“Legacy” and “participation” were the watchwords in the 2005 presentation that won Lord Coe and London the Games.
The new age of austerity has hit some of the more high-profile initiatives to boost those, such as the £162m Schools Sports Partnership in England but – as this straw poll in January hinted – governing bodies and clubs have realised that the Games provide an unmissable opportunity to promote their sports.
That, according to athletics great Steve Cram, is exactly what they should be doing.
“I don’t think the Games should or will have a remit for developing legacy,” said the 1984 Olympic 1500m silver medallist when I spoke to him a fortnight ago.
“I don’t think it’s [London 2012 organising committee] Locog’s job to get people jogging. The Olympics are about elite sport – a showcase. Locog has got too much else to do.
“I would look to local sports clubs and say, ‘You’re in the shop window; what are you going to do?
In 2006, funding body UK Sport made requirements of governing bodies before cash was released, forcing each to have a clear performance pathway, showing that funding meant to produce Olympic medals would go towards just that, with grassroots funding for sport development a completely separate issue.
Perhaps the separation in approaches has helped to make clear that participation is just as important as performance. In programmes such as Back to Hockey and Explore Rowing, governing bodies seek to promote enjoyment, opening their sports up to those who may be put off by a win-at-all-costs mentality.
Cram was speaking to me as an ambassador for independent website Findarace.com, which aims to help potential competitors discover running, cycling, triathlon and swimming events that are nearby and suit their level of competition.
He has witnessed the explosion of mass participation in his own sport over the last 20 years and does his bit by organising the Marathon of the North in his home city of Sunderland.
Many more people want to get involved in sport, he reasons, but don’t know what to look for. It is easy for those within a sport to forget how complicated it is to get involved in the first place.
The 2012 Olympics will provide the shop window to attract new competitors to each of the 26 sports. Then it will be up to clubs, governing bodies and enterprising initiatives like Findaraceto get them involved.
“It’s important that youngsters see a sport and want to go to their local club, whether it be athletics or canoeing, taekwondo or boxing” said Cram.
“I hope that in 10 years’ time there will be people on the podium who say, ‘I saw the sport for the first time in 2012.”
Do you agree with Steve Cram – should clubs and governing bodies be responsible for promoting their own sport or should London 2012 be doing more? Please let me know what you think – either here or via Twitter to @martingough22
Mark Hunter is the latest interviewee for the rowers’ roots series I’ve been writing for Rowing & Regatta magazine. As always, there were plenty more words available after the interview – at Poplar Blackwell & District RC back in March – than a magazine feature will allow.
Here are a few more from the Thames waterman who went from finishing 13th on his Olympic debut in Athens to becoming the first British lightweight rower to win Olympic gold, with Zac Purchase in the double in Beijing.
The interview was arranged through British Airways, the official airline of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which supports Mark by flying him around the world.
On the difficulties of training on the Thames in Poplar:
“I didn’t have my wellie boots when I first came down, I had some trainers. They got covered in mud because you had to wade in so I learnt a lesson straight away.
“Out on the water you’ve got to deal with pleasure craft, waves and the tide so you grow up very quickly on your watermanship and knowing where you need to be and what you need to do.
“When I was doing Henley with the Windsor boys [a composite that won the Fawley Cup when he was 18] they came down and we all went out in our singles. I’ll never forget, paddling back from the Tower of London, a ship came past and they froze, wouldn’t move, didn’t know what to do. I just started laughing and sculled away.
“It’s not somewhere most internationals would come to because everyone’s up at Henley and the glamour part of the sport. Here it’s old school. There’s nothing glamorous in training down here.
“It was frustrating. You’d be in the middle of a piece and [the river bus would] go flying past and I’d be soaked. But that’s where you learn your skills and grow up very quickly. It’s not beautiful out there, it’s going to be challenging. When it comes to racing in rough water, that’s what you thrive on.
“You saw how rough and windy it was [at the 2010 World Championships] in Karapiro and we just took the event apart. If it’s like that, we’ll deal with it in the same way, which will be exciting.”
On taking up rowing in his early teens, coached by father Terry, who taught at a nearby school:
“He introduced me like he did any sport. He’s opened so many doors for me in trying different sports but this was a sport he’s passionate about and it’s the one I fell in love with.
“When I was at school no one else knew what rowing was so that was something unique for me.
“I dabbled in football but knew I wasn’t going to be a pro at that. I did swimming and knew I wasn’t the right size and shape to be good at that. Rowing was ideal.
“I went to Peterborough Regatta. It was the first time I’d raced on a multilane course. I went in not having any expectation as a J14 but ended up winning in a course record for that event.
“I’d been doing a lot of team sports until then and got frustrated with people being lazy, not putting the effort in. In the single it was all about me. If I trained, got the result it was because I put all the hard work in and that’s what really captured me.”
On his sporting relationship with his father, who is now head coach of the community programme at Dorney Lake, which sees 4-500 children a week row at Olympic venue:
“He’s brilliant at bringing kids on, developing them and getting the best out of them while they’re juniors.
“What I loved about him was that he said, ‘You’re moving on now,’ rather than trying to keep me to himself, which is where a lot of youth coaches go wrong; they don’t let talent blossom.
“It’s a special relationship. You have your good days and bad, your arguments, your fun stuff and your bad stuff but there was something unique and very special, He was the best person to coach me at that point.”
Terry subsequently told me:
“It’s special but you’re with them 24 hours a day so it can be intense, and there comes a point where you have to let them go.
“At 23, he turned to me and said, ‘Other coaches tell me the same thing but I listen to them and I want to argue with you,’ so I said it was time to move on.
Mark on the differences between his background and the public school element of the rowing scene:
“When I was a junior it was more apparent. When you go to junior training camps there’s Eton boys, Radley boys; they’re from a very different environment to you. But most of them haven’t got any banter so you can make them look stupid.
“The sport is very different now. It’s great we have the Boat Race but people will perceive that as what the sport is, which is not what it is at all. It’s great we have the race but that’s why people think it’s a sport for posh people, because of Oxford and Cambridge, and that’s the event they see every year.”
On the decision to move to lightweight, which he did not take until the age of 23:
“People said I should try lightweight but I wanted to try and make it as a heavyweight. Unless you’re a natural lightweight its quite dangerous to try too early and also it affects your life outside rowing. I was quite happy to keep developing and enjoying life.
“After the Sydney Olympics, I decided to go lightweight. I’d finished at Under-23 and I gave myself two years to make it as a lightweight. I went straight in to the team within a couple of months but it was challenging to learn how to lose weight, how to perform. Some of the things I did then I would never do now – the amount of running I did was insane.
“It’s not easy because I’m not a natural lightweight, I have to work hard and diet. There are challenging times when you have to lose weight, it’s exhausting but that’s part of the lifestyle I chose and I love that.”
On dealing with his Olympic struggles in Athens, where his lightweight four finished 13th overall:
“I wanted to prove to myself as well as everybody else that it could be done and that I was better than being 13th for the Olympic Games. I think that’s why people enjoy listening to it because it shows you can be at the bottom and turn it around.
“It doesn’t matter what part of life you’re in, whether you’re in a business that’s struggling, doing the right things and looking to improve in certain areas, it’s the same as an athlete, looking to get to the top and looking to get better.
“Even when I was getting knockbacks and it wasn’t going well, I knew I had to work harder and just be a better athlete; that would carry me, I’d find somebody else and then it would work.
“I wanted to succeed, I had to succeed.
“I was very fortunate that Zac came along at the right time but that’s the way unique combinations are. You can’t predict when it’s going to happen. It could have been with someone else but it might not have been so successful. Fate awaited my time. I had my disappointment and now it’s all come good.”
On taking a year off in 2009 to coach at the University of California in Los Angeles, and a possible future in coaching:
“I learnt an awful lot. I’d coached part-time before but to be in charge of a group properly for a whole year was massive. To tell an athlete, ‘You’re not going to be in a crew in this one,’ was so hard. But with the experience I had I knew the things that were going on in their heads so I could jump on them and say, ‘I know you’re thinking this,’ and they respected that.
“I loved that opportunity to give something back and teach. I love coaching and maybe afterwards that would be a great thing for me to stick and get to the top of.
“You need to do your apprenticeship. I don’t think you just jump into the high-level coaching, you need to do your grassroots coaching, learn and make your way up, like you do as an athlete. Then you’ll have the respect of your peers and athletes and have the background of knowledge to not just get there but stay there. That’s what I’d love to be able to do one day.”
Last week in a charity auction, a single seat on a launch following this year’s Boat Race was sold at auction for £500. By that mark, I’ve had few thousand pounds-worth over the last few years but this time I will be on dry land for the annual joust between Oxford and Cambridge.
Maybe it isn’t as historic as the first radio broadcast of the race in 1926, or the first live TV in 1938 – in part because others have done it before – but this year’s live text commentary on the official race website will hopefully be pretty special.
The project uses the blueprint for interactive live text coverage championed by the BBC (where I was normally producer rather than writer, except on rare occasions), the functionality provided by Cover it Live and some great work by Riskpoint, designers of this season’s relaunched Boat Race website to make the whole thing look and feel smooth
Reporters Libby Richards and Oscar Schonfeld will be on Twitter throughout Tideway week (contributing respectively to the @CUBCSquad and @OUBCSquad feeds) and will be my eyes and ears around the Putney Embankment on Saturday, while I’m based in front of a large plasma screen at the Mortlake Boat House, where the crews will end up.
And I hope we will get some good input not only from the 250,000 pairs of eyes lining the course for the race but also the seven million or so watching on TV, who will be able to send comments via the live console or get in touch on Twitter using the hashtag #theboatrace.
Perhaps unlike text commentaries of a decade ago, this isn’t just for people unable to watch or listen elsewhere; it should be a perfect complement on a laptop or mobile, whether as a “second screen” for TV viewers or a useful guide for those on the towpath as to what is going on further along the course.
And it will also be about the entire day, from the moment the crews arrive in Putney at 1130 BST, through the race at 1415 and reaction afterwards, going on until 1530.
I got a chance to visit the Oxford squad in Wallingford during training a few weeks ago, and put this video together for the West London Sport website. Fleming Boathouse is like nothing I’ve seen outside the GB HQ in Caversham, near Reading.
In fact it’s far prettier than Caversham, which is where the Great Britain team on Wednesday will reveal their line-ups for the first World Cup of the year, in what is likely to be an almost-finished draft of the Olympic crews.
There are lots of rumours flying, the obvious one being that Pete Reed and Andy Hodge have moved into the men’s four but also suggestions Alan Campbell has given up on the idea of competing in the double scull and will stay in his single.
All will be revealed on Wednesday but in the meantime it’s worth having a look at The Squad, a web series commissioned by British Rowing to introduce all of Great Britain’s to a wider audience.
The GB squad system in place now would have been completely foreign to national crews in the 1960s, but then (aside from a single medal won in 1964 by a four including Campbell’s coach Bill Barry) so was Olympic success between 1948 and 1972.
That was when GB’s Czech coach brought the country’s top rowers together and won the Olympic medals that marked the beginning of Great Britain’s rise to being one of the world’s top rowing nations.
Look around on Tideway week and you’re likely to see a few of the characters from the Janousek years still lurking (as well as plenty of boats built by Bob after he gave up coaching).
Westminster schoolboys might enjoy the tale of their head coach Bill Mason being ordered to have a haircut by the GB team manager, John Tillbury, while part of the Thames Tradesmen “Beatle Four” in 1973.
One morning Tillbury caught the tradesmen crew coming in a 830am and asked them where they had been.
‘To an all-night party,’ said the boys, ‘and we had a fantastic time pulling girls who fancied us because of our long hair.’
Actually they had been for an early morning paddle on the best water at the best time of day – a practice unknown to the British team until then. Tillbury went mad and pulled them up before the management.
There will be more from Chris, more on the Boat Race and more on the Great Britain squad announcement in the next issue of Rowing Voice, which is out at the end of the week.
Oh, and the new Rowing & Regatta magazine is out this week, featuring an interview with Annabel Vernon – the only Women’s Boat Race blue in the Great Britain squad – about her rowing roots.
The latest Rowing & Regatta magazine, which came out on Monday, features a 1,600-word feature on Katherine Grainger’s roots; her route from reluctant recreational rower to four-time Olympian.
The original commission was for 800 words but I had to ask for an extension. I could have produced four times that, and much of it would have come from Katherine herself.
In squeezing all the information in, it was difficult to include Katherine’s stories on each subject we touched upon, or to convey fully the gentle sense of humour that runs in tandem with that grittiest of determination. Here are some of the out-takes.
On taking up rowing at Edinburgh University:
“We’re six months out from my fourth Olympic Games and I never saw that coming, it was never the game plan. It wasn’t me growing up thinking: I want to be an Olympian and a multi-Olympian.
“I didn’t start rowing until I was at university. I really wasn’t good when I started. I spent about two years being quite awful at it but I loved it!
“I went to university to get a degree. I started rowing because someone said I’d be good at it (and there was probably free beer or something) and I stuck at it because I loved the people in the club.
“It was one of those clubs that trained incredibly hard, considering it was just university, in your free time but also had a very good attitude to enjoying it. Every session was balanced, we’d go out for a drink afterwards or some food, or make a weekend of it. The personalities there are some of my best friends, people who know how to work hard, play hard and make the most of anything.”
On her first outing at Clydesdale RC, several years before university, with sister Sarah, who is 18 months older:
“Our next-door neighbour Gordon said, ‘You must come rowing!’ Their son Colin would come round and show off the blisters and calluses he’d got from rowing. It’s not very attractive to a girl in her early teens!
“I wasn’t convinced rowing was my thing but they persevered and one day I went down with my sister and two other friends. We did one session on the river but I thought it was a bit rubbish and a bit cold and I wasn’t that good.
“A few years ago my mum finally confessed that Gordon had come round and said, ‘Your daughter’s actually got real talent for this’. I said ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I could have been even better at a younger age’. And she said, ‘It wasn’t you, it was Sarah he was talking about’.
“My big sister lives off that, thinking if she rowed she’d be even better than me.”
On joining the juggling club at university freshers’ fayre, before being nobbled by the rowing club:
“I still have my membership card. When I went to university, everyone said it was an amazing opportunity to try so much. I went along to the usual freshers week fayre. Things you didn’t know existed, had clubs. I learned what korfball was and ultimate frisbee.
“I never went to a meeting. I don’t even know if there were meetings. If juggling was an Olympic sport that could have been mine. I might have had three golds!
“During university, when I was studying for exams, I found juggling quite relaxing. I still do it sometimes. There was a great shop in Edinburgh where you could buy flaming batons, clubs, knives and all sorts of things. I’m still at the two, three, four balls level.
“Maybe post-rowing, there’s a career waiting for me there!”
Here’s a clip of the interview, filmed for the British Rowing website
On her first rowing pot, in a university all-sports match between Edinburgh and Aberdeen:
“We were rowing in a four and one of my clearest memories was that we were waiting to boat and one of the girls cracked out a huge slab of milk chocolate and out coach was horrified.
“But we went on and won anyway. It was chaos, there were blades everywhere, a lot of passion and enthusiasm and no idea what we were doing.
“That’s how rowing started and should be – it was fun and the high of winning, four of us loving it and finishing first.
“My pre-race strategy is a bit different now.”
On realising she could row for Great Britain:
“In my fourth year my coach Hamish [Burrell] came up to me on the ergo and said: ‘You should go for Great Britain trials’.
“I genuinely nearly fell off the ergo. I thought he was joking. To me the GB team was massively on a pedestal, just after the 1996 Olympics.
“I went down [to national trials] in a pair thinking it was going to be embarrassing. All the GB team were there – people who were legends as you come through the ranks – just standing around chatting casually. I thought it was the most incredible thing.
“I did reasonably well at the trials and I was walking behind a group who were the top women at the time. Dot Blackie had been captain at Edinburgh University before I was there and when I was there her photo was everywhere and she’s made it in the British team and just come back from the Olympics. Mid-conversation, she very casually took one step back and said, ‘Well done Edinburgh’.
“Dot Blackie spoke to us and she knew who we were! It was amazing! The door started to open to GB rowing and from then on I had some part in the team.”
On who she will celebrate with if she wins Olympic gold, after three successive silvers:
“The first person will be Anna [Watkins], who will be there and she will have crossed the line ahead of me.
“Then there will be so many people, almost too many to name.
“The first people you want to see is immediate family – the people who have been there your whole career, who know you and get you.
“I had an incredible emotional reunion with my mum after the podium in Beijing. You can see them from the podium but you can’t get to them. We had to put the boat away, go for drugs testing, there was quite a delay and we finally met up behind the stands and were both in floods of tears.
“I think as a parent you just want to take your child away and make it all OK. It’s tough but if it all goes right, they deserve the most because they’ve certainly helped me through the dark periods.
“Within hours of the silver medal in Beijing, my mum had said, ‘I want to see you in London’.
“I hadn’t made the decision then and I wouldn’t for a while but knowing that someone who is so important to me absolutely believed in me and wanted more for me made the decision a lot easier.
“I’ve gone through a very unconventional route and they’ve just been so supportive, inspiring and inspired.
“For my sister it’s not been easy. She got married a couple of years ago. That was her special day and yet I didn’t know if I’d be in the country. You don’t want to be selfish but so much of my life is rigid and inflexible and it’s not my choice. And that impacts on everyone around you.
“I’ve got some fantastic friends who I first rowed with at university who are a rock solid support. They get it, they know me, they know what it means to me. They’re the people I can go to if I have a bad day and can escape. They make me laugh and I can forget about it for a while.
“It’s been a long career of highs and lows. There’s a lot of people who have been through the highs and lows with me. That’s why for so much more than just me, if the ending’s the happy ending and the right result, a lot of people deserve it more than me. They all will just heave a huge sigh of relief.
“That medal isn’t down to me, it isn’t down to me and Anna, it isn’t down to me, Anna and our coach Paul [Thompson], it’s down to loads of people through my whole life who have had influence over me, have helped, led, guided and advised me.”
She talked quite a bit about how good the inclusion of the women’s team pursuit in the Olympic programme has been for women’s cycling in general, requiring each nation to focus on strength in depth as they need three riders of the highest standard.
And she said she would like to see a female version of Team Sky in future, giving the Great Britain women’s squad the sort of support many of their male equivalents receive.
Australia’s GreenEDGE team has been set up along the same lines of Team Sky, with a squad including many of the nation’s top track riders, aiming to improve Olympic chances. But it also has a women’s team, who have already had some success this season.
Meanwhile – as you may have read in this blog in December – Great Britain’s top women have to find their own trade teams, and deal with disruption and uncertainty as the women’s circuit is nothing like as secure as the men’s.
Rowsell had a chance to see close-up how Team Sky works when the GB women shared their training camp in Mallorca earlier this year, and got to share their facilities, including a chef who travels with the team.
“It’s great for the men that they’ve got that support but it would be nice to see in future a women’s team too,” she said. “Hopefully Sky will think about that in future.”
Rowsell (centre) won Saturday's World Cup individual pursuit (Pic: British Cycling)
Although their focus this year will mainly be on the track, the pursuit team also train and race on the road racing to increase endurance. Rowsell and Dani King both compete for the Matrix Fitness – Prendas team, which provides equipment and expenses, not the sort of sizeable contract their male counterparts enjoy with Sky.
Rowsell named a list of British road riders who would benefit from being on such a team, including Olympic road race hopeful Lizzie Armitstead, Beijing time trial silver medallist Emma Pooley and youngsters Katie Colclough and Lucy Martin.
“It would be great to have a British team, then maybe the team pursuit riders could join them when the programme suits them,” she added.
There are suggestions the Halford’s Tour Series – a circuit of town-centre criterium events – will include four women’s races this year, which is likely to mean another chance to see Rowsell in action on home soil before she goes for gold in London.
In the meantime, you can find out more about her – and download a sponsorship proposal package – on her personal website.
A media conference at Somerset House provided an opportunity to get answers to some of the logistical questions. Much is still to be decided but in summary:
From 2015, the women’s race will be run on the same day over the same course, moving from its current place at Henley-on-Thames, usually the weekend before the men’s event.
New funding from asset management company BNY Mellon and its subsidiary Newton – under a five-year agreement – will bring equal funding to men and women from this year, without reducing the amount the men’s squads currently receive under the deal with Xchanging that expires this year.
The three-year delay is to allow for an improvement in infrastructure and performance levels for the women’s boat clubs and to iron out logistical issues such as who boats from where, who races when and how the media gets to watch both.
The men’s reserve race will remain as part of a triple bill but the women’s reserve race and the men’s and women’s lightweight events will remain in Henley.
The BBC has committed to covering the races equally, although a contract has not yet been sealed with the broadcaster past 2014.
Matthew Pinsent made clear the task ahead for organisers when he said of the women’s clubs: “To this day one of the big attributes of someone in the squad is that they have their own car.”
Sir Matt expanded on this, and named two women – Anna Watkins and Natalie Redgrave – who could have featured more heavily in the Women’s Boat Race had parity been achieved earlier, in my blog entry for Hear the Boat Sing.
Here is a pick of the reaction on Twitter. So far, no one has raised a single objection. The main sentiment seems to be that it is amazing the change did not happen sooner.
Fantastic morning for the Boat Race. New sponsor in BNY Mellon and the Newton women's event moves to London. On and up for both races.— Matthew Pinsent (@matthewcpinsent) February 08, 2012
“@martingough22: Women’s Boat Race set to be given equal billing with the men’s, says RQ in the Telegraph tgr.ph/x3qhBg” About time!— Greg Searle (@GregSearle2012) February 08, 2012
Now that we're allowed to break radio silence; congratulations to @OUWBC and @CUWBC. Historic day. All the best for the future.— Karl Hudspith (@OubcPresident) February 08, 2012
Not only is this HUGE news for an event that dates from 1829, it’s also a HUGE precedent for women’s uni sport in UK –both funding & profile— Rebecca Dowbiggin (@dowbs) February 08, 2012
Just when you think no one's listening re. equality in sport, something good happens: bbc.in/xawrdS Hooray!— Clare Balding (@clarebalding1) February 08, 2012
WSFF welcome decision to include women in Oxford and Cambridge annual boat race bit.ly/yzigTH— WSFF (@wsff_uk) February 08, 2012
The para-cycling track World Championships get under way in Los Angeles on Thursday and more of the interviews the team gave me at their media day in Newport will be online this week as the 14-strong squad look to improve on the nine gold medals they won last year.
I’ve edited some of the audio recording from the interview too:
Butterworth lost his left arm in an attack on Basra Air Station (Photo: British Cycling)
Obviously, Butterworth’s is a frightening story but I found this interview intriguing more because of his matter-of-fact approach and attention to detail – two factors that his coach Chris Furber believes are a major factor in his success.
Furber said: “He’s highly analytical and that fits brilliantly with track cycling because it’s a highly analytical sport. It’s about numbers and drag and laps and splits and times. He thrives in that environment where I’m giving him constant factual number feedback.
“He’s also a little bit of a dreamer who believes in himself and I think you need that as well because you need to be able to look at world bests and think: I can make that, I can beat that.
“He’s very hard on himself and sometimes needs a bit of pepping up but is a really good guy to have on the squad.”
RT @BBCSport_Ollie: On advice of GB's @tom_hide: That's that. Olympic champ Tim Brabants goes to London 2012. Paul Wycherley does not. h ... 2 days ago
“I don’t think the Games should or will have a remit for developing legacy,” said the 1984 Olympic 1500m silver medallist when I spoke to him a fortnight ago.
