a stone through a window was misunderstood, eh?”

Macey had suggested that we do the interview at 4am, when he began fishing on a lake in Essex. He then delayed it while he got a bite. “Not as dangerous as athletics,” he said. “Worst you get is a hook in your finger, although I never fish anywhere I can drown. I’m accident prone.”

If the Olympics proves his last hurrah then we can only thank him for the good times. “If I can say to my wife, ‘Lise, I’ve proved as much as I can to myself and everyone else, I’ve nothing left to give, I don’t need to compete,’ if I can say that without bursting into tears then it’s time,” he said. “Now, ‘scuse me mate, but I need to put the maggots under a tree.”