This time, however, there are no athletes, no breathtaking action and no medal ceremonies with the national anthem wreathing the Union Flag. The 41 year old is talking about herself. The subject is the thyroid cancer that briefly halted her career and life in its tracks
?I do know what it is like to go through a very terrifying diagnosis,? she says, entwining fingers to steel herself from the shockwaves of memory. ?I know how important it is. I was lucky. I had thyroid cancer. It was successfully treated after three operations and two lots of radioactive iodine therapy.
?It is terrifying and it is frightening for everyone around you. You need to be able to go to a place where you feel more positive, more confident, where you can allow your fears to come out, if that is what you need to do, or to be boosted by those around you.?
The words come from a video she filmed to help raise the ?1million needed for a new treatment unit at the South Bucks Hospice. The 90-second clip, seen exclusively by the Sunday Express, is a graphic example of why and how she won the hearts of millions of TV viewers and made several of her esteemed male colleagues appear like clich?-programmed robots.
| I know how important it is. I was lucky |
CLARE?S triumph, according to friends, is built not just on forensic research and a lung-bursting capacity for hard work but on her inner soul, a quality that connected with the British public during a fortnight when the prefix ?Great? hardly did the nation justice.
She agreed to front the hospice?s campaign after her close friend Heather Dillon died from cancer eight weeks ago, just as she was preparing for the Olympics.
?It was a tragedy and it has been difficult for her family to come to terms with,? says Karen Cross, appeals manager at the hospice in High Wycombe. ?Heather was only just over 50, had worked tirelessly for charities all her life and was the hospice?s vice-president when she herself was struck down with cancer.
?Clare wanted to do whatever she could to help her. Heather carried on helping and supporting others despite the battles she was fighting. She was an amazing woman and I can understand why she and Clare were good friends. They were both very committed about what they did, and cared about others. Clare gave Heather a lot of support.
?When you are faced with losing friends it makes you appreciate what you have a whole heap more and Clare really does understand what people are going through because she has been there. That empathy comes across in everything she does.?
Balding?s Olympic delivery had its wobbles. She unintentionally fanned suspicion over a young Chinese swimmer?s performance and talked down Rebecca Adlington?s bronze medal but her ability to share and transmit the nation?s excitement made her a vital element of the Olympics.
Many of the more high-profile presenters may be wondering how a former ?29,000-a-year private school head girl, whose tomboy style breaks all the TV fashion rules, had such a public touch.
It was her ability to see the human side of every event and performance, forged by her unconventional upbringing, along with her personal and professional struggles, that hooked the masses.
Clare is the daughter of a former champion horse trainer and was brought up on the edge of Watership Down territory in Hampshire.
Her early home life was shared with a menagerie of animals and she often jokes that her needs came way after the family?s pets. ?I think I aged in dog years and had reached an emotional maturity by the age of 10,? she says. ?I knew what is was like to feel jealousy and the pain of loss, unbearable loss when an animal dies. Most important of all, I knew how to love and how to let myself be loved.?
Her childhood memoir, My Animals And Other Family, published next month, charts her life up to securing a place at Cambridge University to read English.
She competed as a professional rider then joined the BBC and was part of small group of women competing for space in a testosterone-fuelled field. She rose through the junior ranks before gaining a high-profile presenting horse racing coverage, and forming an unlikely double act with former champion jockey Willie Carson.
An intensely private person, she sealed her relationship with fellow BBC presenter Alice Arnold in a civil ceremony in 2006 and when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 refused to indulge in misery memoirs.
?Clare would not want pity for any of the challenges she?s been through. To her they are learning experiences and she is out the other side,? says Karen. ?She doesn?t talk about it and views it as being in the past.
?Because of what she has experienced, Clare has this ability to understand what people are going through. The way she can associate with and understand what people are feeling is quite astonishing. She can relate to it in a way that shows that she is their friend.
?I think all that shone out during the Olympics. She stood out as someone who cares passionately about their job and made sure she provided the right level of commentary and added value rather than just being a talking head.
?She obviously works hard and I get the impression second best is never something she shoots for. It is that empathy that makes her different.?
Clare will be back on our screens fronting the Paralympics coverage on Channel 4 from August 29, and amid a whirlwind of appearances and book signings there is one date she won?t miss: the hospice?s charity dinner on October 11.
Further details about the hospice appeal can be found at sbh.org.uk
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