Stephen James Backley, OBE (born 12 February 1969) is an English retired track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw.

He was a member of the South East London-based Cambridge Harriers Athletics club,[2] and competed for Bexley in the London Youth Games.

[3] He enrolled at Loughborough University in October 1988 to study for a BSc Honours degree in physical education, sports science and recreation management.

The injury forced him to withdraw from the European Cup Super League meeting in Gateshead, England in early July.

Due to injury his second competition came in August, taking second (85.84m) to Finlands Aki Parviainen in the Norwich Union Grand Prix and improved to 86.70m in winning the AAA Championship.

With the 2001 World Championships in Athletics to look forward to, he threw over ninety metres for the first time since 1992 at the British Grand Prix at Crystal Palace on 22 July.

He had trailed behind Latvian Ēriks Rags (86.47) and American Breaux Greer (85.91) who had both produced personal bests before he pulled out a huge 90.81 with his final throw.

Such was his disgust at his performance he had been contemplating retirement but re-appeared in Gateshead,[citation needed] for the Norwich Union Classic and gained a little revenge by beating world silver medallist Aki Parviainen with a throw of 86.74.

Backley then travelled to Brisbane in September to take part in the Goodwill Games but despite leading after two rounds, the up and down season continued and he could not improve to leave Jan Železný on top once again ahead of Ēriks Rags and Breaux Greer.

On 31 July was the first test and with no major competition he knew that he had reclaimed his Commonwealth title after his very first throw of 86.81 in the City of Manchester Stadium.

Backley was on a special Olympic medal winners' version of Jungle Run, in which he, Mark Foster, and Iwan Thomas collected the most monkey statues.

However, Backley ended up in the skate-off for the fourth time in a row, where he lost out to Zaraah Abrahams and her partner Fred Palascak after the judges chose to save her.

In August 2014, Backley was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's independence referendum.