BY HIS own reckoning, Peter Marlow is a man who has managed to be in the right place at the right time.

A competitor in the 1972 Games and now an organiser for the 2012 Games race walks, he would be the first to admit he has always had a nose for sport politics.

Whereas some people are naturally talented, there are others who are both talented and speak to the right people, as Marlow found out quite early on in life.

The man from Starfield Road, Shepherd’s Bush, took up race walking ‘for a laugh’ when, as a 15-year-old 400m runner, he won the London Grammar Schools walk title, beating the favourite from Latymer Upper in Hammersmith.

The former Quinton pupil (in the days before the Kynaston bit was added to the name of Maida Vale secondary school) then got serious about the sport and was given a contentious nod for the last place in the Munich Olympics when others arguably had a better claim.

Later, he successfully tightroped a witch hunt as an IAAF committee member, initiated by the head of world athletics in the 1990s, to remain Britain’s sole representative on the committee for heel and toe – a position held since 1976 and an IAAF record.

Even though he suffered a minor stroke in May, Marlow is scheduled not only to orchestrate the three walks for men and women up and down The Mall, but has been voted to stay on the IAAF walks committee until 2015.

"There were at least two others who might have got the Olympic place in 1972," Marlow said. "After all, I had only walked three 20kms before I got the call.

"As luck would have it, the British Olympic Association team leader was Arthur Gold, and when I worked for Sotheby’s, I had the job of helping to auction his mother’s estate. Maybe, my name stuck with him when it came to selection."

If it was a bit of who you know rather than what you know, Marlow was still good back-up for the other two GB contenders, Paul Nihill and Phil Embleton.

However, all three were shipped off to St Moritz for altitude preparation, and came down only two days before the race.

"The effects and benefits of altitude training were in their infancy back then," added Marlow. "Paul Nihill was a favourite for a medal, and he could only manage sixth."

Marlow remembers just two things about the race: the crowd, and a wooden bridge that formed part of the course once the race left the stadium.

"To hear the roar of 80,000 as you leave and return to the stadium was incredible," he said. "If you can’t be emotionally moved by that, you can’t be moved by anything."

The loop involving the bridge over a stream looked good to spectators and TV, but the walkers had no choice but to bounce over pliant wood – not something you need when trying to comply with the rule that demands contact with the ground at all times.

Marlow also admits his lack of 20km experience told in the latter stages, as he faded to 17th in 1hour 35minutes 38seconds – nearly nine minutes behind East German winner Peter Frenkel.

"I could take the world on at 10 miles," the west Londoner said, "but that two-and-a-bit extra miles was telling, and in the end it was all about finishing the race."

Munich was the scene of the infamous Israeli massacre. Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film vividly depicted the attack by Black September terrorists in the Games Village, which ended in a bloody shoot-out, and even more deadly reprisals.

The entire world knew about the Israeli hostage taking at about 4.30am on September 5, 1972, but not Marlow, who was no more than 200 yards away.

In a strange twist of fate, he stayed late in his room that morning, and in the days before internet and wall-to-wall TV, it was a phone call from his mother that alerted him to the shattering news.

"We all had to give an emergency number to our next of kin," Marlow explained. "When she rang to ask if I was OK, I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

"The Israelis were just far enough away in the village for us not to pick up or get involved with what was going on."

As Marlow would remind me, he was a man in the right place at the right time.