Duncan Mackay

Editor

Duncan Mackay is the editor of insidethegames.biz, insideworldparasport.biz and insideworldfootball.biz.

Awards include British Sports Writer of the Year (2004), British News Story of the Year (2004) and the current winner of British Sports Internet Reporter of the Year (2009).

 Mackay is one of Britain's best-connected journalists and during the 16 years he worked at The Guardian and The Observer he regularly broke a number of major exclusive stories, including the news that British sprinter Dwain Chambers had tested positive for banned performance enhancing drugs.

He was the first journalist to alert the world to the fact that Greek sprinters Kostas Kederis and Ekaterina Thanou were under suspicion of using drugs and deliberately avoiding doping tests. Mackay's ground-breaking stories were recognised when he was voted the British Sports Journalist of the Year in 2004 and, in the same year, won the British Sports News Story of the Year.

His impeccable contacts within the Olympic Movement were also brilliantly demonstrated when in 2005 on the morning of the vote to decide which city would host the 2012 Olympics he was the only British journalist to predict correctly that London would beat Paris.

Mackay was also the journalist to carry the Olympic Torch when it passed through London on its way to Beijing in April 2008.

Mackay regularly appears on Sky News, BBC News 24, BBC World, Sky Sports News, BBC Radio 5 and CNBC as well as several other radio and television stations around the world. He has written several books, including the highly critically-acclaimed “Running Scared: How Athletics Lost its Innocence”, “Linford Christie”, “The History of the Olympics” and “China Gold: China's Quest for Global Power and Olympic Glory”.

The success of insidethegames.biz, insideworldparasport.biz and insideworldfootball,biz led to Mackay being voted British Sports Internet Reporter of the Year (2009).

Mackay has attended 4 Summer and 5 Winter Olympic Games, 4 Commonwealth Games, 20 London Marathons, amongst many other international sporting events worldwide, including 2 FIFA World Cup Finals.  He has recently returned from Vancouver, which held what Mackay considers to be the best Winter Olympic Games he has attended.  He is looking forward to attending this years’ inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August, and the Commonwealth Games in October in Delhi.

Mike Rowbottom

Chief Feature Writer

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. He now writes regularly for insidethegames.
 
After working for the short-lived Sunday Correspondent, Rowbottom joined The Independent in 1992. A recent assessment of him by the Sports Journalists' Association observed: "His well-balanced and gentle work is widely admired by colleagues and athletes alike. Indeed, for a long spell, Rowbottom had the dubious honour of being perhaps the only member of the British athletics press corps to whom Linford Christie would speak."
 
His work at the paper included a highly regarded weekly column that took a humorous look at sport. His co-authored biography with Olympic silver medallist, Roger Black, "How Long's the Course?", was very well reviewed.
 
Rowbottom has also worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer and The Guardian. The subjects of his Olympic articles over the last 16 years have included Torvill and Dean, Linford Christie, Tonya Harding, Sally Gunnell, Steve Redgrave, Wayne Gretsky, Katerina Witt, Carl Lewis, Paula Radcliffe, Michelle Kwan, Kelly Holmes, Rhona Martin, Usain Bolt, Christine Ohuruogu, Amir Khan and Chris Hoy.

Tom Degun

Reporter and Paralympics Correspondent

Tom Degun, who recently graduated from the University of Bedfordshire with a BA First Class honours degree in Sport, Media and Culture, is a reporter and Paralympics Correspondent for insidethegames.

Degun’s first article for insidethegames was a blog on Jamaican sprint sensation Usain Bolt titled: Up close and Personal with the world’s fastest man.

As former Chief Sport’s writer for the University of Bedfordshire newspaper The Blend, Degun has covered a large variety of sports, particularly tennis, rugby and athletics.

Along with the Paralympics, Degun will mainly be covering aquatics, tennis, boxing, modern pentathlon and fencing for insidethegames.

As well as writing about sport, Degun is also a keen rugby player. Having represented the University of Bedfordshire 1st XV Essex, he is a three times Essex Schools Rugby Championship winner and four time mid-Essex Rugby 7s winner.
 

Sarah Bowron

Commercial Director

Sarah has a background that has little to do with sport. 

Sarah has worked in many different areas, experience which has proved to be the perfect background for working on insidethegames. 

Since working with insidethegames, Sarah has learnt many new skills and can now name several top sports figures without prompting.  Sarah is a song and dance girl at heart and spends most of her spare time at the theatre or singing.

Louisa Gummer

Social Networking Manager

After graduating from Oxford University, Louisa spent five years working as an account handler for two of London’s biggest advertising agencies (Bates UK and Ogilvy & Mather), and then left the advertising world behind to go to drama school. 

Louisa has worked as an actor and voiceover in TV, film and stage and also uses her acting skills and business experience extensively in the world of corporate training. 

Louisa has provided advertising and marketing consultancy in a variety of business sectors and was also instrumental in the development of two small but successful sports clothing websites, where she developed her social marketing skills. 

When she isn’t working, she is a huge sport fanatic, and a season ticket holder at Bath Rugby.