Morris Foster competed in the men’s road race at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, having suffered a heavy crash in a warm-up race in Mexico City that resulted in a period of hospitalisation before the Olympic event.

He started the Olympic road race but, experiencing severe breathing difficulties in the thin air at 2,134 metres altitude, retired after 30 miles. His assessment of the conditions was vivid: ‘there’s no air out there, there’s no point in going on.’ Of 144 starters, 80 abandoned on a course of eight laps of a hilly 24.5km circuit in intense heat.