Usain Bolt’s boots offer golden opportunity (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Olympic sprint star’s running shoes are on track to raise thousands for Bradford cancer charity

10:00am Wednesday 12th September 2012 in News By Dolores Cowburn, Bradford Chief Reporter

Running shoes worn by six-time Olympic gold medal winner Usain Bolt are being auctioned by a Bradford licensee to raise cash for a cancer charity.

Audrey Coyne won the Jamaican champion’s running shoes in a raffle at a fundraising ball marking Jamaica’s 50 years of independence after writing her name on four £10 notes and entering them into the lucky draw in July.

Miss Coyne, who runs the Boy and Barrel in Westgate and appeared in Channel 4’s controversial Making Bradford British show, won them before his triumphs at the 2012 London Olympics, where he successfully defended all three Olympic titles, and said she was offered £50,000 for them by a sports memorabilia collector.

But she turned it down and waited until the sprinter smashed his previous records and then put the shoes on auction website eBay with a reserve price of £10,000.

Because the bids only reached £7,600 she took the shoes off and now hopes to get a local auction house to sell them or she will use a specialist sports auction house in London.

Miss Coyne, 48, said: “The guy who offered me £50,000 come in the day after Usain won gold and said he wanted them and I asked him where his money was.

“I am not really bothered about the money to be truthful. But when Usain threw his shoes into the crowd after the Brussels race, the commentator said how lucky the people were to catch them because some of his shoes had reached £36,000. You never know, I would really like to find a good auction house to sell them.

“I would like to give half the money to the Jamaican Society as it is raising funds for cancer this year.

“I am scared of having the shoes just in case someone steals them.”

A similar pair of Usain Bolt’s running spikes were auctioned in Sheffield in July for £25,000.

As well as winning the shoes, Miss Coyne this year won a battle to save the Boy and Barrel from being sold off by its owners Punch Taverns.

She had appealed in the Telegraph & Argus for 150,000 people to pledge £1 so she could buy the Boy & Barrel, in Westgate, to preserve it for future generations.