BACK in the 1960s, a comic called The Victor featured the weekly antics of Alf Tupper, Tough of the Track.

Alf was the barefoot runner, born into poverty, who overcame social divides and snooty athletes to conquer, invariably breasting the tape inches ahead of upper-class rivals.

Kelly Holmes is no Alf Tupper, but neither is she someone who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

It's an interesting statistic that 80 per cent of Britain's medal winners in Athens attended public schools.

Kelly, from humbler origins in Hildenborough, attended Hugh Christie School in Tonbridge and is a product of the state system.

But between her, mum Pam and her PE teacher at school, Kelly turned up at Tonbridge Athletics Club one day as a 12-year-old when the long process of creating an Olympic champion began.

For the next few years, an exhausting routine familiar to many parents of promising young sportsmen and women will have evolved.

Rushing from work to take her to training, a quick bite to eat, rushing out again to collect youngster: long car journeys to obscure venues in faraway places and then the car journeys back, cheering them up when they've lost and trying to keep their feet on the ground when they've won.

It's an exhausting process for all concerned, but that is what it takes to produce champions.

There are real problems with sports facilities in our part of the world. Athletics tracks are few and far between.

But the champions of tomorrow will have the drive to succeed.

Mums, dads, teachers and coaches can't build the athletics tracks, but they can build the Kellys of tomorrow with devotion, energy and sacrifice.

Councils, private business and others holding the purse strings also have a responsibility to cough up cash to build the tracks, pitches and pools.

In Maidstone, especially, our civic leaders should have been watching the grand parade in Tonbridge on Wednesday with a considerable degree of embarrassment.