Heartbroken woman narrates how her husband fell for a 22-year-old

Britain: Olympic legend Steve Backley’s ex-wife has revealed how he threw a javelin into her heart by falling for a girl less than half his age.

Newly divorced Clare breaks her silence over their split and brands the 45-year-old athletics hero and BBC pundit as “selfish”.

And she tells how her world fell to pieces when she discovered he was infatuated with Katherine Donnelly, 22.

Mum-of-two Clare, 38, says: “I was absolutely broken. I can’t even describe the shock. It made me feel sick. I felt totally betrayed and sobbed and sobbed.

“I never thought for a second Steve would stray. When I confronted him he said, ‘I know she’s a kid. I know it’s wrong but I can’t help it. We have a connection.’

"How can you have a connection with someone young enough to be your child? He’s not the man I married or any man I knew.”

Clare’s divorce from three-times Olympic javelin medallist Backley was finalised last month on the same day he was pictured for the first time smooching with new love Katherine.

Yet when bridal boutique owner and personal trainer Clare met Steve in a bar next door to her shop in 2001 she believed she had found Mr Right.

“The ironic thing is I was attracted to him because he came across as the opposite of being a player,” she says.

Within a year the pair were engaged in Mauritius and 10 months later they tied the knot.

Clare says: “My life changed and I sacrificed everything for Steve but I didn’t mind. I was in love. I travelled around with him and stopped seeing my friends. I devoted myself to being a working wife and mum.

“I took the hordes of female fans in my stride too. He always told me that was one of the things he loved about me – that I wasn’t jealous.

"At one charity event a woman paid £4,000 for a kiss. She wanted to pinch his bum too and

I said yes. I trusted him completely.

“I put in the effort because he was my husband and I loved him and we wanted the same things out of life.”

During his career, former world record holder Backley won four European golds, three Commonwealth golds and two silvers and a bronze at the Olympics as well as two World Championships silvers.

He was awarded an OBE in 2003.

But Clare says he changed when his glittering career ended in 2004. “When he gave up competing I thought he was lost,” she says. “He was used to being the best. He got defensive and distant.”

Backley became an after dinner speaker and TV pundit, but Clare says the selfishness that went with being an Olympic athlete remained.

She says: “Someone once told me all athletes have to be a little selfish to achieve their goals. But after he stopped competing I thought it wasn’t just the sport – it was Steve.

“In the first three years of our marriage we had two lovely daughters. I did everything – I was Mum, Dad, housekeeper and I ran the business but he would never even tell me when he was coming home at night.”

She claims: “I lost count of the times I prepared a meal and then ended up binning it. The girls started asking if Daddy was coming home and I couldn’t answer. It was upsetting.”

The pair split for a few weeks in 2007 after Clare confronted Steve about his lack of commitment to her and Ellese, eight and Sophia, 10.

He begged her to take him back, promising change.

When he appeared in Dancing On Ice in 2008, the couple seemed stronger than ever as Clare clapped in the audience and Backley praised her support.

Over the next few years Clare says she felt more and more alone. “I didn’t know what he thought of me any more.

“I could count on one hand the number of times he told me he loved me since we met. That just wasn’t his style.

"Then I got this card for our 10th anniversary in 2012 saying how special our relationship was. I didn’t doubt we could make it work.”

But just days later Steve met trainee PR girl Katherine, then 20, at a BBC event.

It spelled the death knell for their marriage.               

Clare claims: “There was a sudden change in him like someone had flicked a switch.

“He started going out shopping to Hugo Boss, buying new jeans, shoes and shirts. He started using men’s beauty products like moisturiser and anti-wrinkle cream. It was totally out of character.

“And his attitude towards me got unbearable. Everything I did was wrong.”

Six weeks after a disaster holiday to New York, on Boxing Day 2012 she told him to go.

Clare says: “I couldn’t take the way he was treating me any more. He had always told me he liked me to look natural then suddenly he was telling me I looked ‘dishevelled’.”

Clare booked them in for relationship counselling early in 2013 but Backley failed to show up.

She says: “The ­counsellor thought he could be having an affair and I refused to believe it.

“But it started to eat away at me so I logged on to the family computer and found two emails in his trash – one was a photo of a young girl and another was a hotel receipt. I was devastated.”

She says Steve denied knowing the girl. But after a grilling Clare says he admitted he had feelings for Katherine.

Clare says: “That was when he told me they had a connection. I was in shock.”

It ended their marriage.

For six months Clare says she couldn’t eat or sleep.

But in September she gathered the strength to file for divorce.

Backley never admitted adultery but the papers stated he “developed an inappropriate relationship with another woman.”

Clare says: “I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been. If Steve and his new partner are happy, I wish them luck. I finally have time to be me.

"If something positive can come out of our pain and I can inspire other women to pick themselves up from separation and heartache then fantastic. I’ve now retrained as a personal trainer.

"I wanted to show my children that despite everything mummy has come back stronger than ever and we’ll be just fine. I’ve forgiven him, but I will never forget the hurt.”

Steve said: “I want to continue to be a good father to my children and ­therefore decline to comment.”