My friend who led Britain to an historic gold medal in the modern pentathlon at Montréal in 1976 was, like quite a few top sports personalities, including Muhammad Ali, in the wretched grip of Parkinsons.

"I always tell people I have Parkinsons, just in case they think I’m pissed," he told me with typical frankness. 

It was a disease he fought for just over 30 years, having been diagnosed when he was 50. 

Sadly he passed away wheelchair-bound in a nursing home in Marlborough, Wiltshire, aged 82, where he had been well looked after.

We became friends after Montréal and I have always considered him Britain’s finest Olympian, though Daley Thompson might dispute that. 

Foxy, as he was known, was not the master of one sport, but five - running, swimming, shooting, fencing and horseriding, then spread over five days.

Jim took part in four Olympics - a record for a modern pentathlete. He also dropped his given first name, Jeremy, because he thought it would be too posh for the rough and tumble of the world of sport.

With teammates Adrian Parker and Danny Nightingale, the dashing white sergeant was inspirational in the British victory, putting what had been an obscure sport very much on the map. 

This was not the only battle he endured valiantly. 

He was British champion 10 times and for a spell was chairman of Britain’s Modern Pentathlon Association where he was among those who fought strenuously with the increasingly woke International Olympic Committee (IOC) to preserve the sport in its five-day format.

Eventually they lost and the modern pentathlon was compressed into just one day because the IOC, in their infinite wisdom, thought it would be more televisual that way. 

Even more changes are planned, with the equestrian event being replaced by what is termed an obstacle race, no one seems to know quite what that is, after the Paris Olympic Games. Foxy would have shuddered but accepted it for the sake of the sport.

"He was simply a lovely man," recalled former fellow pentathlete Martin Dawe. 

"Always cheerful and smiling, friendly and helpful. 

"He gave me a lot of advice when I was a young pentathlete and he was someone for who I have great admiration and respect, epitomising the Olympic spirit in a manner which will have brought the approval of Baron de Coubertin."

He was of course involved in one of the Games most infamous incidents.

During the fencing event he spotted that his opponent, Boris Onishchenko representing what was then the Soviet Union, had fitted a small electronic device to his épée, which registered a hit when it hadn't actually touched his opponent.

Reluctantly, Fox reported it to the judges. 

"I hated doing it because I knew Boris quite well.

"I liked him, but he was cheating, and that wasn’t right," he told me.

Bad Boris, whom I dubbed Dishonestshenko, was disqualified and sent home.

He was last seen driving a taxi in Siberia.

The thing about Jim was that he always had time for people. 

He once stayed at my home and spent hours playing football with my young son.

In his bachelor days he was very much a ladies man, tall, fair, handome and very athletic.

The ladies loved him - and he loved them. But eventually he settled down and married Aly, a high flying accountant.

My late wife and I attended his lavish wedding reception in London in Knightsbridge, after which he retired from the Army - he had been promoted to captain of his regiment in The Royal Mechanical Engineers (REME) and settled in the Wiltshire village of Pewsey, where he was born. 

He had three daughters, of whom he was immensely proud.

His Member of the British Empire, awarded after Montréal, was later upgraded to Order of the British Empire, and no-one deserved one more than Foxy.

A man who strode and rode sport's highs and lows with anachronism and aplomb, had he been fit and able there is little doubt that he would have made one of the countries outstanding sports administrators. We shall miss him.