By Roald Bradstock - 1 June 2009
 

Last Friday was the last day for entries for the 2012 and the Arts Council's 'Artists Taking The Lead' project.

 

 
For those of you that do not know this project has a budget of £5.4 million for 12 new works of commissioned art, each worth up to £500,000.

 

 The commissioned work can be in any art form and in any location in the UK.
 

I had many ideas that I wanted to propose but the rules clearly state that there could only be one entry per artist/ person. It was tough but I picked out my best idea and pitched it. The hardest thing to do was to do it in just 400 words or less.

Have you heard of the expression "a picture worth a 1000 words?". Well try describing a visual image and concept in only 400. It is tough. I used all 400 words.
 

This was my entry: Living Landscapes:

This idea turns a hillside into a giant canvas and projector screen. The massive images created out of flowers and crops change colour, position and location as the seasons change. There would only be one image visible at a time. The full effect would take nine to 12 months to unfold and would be captured on time lapse video.

There are three different versions:
 

1) Create a image progression sequence: a horse jumping, a person running - the sequence is gradually unveiled using flowers that bloom at different times of the year in different colours. The resulting effect - a image that changes colour, position and location on the hillside - it would move over time.
 

2) Create a stationary image - it changes positions and colours but not location.
 

3) Create a single image that changes colours but not position or location.
 

These concepts combine art with British agriculture and horticulture. It also uses nature, science and technology.
 

There are two obvious subjects for these moving scapes:

1) A galloping or jumping horse - this connects with "2012", the historic hillside chalk horses (in Witlshire) and with Eadweard Muybridge's famous revolutionary photographic sequences in the 19th century.
 

2) A paralympic athlete: a wheelchair athlete racing for the finish line or a Goalball player diving to stop a goal.

 
With the paralympic theme another unique element could be added to the landscape - sound - using natures energy: wind.
 

For the wheelchair athlete wind chimes - symbolic items for wheelchair spokes - could be added. Or for a goalball player image, thousands of little bells could be placed in varying sized clusters around the hillside.
 

Using wind chimes and bells in the piece would make these landscape images even more unique - from afar they would be huge colourful images, up close the image changes from a visual piece of art to a audio work.
 

These hillside images are just half the concept. The other part is about the process behind creating this public work. Communities and schools will be involved in creating them working together and taking ownership. Photographs, videos, discussions forums could be created to document the creation process and also so that everyone in the world can become "involved" and watch through the Internet.
 

These living moving landscapes would become national landmarks, a place for tourists to come visit and a place for future generations to come and see a 2012 Olympic / Paralympic legacy.

In July each region in the UK will select three to five finalists for further development of their ideas. The winner for each region will be announced this Autumn.

 

Roald Bradstock, who was born in Hertfordshire, represented Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in the javelin. He now lives in the United States and has increasingly concentrated on his art. In 2000 he won the United States Olympic Committee Sport Art Competition and then exhibited at the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne. In 2003 he won the prestigious "International Sports Artist of the Year Award". He is a founding member of the Olympic revival movement called "Art of the Olympians". His artwork had been seen on ABC, NBC, CBS and been exhibited form the United Nations to Times Square. In the last few years he has been dubbed the "Olympic Picasso" for his visionary ideas on how to combine sport and art with the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012.
To view his work visit www.roaldbradstock.com.

 

Comments

Roald, good luck with your proposal. Your passion for art and the
Olympics shines through. I really hope that the award goes to
someone like you that is able to marry the two together
perfectly.
By Ron, Harpenden

4 June 2009 at 11:55am
 

By Duncan Mackay - 29 May 2009
 

No-one would argue that with five World Cup victories to their name that Brazil is the most successful football team in history. Down the years they redefined the sport with their blend of beautiful football. The English may have invented the game, but it is the Brazilians who have perfected it, is a favourite saying on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

 

Just feeling off the names can make you feel excited. Garrincha,  Jairzinho, Rivaldo, Socrates, Zico, Ronaldo and, of course, Pele, the greatest player that the world has ever seen.

 

Pele and the World Cup go together like strawberries and cream, horse and carriage, Ant and Dec. He first shot to global prominence at the 1958 tournament in Sweden when, as a teenager, he inspired his country to their first-ever World Cup title. He missed the 1962 tournament through injury [although he was later awarded a winners' medal after Brazil retained the title in Chile] and was kicked out of the event in England in 1966 before returning spectacularly in Mexico in 1970 as part of the greatest team to grace the game. He scored one goal and set-up two others as Brazil beat Italy 4-1 in the final.

 

Pele is regularly voted the greatest sportsman in history following a career that saw him score over a 1,000 goals, including 77 in 92 internationals. Regrets? Pele should have none. But the great man does have one that he revealed to me when I spoke to him during my visit last month to Rio, where he was helping promote Rio's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. "I will always wish that I had played in the Olympics and, even better, won a gold medal," he told me. "That will always be a great regret of mine."

 

Pele is not alone in his angst. It is one shared by 200 million other Brazilians, who every four years pray that they will finally win the Olympic football tournament, the only major title that has eluded them. But, after their latest failure in Beijing last year, they are still waiting. What made it worse is that this latest defeat came at the hands in the semi-final of bitterest rivals, Argentina, who went on to retain the title they had won four years earlier in Athens. Brazil had to settle for the bronze medal, with a 3-0 victory over Belgium in the third place play-off, for the second time in four Olympics. It added to the silver medals won in 1984 and 1988 but that was of little consolation to a nation plunged into collective mourning at the final whistle of the the defeat of their team against Argentina.

 

No-one was more disappointed than Ronaldinho, the star of Brazil's team that won the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea and who has twice voted as the world's player of the year by FIFA, but who, like Pele, is seemingly destined to retire without an Olympic gold medal. “At the moment there’s nothing that could cheer me up, the disappointment is huge," he said at the end of the game against Argentina. "I don’t know why but at the Olympics, Brazil always fail."

 

I thought of that earlier this year when Craig Brown, the former manager of Scotland, called the Olympic football tournament a "Mickey Mouse" event. "It's a nothing tournament," he claimed. Brown was only echoing comments made by Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, who claimed that football had no place in the Olympics because it is not the pinnacle of a players career.

 

Tell that to Nwankwo Kanu (pictured), who has enjoyed a spectacular career that has seen him win the European Cup with Ajax, the Premier League with Arsenal and the FA Cup at Portsmouth. But he has no doubt what the highlight of his career has been. It was winning the Olympic gold medal with Nigeria at Atlanta in 1996. "It was the most beautiful moment of my life," Kanu said.

 

Brown and Smith's opposition to Britain being able to enter teams [men and women's] at London 2012 and the subsequent unsatisfactory compromise announced yesterday that means only English players will be considered ensures that that opportunity to potentially feel the emotions that Kanu so enjoyed will be denied to dozens of Britain's best young players when the final is played at Wembley in just over three years time.

 

There is an unfortunate belief in this country that if Britain is not involved in a sport then it does not matter. Hence, Olympic sports such as handball and volleyball that are followed passionately abroad and are hugely popular, are dismissed as being as of no relevance. It is the same with Olympic football, it appears.

 

The tournament may be a "Mickey Mouse" event in Scotland (zero World Cup wins) but I can assure Mr Brown and Mr Smith that it means rather a lot in Brazil (five World Cup wins).  That is why the football tournament in 2012 will be one of the highlights and eagerly anticipated events of the London Olympics and why a certain Pele hopes to be there at Wembley cheering on Brazil to victory.

 

Duncan Mackay is the publisher and editor of insidethegames. He was the 2004 British Sports Journalist of the Year.

 

Comments


How refreshing to see an English journalist who realises that
football does not begin and end with  the Premiership. As a a
Brazilian living in Bristol, I know how much an Olympic gold
medal would mean to the country. When we win in London in 2012
Brazilians will celebrate just as enthusiastically as we will do
when we win the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
By Internationalist

30 May 2009 at 15:10pm

"Squawk!", said Pele, all cheery like. "You've got to love the
old Duncan Mackay!"
By arthur lemon

31 May 2009 at 22:12pm

Why are we spending so much time caring about what Scotland
thinks? They are a third-rate football nation that no-one gives
two hoots about...
By Fed up Englishman

4 June 2009 at 11:56am
 

By Dame Kelly Holmes - 27 May 2009
 

I have been genuinely touched by the range and breadth of support and personal messages the recent announcement of my new role as President of Commonwealth Games England (CGE) has brought me.

 

 

Let’s face it, when you are given an opportunity like this, there are always a few people who might grumble, and think they or someone else should have been put in the post but so far I have had really positive backing so that's great.

 

I was, as I have said in numerous interviews, incredibly honoured to have been asked, and to succeed Sir Chris Chataway (himself a formidable athlete in his field) after a 15 year term.

 

I am not sure how long I will be in post but I always take my roles seriously and it’s great to have an opportunity like this to show the other attributes that being a retired sports person can bring.

 

Of course, I am still learning what it takes to really make a difference in these types of role and I think it would be fantastic to see the sport system making the most of other ex-elite performers, utilising our skills, knowledge and expertise that we have gained through achieving at the highest level in sport.

 

Actually this is some of the work that I have been leading just recently through my charity, the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust and it is fantastic for me to have the opportunity to "walk the walk" by using my experience as ‘home grown talent’ to shape and influence the work of Commonwealth Games England.

 

I mean it’s great to have been in the system, performed at the highest level and achieved success in the field that I am now involved in. Few people remember that my first gold medal was at the Commonwealth Games in 1994 (picutred) and after that I achieved silver in 1998 and gold in 2002.

 

Certainly, as the eyes of the world look to London and the build up to the Olympic Games, they are surely going to be looking at the performance of the Home Nations at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi next year, building to London 2012 and then beyond into Glasgow 2014. No question about it, the expectations will be huge. But I really believe we are well placed to rise to the occasion and produce some exceptional performances across the board.
 

So, what are the challenges in my role and for CGE? Firstly, I think we need to see the Commonwealth Games as a significant event in it’s own right. I think the Commonwealth Games at Manchester in 2002 was a fantastic occasion, and gave a superb platform for many competitors, (myself included!) to enjoy the experience of a multi-sport event.

 

We have to remember that for many competitors, this may be the pinnacle of their sporting achievements, which should be recognised and celebrated.

 

And for many of the young athletes who have been inspired to get into and stay in the sport, like some of the middle distance runners I mentor through ‘On Camp with Kelly’, London 2012 may come too soon for their stage of development but Glasgow 2014 is a real possibility to aim for.

 

Secondly, though we equally need to recognise that this is a much needed platform and experience for those performers who will progress on to the bigger stage of the Olympics and we should support the team accordingly.

 

If you look back through some of the top performers in the Commonwealth Games, it’s certainly an illustrious alumni - Brendan Foster, Steve Cram, Daley Thompson, Sally Gunnell, Tessa Sanderson, Denise Lewis, Victoria Pendleton, Gaill Emms and Nathan Robertson, and of course me. The hall of fame list goes on and on. Personally, I have no doubt that the success I experienced in Manchester in 2002 was part of a crucial step towards gaining my double Olympic title in 2004.

 

Finally, I want people to proud of being English. It was a huge honour to wear the Great Britain team kit, but I live in England and I am proud to be English too. I’d like to see the same passion for our Commonwealth Games athletes that we see for the English tootball team with flags flying in every street up and down the country. I would like to see businesses, schools, and whole communities getting behind Team England and supporting them to achieve their best. Aim high I say!

 

As a nation we have come second behind Australia on the medal table so by 2014 I am sure our aim will be to top it.

 

My other mission will be to help find funding and a kit sponsor. I was shocked when Anne Hogbin, the chief executive, said that in Melbourne 2006 the team were without a kit sponsor. Come on guys! Anyone out there that really believes in backing talent please get in touch and help us send not only the best competing team but also the best turned out team to Delhi.

 

So, how has the first week in my new role gone? Well, it’s been interesting. I am working closely with the CGE team to help as they implement the new structure, I have met with the British Olympic Association and discussed how we might share expertise and support.

 

And finally I gave my first formal speech on the announcement to the All Parliamentary Sports Group. Typical that it happened to clash that afternoon with the first resignation of the Speaker in 300 years. Seems it was an historic day for me in more ways than one.

To keep up to date with Dame Kelly’s work visit www.doublegold.co.uk, find out more about her charity visit www.dkhlegacytrust.org and follow her progress mentoring elite young middle distance runners at www.concampwithkelly.co.uk

 

Comments

I think it's brilliant we have someone like Kelly leading our
team. She epitomises everything that is right about the country -
multi-racial, tolerant, hardworking and successful. I'm sure she
will be just as brilliant in the boardroom as she was on the
track!
By England fan

28 May 2009 at 14:25pm

What an inspired appointment to have Kelly leading our team in
New Delhi. If she cannot inspire them then nobody can!
By Kelly fan

29 May 2009 at 12:11pm
 

By Roald Bradstock - 26 May 2009
 

There has been a lot of discussion about the Cultural Olympiad and its importance leading up to and during the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics - getting people around the country involved in celebrating the 2012 London Games. But there isn’t any mention about the Cultural Paralympiad? You never hear of that, do you?

 

 

There is a simple explanation for that - there is no such thing. But maybe there should be. Maybe in 2012, or before, there should be another event added to the calender, a historic first: "The Cultural Paralympiad". I believe it would help combine the Olympic and Paralympics by making them more "equal" - They are both huge international sporting events and they should have complimentary cultural programmes.

When Dr Ludwig Guttmann began the Paralympics over half a century ago there was no "cultural" component. That was not part of his vision. His mission was to change the lives of spinal cord injury patients using sport as therapy to rehabilitate people back into society. A worthy cause indeed and very successful.
 

The first "Paralympics" on July 28, 1948, was with 16 paralysed British ex-servicemen and women who competed in an archery tournament on the fields of Stoke. The date was picked deliberately to coincide with the beginning of the 1948 London Olympics.

The Paralympics have grown and evolved over the last 60 years from this humble beginning of one event held miles away in a field to now being a major international competition with a full range of sporting disciplines that are held in the same venues as the Olympics. But the Paralympics are still lagging in worldwide exposure, recognition and acceptance compared to the Olympics.

I believe the time has come to add another event, another component to the Paralympics just as Pierre De Coubertin did with the Olympics. I believe there should be "A Cultural Paralympiad". Just as there are the Olympics and the Paralympics which are separate events yet together there should be a Cultural Olympiad and a Cultural Paralympiad - again separate events but together.
 

The 2012 London Cultural Olympiad was officially launched last September at the Tate Britain Gallery in London with the unveiling of a piece of artwork titled "No 850" created by 2001 Turner Prize winner Martin Creed. The art work, was a series of athletes running through the gallery one at a time as fast as they could every 30 seconds for eight hours a day, Monday to Friday for four months. The first hour of "No 850" was reserved for Britain's greatest Olympic athletes: Sebastian Coe, Johnathan Edwards, Kelly Holmes just to name a few. It was an impressive event and wonderful setting. There were camera crews, photographers, journalist milling around watching, filming, photographing and interviewing the athletes and the artist. But as I looked around I noticed something: There was not a single Paralympic athlete in "the piece" or even watching as far as I could tell. Was this an oversight, a mistake, a glaring omission or was this a very clever move, intentionally done to create debate and controversy.

What is absent, deleted, covered up or hidden can make more of a statement sometimes then presenting the obvious. The word inclusion is often mentioned with regard 2012 and the activities leading up to the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012. Was Martin Creed's way of including the "paralympians" in his Tate piece by excluding them? If he had included them it could have been perceived as succumbing to public pressure and being politically correct. Or was it a very clever way of creating some controversy and debate - something he is not adverse to seeking and getting. Whatever the reason the absence of Paralympians got my attention.

A light bulb came on in my head and stayed on. I could see clearly now what needs to happen for real equality with the Olympics and Paralympics. There needs to be a Cultural Paralympiad to give the opportunity for the disabled to get involved. They should have their own platform so that in the end as many people as possible can be involved - can be "included".
 

There should be art exhibitions and competitions around the country that would be just for people with disabilities to enter and show their work. And just as in the Paralympics their work would be divided up into categories depending on the degree of their disability.

Part of the mission of the Cultural Paralympiad would be to promote "Paralympics Sports" and for it to become a recognised subject matter for artistic interpretation and investigation, just as still lives, landscapes and portraits are.

The Paralympics and Paralympic sports give the disabled athlete a valuable outlet to play sports, to compete and to live a full physically healthy life. For some, the best, the most athletic, the most competitive that journey will take them to the Paralympic Games and maybe even a medal.

A Cultural Paralympiad would give the non-athletic disabled person an outlet for their creativity, expression and personal growth. It would create an opportunity for the disabled people to celebrate their life, their spirit and get involved in the build up to 2012 and the Paralympics through participating in cultural activities for them.
 

England was the country that inspired the modern Olympics and England is the birth place of the Paralympics. I believe the time has come and the need is there to have "A Cutural Paralympiad" and what better place to launch it than in the United Kingdom?

 

Roald Bradstock, who was born in Hertfordshire, represented Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in the javelin. He now lives in the United States and has increasingly concentrated on his art. In 2000 he won the United States Olympic Committee Sport Art Competition and then exhibited at the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne. In 2003 he won the prestigious "International Sports Artist of the Year Award". He is a founding member of the Olympic revival movement called "Art of the Olympians". His artwork had been seen on ABC, NBC, CBS and been exhibited form the United Nations to Times Square. In the last few years he has been dubbed the "Olympic Picasso" for his visionary ideas on how to combine sport and art with the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012. To view his work visit www.roaldbradstock.com.
 

By Martin Gillingham - 20 May 2009
 

 

Just half of the Lions squad have played a Test match in South Africa while only two of them know what it feels like to have won one. Of Ian McGeechan’s original 34-man selection, three have already fallen by the wayside – two to injury and the other suspended. And there’s still another weekend of domestic stuff with the finals of the Heineken and Challenge Cups coming up when a couple more key figures could be lost.
 

 

All in all, the omens are not good for those rooting for a repeat of the 1997 triumph.
 

Back then, an inspired selection also avoided the tricky mission of having to go to altitude to win the series. The first two Tests were at the coast – in Cape Town and then Durban – and the Lions won both of them.

This time around, the hosts have got wise and ensured that the only venue likely to replicate typical European conditions has been removed from the schedule, meaning two of the three Tests are on the Highveld.
 

There’s no Newlands Test in 2009 – admittedly, there is a financial angle to that decision as much as a playing one – to be replaced by Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria which is an archetypal South African venue: hard pitch, hostile Afrikaans-dominated crowd, and at almost 6,000-foot altitude.
 

In short, the 2009 Lions know they’ll have to win the first Test in the heat and humidity of Durban to stand any chance of claiming the series. Even the fiercest Lions optimist would rule out the prospect of winning back-to-back in Pretoria and Johannesburg .
 

The success of South African sport is something of a minor miracle. With the exception of the national football team, the feckless Bafana Bafana, sport in the republic continues to thrive despite all the challenges that face a country in transition.
 

Less than two decades ago, South Africa was on the verge of civil war while, even now 15 years after the country’s first democratic election, the government faces the overwhelming challenges of mass unemployment, a largely uneducated population, rampant crime and AIDS. Up to 20 per cent of South Africans are HIV positive.
 

When you’re supping a glass of sauvignon blanc in the Constantia valley you may be forgiven for thinking that such problems are a million miles away. But, believe me, South African rugby doesn’t go unaffected.
 

The Rand ’s weakness as well as ongoing uncertainty about the country’s future play a huge role in the fact that 228 South African professionals are currently contracted to clubs outside the country. Back here, Martin Johnson moans about losing half-a-dozen Englishmen to the French league.
 

In the 24 hours since I first started penning this blog, English clubs have announced the signing of two recent Springboks - Schalk Brits to Saracens and Brian Mujati who will be playing next season for Northampton . And Heyneke Meyer, the former Leicester coach who returned to South Africa before Christmas, told me before he left that many more will follow.
 

Yet South Africa, the country that appears to be haemorrhaging talent, is still capable of producing a national rugby team good enough to be world champions and put more than 40 points past England at Twickenham.
 

The Springboks battered Martin Johnson’s men in November. And they did so against the background of typical disquiet and uncertainty at home. The Springbok emblem is perpetually under threat with the country’s politicians forever taking swipes at the white minority’s once national game with undertones of racism barely beneath the surface. All this in spite of the fact South Africa ’s rugby team is at last genuinely racially representative of the country it represents.
 

References to ethnicity may make some of you uncomfortable. Yet in the South African context they are relevant and important. They serve to illustrate just how significant the country’s rugby and social achievements have been.
 

In 1992, South Africa ’s rugby players returned to the international stage with a Test match against the old enemy New Zealand in Johannesburg . There was not a single black man in the Springbok team and few in the public enclosures other than those selling cool drinks and boerewors rolls.
 

Just 17 years later, black South Africans are fully represented on and off the field and, though some ANC politicians may differ, the once symbol of white sporting supremacy, the Springbok, is now worn with pride by black players.
 

I recently bought a book called Playing the Enemy which was on the shortlist for the 2008 Sports Book of the year award. It is written by John Carlin and tells the tale of how South Africa ’s journey to their 1995 Rugby World Cup triumph had been a central tool in Nelson Mandela’s vision of building the Rainbow Nation.
 

Back then, the Springboks had just one black representative – Chester Williams. At one point in the 42-6 defeat of England in November there were more black players on the field in green ‘n gold jereys than white ones.
 

That is a remark able achievement; comparable with any in modern day sport.

 

Martin Gillingham represented Great Britain in the 1984 Olympic Games and 1987 World Championships at the 400 metres hurdles. Since retiring from the track he spent 12 years in South Africa where he was a radio talk show presenter and writer for a Sunday newspaper. He returned to the UK in 2003 and can now be heard commentating on athletics for Eurosport as well as rugby for Sky Sports, ITV and Setanta.
   
 
 

 

By Adrian Hill - 14 May 2009

As I travelled around the beautiful country of New Zealand recently, I was struck by how sport unites its cosmopolitan society. The nation’s remoteness, in a way, is its strength – a “them against us” syndrome combined with the innate warrior instinct derived from the large Maori and Polynesian population.

 

 

Across the spectrum Kiwis punch above their weight...Three Olympic gold  medals came their way in Beijing via the traditional strengths in rowing and sailing, and the shot putter with Anglo-Tongan heritage - Valerie Vili. New Zealand teams are Rugby League world champions, Commonwealth gold and world silver medallists in netball and regular cricket World Cup semi-finalists.

 

 

One sport, though, above all captivates the Kiwis – Rugby Union – and the consistent failure to win the Webb Ellis Trophy is a source of national angst that everyone is desperate for the All Blacks to put right on home soil in 2011. Images of the team are everywhere, they are Gods in the eyes of most of their compatriots, but the sporting psyche that exists in the “Shaky Isles” permeates through to success in any field.

 

Vili says: “New Zealand sport is dominated by rugby and rugby players, but when I won the Commonwealth Games in 2006 I noticed that I suddenly had a national profile, and that just got bigger when I won Gold at the 2007 Worlds and 2008 Olympic Games. You’re public property, but that’s ok – you have to get on with it. I’m aware of it, but I don’t have a choice. People like to talk to me and I’m fine with that.

 

“I have no choice but to be a role model for youngsters from a similar background to myself. I feel honoured to be considered as an achiever and hope others can follow me.”

Vili, although not enamoured with the financial support she receives and, as reported on this website, refusing to rule out switching horses to Team GB, plans to defend her title in 2012. New Zealand Olympic team manager Dave Currie believes his charges (with Vili or not) could achieve great things: “We look at 2012 as being a `Home Games` for us. There are so many New Zealanders based in London, so we will get great support, there are no extreme weather concerns, and we know the environment and the culture there.

 

“We are strong in rowing, triathlon and sailing, we have excellent programmes in both swimming and hockey, and track and field is on the up. It’s the heart and soul of the Games, so it was nice to see black vests doing well in Beijing, recalling the feats of Murray Halberg, Peter Snell and John Walker.

 

“We have no targets, our only concern is to make sure the New Zealand Olympic team is competitive.”

 

Currie, who now also carries out a similar role for New Zealand Cricket, was Chef de Mission in Beijing, a spectacle he calls a `moment in time` Games. “The grandeur and scale will never be seen again. The venues blew your mind. We won three gold medals from a population of just four million people and sent 283 athletes – the 16th or 17th largest team. We can continue to excel.”

 

Before 2012, New Zealand is gearing up to host its own “Olympics” – the 2011 Rugby World Cup. It’s the largest event the country has ever hosted and tournament organiser Martin Snedden says the national mood is one of excitement, not fear.

 

“I guess it’s the sense of a national occasion and our historical interest in rugby. It’s the biggest thing on the horizon, has been given the highest priority by the Government and, in my experience, it just has such a `cut through` with our people.

 

“They are all interested, with the cricket (World Cup) some would be interested but probably more wouldn’t. It’s gone another step - rugby plus an `event`.”

 

The passion is undoubted, but many observers believe New Zealand were fortunate to be awarded the tournament. There are major logistical challenges and there’s a feeling that it lacks the commercial drive and intuition of larger economies. The Kiwis missed out on hosting part of the 2003 RWC when the failure of local sponsors to agree to “stand aside” for tournament backers at the venues forced the International Rugby Board to strip the country of co-host status alongside Australia. The Aussies made a huge success of the tournament and the tourism dollars flooded in... watched enviously from across the Tasman.

 

“What happened then has made our job a bit easier this time,” claims Snedden. “Our people knew the IRB (International Rugby Board) were serious on this issue, while in 2002 they thought it was 'optional' and that we could call their bluff – well, we called their bluff and lost.”

 

There is evidence of infrastructure being built in readiness for 2011, and hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on stadia renovation projects in Auckland and Christchurch. While cruise ships will be used to house some of the 70,000 expected visitors. It’s a big deal for a small country.

 

But can the All Blacks win the prize craved by their nation above all others? It’s staggering that a team which has largely dominated international rugby for the last 20 years has not claimed the World Cup since the inaugural event in 1987.
 

Rugby Sevens is one of the sports bidding to be accepted into the Olympics in 2016 and, should it be successful, it would surely provide a boost for the Kiwi medal count. Steve Tew, chief executive of the New Zealand Rugby Union, is an enthusiastic supporter of the concept, enhanced by the recent staging in the Gulf of the Rugby World Cup Sevens, at which key members of the International Olympic Committee were present.

 

Tew says: “I think the presentation of both the men’s and women’s competitions in Dubai was fantastic. To see Kenyans, Zambians, Ugandans and Brazilians competing was very encouraging. Undoubtedly, being an Olympic sport would be enormously important for rugby, but it’s a two-way relationship.

 

“We would fill the stadium in the first week for a few days when it would be normally empty and generate considerable revenue. The Commonwealth Games in Melbourne was a very good example - it would be a win-win situation. We have something to offer - the time is right.”

 

Yes, the time may be right for rugby at the Olympics, and how the Kiwis would love that...

Adrian Hill has recently gone freelance, having covered sport for both the BBC and Sky Sports for almost 20 years. He also contributes to various newspapers and magazines, and is currently writing a book on rugby union history – Rugby On This Day.

 
Comments


We could without Britain trying to steal our Olympic gold
medallists. Hands off!
By Angry NZ Olympic fan

25 May 2009 at 12:43pm
 

By Duncan Mackay - 9 May 2009
 

I have just landed back at Heathrow Airport after six weeks of travelling during which I have flown approximately 32,932 miles, visited four of the world's greatest cities, interviewed Presidents and Prime Ministers, met the greatest sportsman in the world and been told by British Airways that I was about to crash into the sea.

 

 

Yes, following the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Evaluation Commission as they visited the four cities that are bidding to follow London and host the 2016 Games has certainly been an adventure that I will never forget.

 

 

For the Evaluation Commission their work is far from finished. They still have to travel to the Olympic headquarters in Lausanne in the next two week to complete their work in which they will analyse the technical aspects of each of the four bids from Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid to be published on September 2, a month before the IOC Session will gather in Copenhagen to pick the winning city.

 

Nawal El Moutawakel, the impressive chair of the Evaluation Commission, claimed in Madrid on Friday that they were the "eyes and ears" of the IOC.

 

The Moroccan, the 1984 Olympic 400 metres hurdles champion and now her country's Sports Minister, said: "Our report is very important.

 

"The IOC members will rely on....our report."

 

Mmmm.....

 

I'm not so sure.

 

First, a quick bit of history. The Evaluation Commission assumed great importance after the IOC members were banned from visiting the host cities following the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics bribery scandal that blew up in 1998 when it was proved that some members had accepted kick-backs in the form of business contracts, medical treatments and special privileges for members of their families.

 

The idea was that if the members could not visit the cities bidding for the Games then they could not be bribed and bring the Olympic Movement into disrepute. The theory was that they would sit down and study the Evaluation Commission's report before casting their vote, which would be for the city that offered the best technical bid.

  

Sounds logical, doesn't it?

 

Except that history has proven that the Evaluation Commission's hard work [and they do work hard, believe me, despite what you might read on other blogs about them travelling business class and staying in the best hotels] is usually wasted. You only have to look at the last two cities chosen to host the Games to realise that. London was certainly not the best technical bid to host the 2012 Olympics but still won. That Evaluation Commission was also, interestingly, led by El Moutawakel (pictured). Sochi scored ever poorer in the Evaluation Commission's report for the 2014 Winter Olympics but swept to victory on the back of Vladimir Putin's high-profile support.

 

I do not think I have ever spoken to an IOC member yet who has studied the report of the Evaluation Commission fully. Most continue to make their decisions on the "what is in it for me" theory. I'm not for a moment suggesting that bribery and corruption still goes on. But each IOC member has their own individual interests and will vote accordingly.

 

An example. Lamine Diack, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), is a man whose character is beyond reproach. But he is on the IOC to basically serve the interests of his sport. So, faced with the choice four years ago of who to vote for to host the 2012 Olympics, he pushed his button for London. His rationale was simple: Paris already has a state-of-an-art athletics stadium in the shape of the Stade de France and by voting for London he hoped he would see another new venue built in one of the world's great capitals capable of staging his sport's major flagship events. There is nothing wrong with that - he was basically looking after his constituents.

 

Or sometimes members vote on a purely selfish nationlist basis. Take the race to host 2016. Tokyo, most people would agree, offers a superb technical bid that combines vision with the promise of cutting-edge technology. But it is going to be difficult for them to get support in Copenhagen from the four members from China and South Korea. The reason is that both countries hope to launch bids to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and having the Games in Japan in 2016 will pretty much scupper that. Again, there is nothing really wrong with that, as a Winter Games in China or South Korea will potentially be worth billions of dollars to them if they are chosen.

 

My colleague Alan Abrahamson at Universal Sports has kindly suggested in a blog he wrote earlier this week that I and Ed Hula, from aroundtherings, should be given a vote as, along with the Evaluation Commission, we were among the few people in the world to have travelled to all four cities and seen what they each have to offer.

 

I'm not sure about that but the process does need to be revamped in time for 2011 when another IOC Evaluation Commission begins travelling the world at huge expense to analyse the bids for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Each 2016 city visited by the Evaluation Commission tried to outdo the other - Chicago had Oprah Winfrey, Tokyo staged a brilliant light show each night, Rio wheeled out Pele and Madrid had the King and Queen hosting a lunch.

 

But, as El Moutawakel tried to keep emphasising [without much success, admittedly], this was a "technical report" and that emotion would play no part in it. That is all very noble but, as anyone who lives in the real world knows, detaching emotion from such an important decision as to who will host the next Olympic Games is impossible. Perhaps the IOC shouldn't even try.

 

Duncan Mackay is the publisher and editor of insidethegames.com. He was the 2004 British Sports Journalist of the Year and was the athletics correspondent of The Guardian for 11 years, being the only British daily newspaper writer to correctly predict in 2005 that London's Olympic bid would be successful.

 
Comments


Duncan, great article. I am wondering how many people in decision
making positions would read it and take lessons from it. I agree
fully with your comments about the need to revamp the voting
system and the reasoning behind it. No need to repeat any of your
arguments or to support them, the spirit is there for whoever
would like to read and understand. I am wondering if the IOC
Members will hate me for suggesting that the National Olympic
Committees should have a large role in voting a city in to host
the Games. After all aren't these NOCs the biggest stakefholder
in any Games? they bring the athletes, don't they? I wonder what
everyone thinks? Wouldn't such a topic deserve to be discussed at
Copenhagen? I also wonder...
By LL

10 May 2009 at 05:27am

The whole evaluation thing has got totally out of control,
millions is being spent on seven members who produce a report
that their colleagues do not read. Geo-politics and what suits
each individual member is still what drives the Olympic voting
process. It is time to come up with a better system - why doesn't
the IOC follow the FIFA model and let its Executive Board vote?
By Olympic cynic

21 May 2009 at 17:47pm
 

 

By Martin Gillingham - 8 May 2009
 

Rugby hadn’t seen anything like it for 25 years since its last football-style, penalty shoot-out. The prize? A place in the final of the Heineken Cup – the Champions League of rugby.

 

I’m talking about Sunday’s semi-final between Cardiff and Leicester at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff. The tie finished 26-all after 80 minutes with an additional 20 minutes failing to break the deadlock.
 

 

So it went to penalty kicks where, as in football, the headline grabber was the man who missed.
 

Martyn Williams was the villain, the man whose nerve gave way, the man who ultimately cost Cardiff a place in the May 23 final. Yet Williams, a British Lion and one of the world’s greatest players, is someone known for delivering when it matters most. It was evidence, if it were required, that greatness is no guarantee of immunity when the pressure gauge is going off the dial.

So which others have been guilty of sport’s greatest chokes? Here, in no particular order, are six to mull over. Please feel free to pass comment or offer a few of your own below.
 

After months of hype ‘n hysteria, the phoney war was over and an England cricketer finally had the chance to show that our Ashes triumph of 2005 hadn’t been a fluke. Ahead of the 2006/7 series in Australia there had been doubts about our team. Key players were struggling for form, the inspirational captain was missing, and the main strike bowler was known to be of vulnerable temperament.

 

Desperate to counter claims in a parochial press that this was the worst England team to have ever toured Australia, Steve Harmison was tossed the ball by his new captain Andrew Flintoff and told to get the first Test underway at the Gabba with a high-speed, whistler around Justin Langer’s left lughole. Harmison wound up, steamed in, and duly sent it innocuously wide of Langer’s off stump and straight into Flintoff’s hands at second slip.
 

In the same way the par three competition and champion’s dinner have become part of the traditional pre-amble to the Masters at Augusta, so the opening of a letter bearing a Florida postmark and signed by Scott Hoch informing the Royal and Ancient committee that he wouldn’t be flying over to play in the Open Championship the following week, became a perennial ritual throughout the 1980s and 90s.

 

Hoch (pictured), every inch an American, hates links golf and once described the Old Course as “the worst piece of mess I’ve ever played”. Hoch, to be fair, is a very fine golfer and in 1989 was involved in a sudden death play-off for the Masters title with Nick Faldo. At the first extra hole, the 10th, Hoch had a two-foot putt to win. And missed. Half-an-hour later Faldo was slipping into his first Green Jacket and the sobriquet “Hoch the choke” was coined.
 

The grainy black ‘n white TV pictures, a big heavy leather ball, and those clogs they used to wear, offer a comical angle to memories of the climax of the 1968 Challenge Cup final at Wembley. But they were no laughing matter for Don Fox. Leeds were leading 11-10 but Fox, with the last kick of the game, had a conversion from right in front of the posts to win it for Wakefield Trinity.

 

Instead of going through what should have been the formality of bisecting the posts, the ball sliced off the side of Fox’s right toecap and wide. Fox sunk to his knees while the not-so-mellifluous tones of Eddie Waring comforted him and us with the words, “He’s a poor lad”. A further attempt to console Fox came in the form of the Lance Todd Trophy for the man-of-the-match, but friends say it is an experience from which Fox, who died last year, never fully recovered.
 

Gordon Smith’s miss at the end of the 1983 FA Cup final when Brighton were drawing 2-2 with Manchester United is so celebrated that it gave a Brighton fanzine the title “And Smith Must Score”. But, let’s be honest, football’s biggest chokes involve the penalty spot. And where those are concerned look no further than any number of candidates over the past couple of decades who were wearing the three Lions at the time.

 

In fact, try googling “England lose on penalties” and if you do I bet you’ll come up with a search that runs in excess of 500. And one name will feature more prominently on that search than any other – Stuart Pearce. In Turin in 1990, it was the Nottingham Forest defender’s miss from 12 yards that cost England a place in the World Cup final after it had finished England 1 West Germany 1 after extra-time in the semi-final.
 

Jana Novotna choked twice in the space of a few minutes on Wimbledon’s Centre Court during the 1993 women’s singles final. Firstly, when leading Steffi Graf 4-1 and 40-30 up she served a double fault and duly imploded, losing the match in less than 10 minutes. Then at the prize-giving, a hapless Duchess of Kent tried to console her with a few words, “Don't worry, Jana, you'll be back next year” which left the young Czech blubbing for the rest of the night.
 

Sebastian Coe might seem an odd choice. After all, his position in the pantheon of Olympic greats is assured by his back-to-back Olympic 1500 metres triumphs. Fiercely competitive and deeply cerebral, he was in many respects the perfect athlete. Yet even he experienced failure, a mental lapse that could have come to define the career of a lesser man.

 

Victory in the 1980 Olympic 800 metres final in Moscow had seemed to be Coe’s destiny. He was the best half-miler the world had ever seen and was in the shape of his life. But he lost; not so much because of the brilliance of his great rival, Steve Ovett, but rather because of his own tactical ineptitude. “If you ever wanted to show somebody how to make every mistake in an 800 metres, just tell them to watch this,” he once said.

Martin Gillingham represented Great Britain in the 1984 Olympic Games and 1987 World Championships at the 400 metres hurdles. Since retiring from the track he spent 12 years in South Africa where he was a radio talk show presenter and writer for a Sunday newspaper. He returned to the UK in 2003 and can now be heard commentating on athletics for Eurosport as well as rugby for Sky Sports, ITV and Setanta.

 
Comments

How about David Bedford at the 1972 Olympics in Munich when he
advised Britain "to get in the beers, put your feet up and watch
me win the gold medal"? In the end he was blown away by Lasse
Viren and was nowhere to be seen.
By Olympic fan

21 May 2009 at 16:09pm
 

 

By Roald Bradstock - 7 May 2009
 

Al Oerter winning 4 consecutive gold medals in the discus is a legendary accomplishment. Each time he competed he was never favourite to win and yet he rose up, overcoming adversity, to win again and again.  He was a true competitor - the modern day discobolus - a modern day legend whose name and achievements have become synonymous with the modern Olympics

 

 

Oerter's last Olympic competition was in Mexico City in 1968 - over 40 years ago - but his Olympic journey did not end there. It continued off the field until the day he died on October 1, 2007.
 
It was a privilege to know Al and become part of his last Olympic journey. His vision, passion, drive and legacy lives on today - continued now by his family, his friends and neighbours and a small handful of Olympians artists.
 
Al Oerter, the gentle giant, the Olympic icon, the legend was also an abstract painter - he was an artist!  His last Olympic journey was the formation of a Olympic organisation called "Art of the Olympians" (AOTO).
 
Al saw the strong link between sport, art and the Olympics. His vision was to bring together Olympian artists from around the world, from different sports and from different generations to exhibit their artwork and spread the Olympic ideas and values through accompanying educational programmes.
 
Al's vision embraced Barron Pierre De Coubertin's original idea and vision for the modern day Olympics - combining sport, culture and education to carry the Olympic message around the globe.  Interestingly, Baron De Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics was also a athlete and a artist.
    
I became involved with AOTO in the autumn of 2005 after I met Al Oerter for the first time at the USA Track and Field Coaches convention. I was sitting in the hotel lobby with several hundred other coaches and athletes when suddenly there was a collective gasp followed by a subdued excited buzz.
 
Al Oerter and his wife Cathy had arrived.
 
To my astonishment they walked up to me.  I was stunned.  I had never met Al before. Cathy and Al introduced themselves and asked if I would join his newly formed organization. I did not hesitate -and so I became one of the founding members of the "Art of the Olympians" (AOTO).
  
Six months later we had our very first exhibition in Fort Myers, Florida with 14 Olympian artists represented.  It was a wonderful but very surreal experience. My artwork was in a exhibition hanging on the wall between Al Oerter's large abstract acyclic paintings and Bob Beamon's graphic drawings. And on the opposite wall there were two large oil paintings by Florence Griffith-Joyner.  I couldn't help but be in awe and be humbled in the presence of such Olympic superstars and their artwork.
 
I remember looking around the gallery and thinking surely there has to be a connection here between the artistic pursuits and the athletic accomplishments of these 14 Olympians?  Or was it a coincidence - a simple statical probability that there will be some artists amongst all the Olympic athletes in the world or was there something more to it. I also calculated that the 14 Olympians artists represented in this exhibition had an impressive collective haul of 24 Olympic medals and 28 World records between them. Could artistic talent and artistic ideas be the secret ingredient in these athletes Olympic careers?
 
I was so excited and inspired being in this first AOTO exhibition. Despite all the members of the Art of the Olympians being from different generations, competing in different sports and creating different artwork from a variety of mediums their was an incredible synergy and energy within the group. Most of us had never met before but we all felt connected through our Olympic experience and our through our art - we were family - an Olympic artistic family.
 
We all took lots of photographs and videos from the opening reception in the gallery to the student workshops in the classrooms over three days. But I wanted to do something more to capture the feeling and excitement I had, something different.  And being an artist that meant creating a piece of art.  But what could I create?  What could I do that would be different and capture the feeling I had - the inspiration I felt.  Then it came to me - it needed to be a collaborative piece with a fellow Olympian artist and who better than my long time inspiration and fellow Olympian artist then Al Oerter himself.
     
So I nervously asked Al to pose for me, to be my model for my next work: a piece called "Discobolus 2006". He very graciously let me take photos of him standing in the famous Discobolus of Myron pose. As he stood in his foyer I moved around him - paying homage - and took dozens of photographs from every angle. 
 
One of these photographs I then used as a base to create a unique paper collage of Al Oerter which also included his signature which he was kind enough to give me. I would have to say this is without doubt my most valuable possession - a collaboration of two fellow Olympian artists working together and the fact that he was my childhood idol and became a good friend, well lets just say it doesn't get any better then that.
 
Since the first exhibition three years ago we have had shows at the National Arts Club, the New York Athletic Club, the United Nations and most recently in Beijing last year. The AOTO was even featured on the American national CBS morning show with Mike Smith.  
 
There are more exhibitions in the planning stages and more Olympian Artists are joining the group.  But the priority right now is on having a permanent home for the AOTO. 
 
Al Oerter's daughter, Gabrilee Oerter, has moved to Fort Myers and is now working full time along with Al's widow and many others from his home town to see that  Al's dream becomes a permanent long term legacy. He was an inspiration as an athlete and as a artist for me and many others. His friends and family and his community are working together to see that his vision and his dream  become a permanent reality and fixture in Fort Myers and also a integral part of the cultural Olympiad in the future.
    
Within the next year the official Art of the Olympians World headquarters and International museum will open its doors. It will be a bitter sweet day with Al not being there in person but it will be a joyous one:  The realizations of a lifes dream - his dream - and creating a legacy - his legacy: The "Art of the Olympians".                     
 
Roald Bradstock, who was born in Hertfordshire, represented Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in the javelin. He now lives in the United States and has increasingly concentrated on his art. In 2000 he won the United States Olympic Committee Sport Art Competition and then exhibited at the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne.  In 2003 he won the prestigious "International Sports Artist of the Year Award".  He is a founding member of the Olympic revival movement called "Art of the Olympians".  His artwork had been seen on ABC, NBC, CBS and been exhibited form the United Nations to Times Square.  In the last few years he has been dubbed the "Olympic Picasso" for his visionary ideas on how to combine sport and art with the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012. To view his work visit www.roaldbradstock.com.

 

 
Comments


If you are interested in listening to an audio interview with Al
where he discusses his career and his art passion (as well as
AOTO), go to http://athleticscoaching.ca/?pid=1&spid=81&sspid=115
and scroll down. I did the interview with Al a few months before
his passing and it is hands down my favorite we have done on the
site. I was quite nervous for it I must admit. He was the reason
I first became involved in the sport.
By D. Evely

19 May 2009 at 02:44am
 

  By Martin Gillingham - 29 April 2009
 

A prominent International Olympic Committee official claimed last week that former East German coaches deserve a second chance.

 

It is now two decades since the Berlin Wall was dismantled and the truth about the East Germans’ sporting regime was exposed. At the heart of the DDR’s Olympic success was a regime of performance-enhancing drugs with almost 10,000 athletes being subjected to a doping programme that ran throughout the 1970s and ‘80s.
 

 

According to Thomas Bach, vice-president of the International Olympic Committee, the time has now come to extend the hand of reconciliation to coaches from the old East Germany. But it’s an offer that comes with conditions - an admission of involvement, an apology, and evidence of a clean doping past since German reunification.

It’s an offer that seems entirely reasonable. Yet, not surprisingly, it splits opinion in the once divided nation. Earlier this month, five leading East German coaches apologised for their past though the gesture was dismissed as “superficial” by Klaus Zoellig who heads up the Doping Victims Aid group.
 

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the side-effects of those drugs have caused illness, disability and even death. Understandably, some are not yet ready to forgive.
 

One organisation you shouldn’t expect to pass judgment on the morality of forgiving former East German coaches and welcoming them back into the fold is the British Olympic Association (BOA).
 

That’s because the BOA did it 18 years ago when, without any apparent concern for the ethical question, they rolled out the red carpet to Jurgen Grobler.
 

With Grobler a key figure in East German rowing, the now defunct communist state won 45 Olympic medals, 31 of them gold. A former colleague once described Grobler as having been within the “inner circle” of the East German sporting programme.
 

Yet no sooner had the Wall been ripped down than Grobler was scuttling across the North Sea and into a privileged new life in the UK where he got straight to work with the Amateur Rowing Association in Henley. No debates there about whether it was right and proper that an East German coach should be so swiftly forgiven for the sins of his very recent past.
 

According to an interview broadcast on the BBC’s Newsnight programme 11 years ago, Grobler said he did not want to talk about his past. “I have to live with what went on in East Germany,” he claimed. “I was born in the wrong place. It was not possible to walk away.”
 

Grobler admitted during the interview that he had “difficulties” with the thought of the former rowers who had health problems but added: “No one was pushed. They always had the choice to walk away.”
 

He denied being a Stasi member but admitted giving them occasional snippets of information.
 

Were we to adopt Mr Bach’s criteria for candidacy for forgiveness, Grobler ticks no more than one of three boxes. As yet there has been neither a confession nor apology.
 

Since Grobler’s arrival in the Home Counties he has coached the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent to a hatful of Olympic golds. And though there is, of course, no suggestion that drugs formed any part of their regime that is hardly the point. What is, though, is the speed with which not only British rowing but also two of our greatest Olympians embraced him.

 

According to the BBC’s 1998 investigation, the Amateur Rowing Association’s then president Martin Brandon Bravo admitted that the issue of drugs and the former East Germany was never raised in their discussions with Grobler prior to him being offered a job. Sir Steve has even boasted that he was part of the panel that appointed him. So trusted is Grobler by Pinsent that he’s godfather to one of his kids.
 

The only conclusion is that along with our posturing and pomposity where fair play is concerned, we are so abundant in forgiveness that we’d make St Francis of Assisi look like a scallywag.
 

In 2004, the BOA gave Grobler a lifetime achievement award (note the ‘lifetime’ bit – no effort there to differentiate between his work in the GDR and here in the UK) while the Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has even bestowed upon him an honorary OBE.
 

Meanwhile back in 1998, Sir Steve said this of his former mentor: “I’ve known Jurgen for the seven years he’s coached me and if there was any involvement (in drugs) it would be the system and not the man himself to blame.”
 

You could hardly make it up could you?

 

Martin Gillingham represented Great Britain in the 1984 Olympic Games and 1987 World Championships at the 400 metres hurdles. Since retiring from the track he spent 12 years in South Africa where he was a radio talk show presenter and writer for a Sunday newspaper. He returned to the UK in 2003 and can now be heard commentating on athletics for Eurosport as well as rugby for Sky Sports, ITV and Setanta.

 

Comments


Well done Martin for pointing out that the British were prepared
to give a home to Herr Grobler, a man as involved as any other
East German coach in what want on. Sometimes I am staggered by
the hyprocisy of the British over drugs.
By Abused German

21 May 2009 at 02:10am
 

Clearly, Ethiopians, Kenyans (and perhaps Kalenjin tribe in particular because they predominate) have a natural propensity towards running. But whether this can be attributed solely to a specific genetic advantage, is questionable.

What seems to often be implied is that non Africans can train as hard as they possible can (assuming that it is also the most effective training) but they can never achieve the same level as an athlete from the Kenya or Ethiopia, who currently hold all the distance records (except the 1500 metres) from 800m to the marathon, because they do not have the same genetic make-up!

Rather than a suggested specific genetic advantage it is more likely a combination of ideal running environment, socio-economic background, diet and economic motivation. No Kenyan or Ethiopian world-class athlete to my knowledge has come from a middle-class, born and raised city background where life opportunities are considerably different.

Ethiopian and Kenyan runners grow up in poor agricultural communities. They live at altitude. They walk and run almost everywhere they need to go. As children they invariably have to walk or run to and from school sometimes as much as 10 kilometres away.

Sport in school is limited to basic ball games, basic gymnastics and running due to the lack of facilities and equipment. Their diet is mainly home grown, basic and natural. Those that show high enough athletic ability in their last school years are offered the opportunity to join and train with the athletics teams of Government bodies such as the Post Office, the Armed Forces, Railways or Prison Services and provided with keep and a salary.

Today with the success and substantial financial rewards seen of so many of their compatriots others are motivated and inspired to try and follow suit.

Training camps have been set up and financed by top athletes and their agents with support from running shoe companies  to attract new talent of which there is a large pool where only those with the ability and the talent to train to the limit of human potential will survive and succeed, which is simply why they are so good.

For talented non Africans to succeed at the same level it takes a committed mind set, the right environment and the same level of training rather than some specific African gene. Paula Radcliffe and a few others non-Africans prove the case.

John Bicourt represented Britain at the 3,000 metres steeplechase in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics before becoming a successful coach and agent


Comments

I agree.  There's no magic gene.  It's environmental.
By Mark Boen

29 April 2009 at 16:58pm
Meseret Defar grew up in Addis Ababa; she never lived in the
country.
By Geoff Smith

29 April 2009 at 17:06pm
 John Bicourt, and many so-called experts don't touch one major
factor in track and field: speed!  If coaches could actually make
the athletes faster their times would reflect that.
Ralph Mann, the Las Vegas bimechanics guru, lectured in a recent
clinic that if a 10-flat sprinter could improve each step in the
100m by .01 of a second (45 steps) that sprinter would break
Usain Bolt's world record.
But, how would coaches improve speed?  Coaches design workouts to
improve endurance but not speed.  They mainly attempt to make the
athlete slow down less in the critical zone which is the last
quarter of a race - whatever distance.
Alberto Salazar has the backing of mighty Nike and its
innovations, and he still has made only modest gains.
Everybody talks about the Kenyans and Ethiopians growing up
walking and running everywhere; well, walking and running long
and slow gets athletes nowhere.  If the rest of the world really
wants to beat the East Africans the key has to be speed
improvement.
Not high altitude training, not computerized anything, not PEDs,
not running 200 miles per week, not two-a-day workouts, not
eating chicken nuggets, etc.  To imrove speed athletes have to
start with figuring out how to run faster each step starting with
the first one.
And, just maybe, before we start with talking about making an
athlete run faster we need to figure out how to measure an
athlete's speed on a regular workout as opposed to time.  A stop
watch can not measure speed!
And, maybe, some obscure inventor already has all that figured
out...
By Sol Wroclawsky

29 April 2009 at 18:19pm
Up until 1967, the superior runners, especially down under in New
Zealand and wherever the quality of coaching was excellent, the
African running community was virtually non-existent. When Arthur
Lydiard brought his marathon training methods to East Africa from
New Zealand, all of that changed. The Mexico Olympic games
brought the first wave and at every subsequent Summer games until
Beijing their excellence in training, diet, and environment have
helped them stay that way. Watch things shift now as Western
runners return to their 1960's and 1950's dominance due to
environmental and coaching enhancements.
By name

29 April 2009 at 19:30pm
Sol is wrong. It isn't speed per se in the distance events, as in
point of fact, many if not most European athletes generally have
faster PR's over 400 meters (and shorter) than E. Africans. This
has been noted countless times in studies. What you have are
populations in E. Africa that have a fairly high percentage (in
comparison with other groups) of people with the genetic make-up
to excel in middle and long distance running. And a high number
of these people give this sport their full attention as a way to
make some money. In the West, in fact in most areas of the world,
very small groups of people from other populations give these
events this kind of attention and focus. There are simply too
many other sports and activities. So, yes there are Europeans or
Americans or others who probably have as much potential to run at
the very top of the world level, but they either aren't involved
in the sport at all (most likely) or don't have the necessary
desire to put in the type of training top level success requires
because it just "isn't worth it" to them. Of course, the effect
of the press which seems to take some glee in running down
certain people and over-blowing the talents and the
accomplishments of others can't be ignored.
By Jimbo

29 April 2009 at 19:44pm
 This is an old debate; is it nature (genes) or is it nurture
(environment).  The answer is its both and we should be
interested in finding out about the right mix.
No one argues that the ability to read and write are the result
of genetic factors or environental factors alone.  Almost all
humans have the capacity to do both (that's genetic) yet in some
parts of the world only half of all adults can do both (that's
environment).  So to read and write you need both.  When it comes
to being a 1 in 10,000,000 phenom in running is it so
unreasonable to think that both very special genes and a very
special environment are critical?  Is it unreasonable to think
that small groups of people who's ancesstors have lived in
relative isolation for many generations are more likely to have
the right genes to have a unique set of genes to make them fast
distance runners? I think the answer to both of these questions
is no.  Although it makes the world a more complicated place, we
are not all created equal in every way.
By oldcolonial

29 April 2009 at 20:53pm
Since humans originated in the Ethiopia and Kenya area the people
there are probably closer to a founder population. Founder
populations have more genetic variability.  Statistically
speaking this would mean that Kenyans and Ethiopians would have
more people at both ends of the normal curve.  So instead of a
"genetic advantage" they would have a higher number of great
runners and a higher number of poor runners.  We never see the
poor runners, but the great ones are very evident. Obviously the
other environmental conditions help.  This also explains why
non-Kenyans and Ethiopians can perform at those levels, but the
number of people with those talents is few and far between.  The
real superiority of the Kenyans and Ethiopinas isn't that one or
two are faster, but that they have hundreds as good as a handful
of Europeans.
By davidr

30 April 2009 at 00:19am
 This is a very well behaved website, isn't it. All these messages
and not one has accused John Bicourt of being a racist. Miracles
do happen.
By Astonished

30 April 2009 at 00:52am
 Strange, after reading the above article, I didn't notice any
racial undertones.  Are you fishing for something?
By Mark Boen

30 April 2009 at 02:23am
 To Mark - no, exactly the opposite. I'm saying that it is good to
be able to have this kind of debate without it descending into
accusations of racial sterotyping. I am impressed. Sorry if you
were offended.
By Astonished

30 April 2009 at 13:28pm
I tend to agree with Davidr, and his comments about genetic
variability. Of course environment is also important; in fact, it
folds into one's physiology and genetics at some point. This
Bicourt argument is balderdash as a distance-running success
explanation: "Ethiopian and Kenyan runners grow up in poor
agricultural communities. They live at altitude. They walk and
run almost everywhere they need to go." What about Peruvians and
the rest of the world's people who grow up at 7000 feet, don't
own cars, and must walk-run everywhere? Why aren't they also
winning gold medals in the Olympic distance events?
By Peru

3 May 2009 at 20:50pm
There is one more observation that I believe also argues in favor
of nurture.  If the genetics were the sole factor, presumably
countries all along the Rift Valley would be equally represented.
 But in fact, they are not.  Aside from Tadese (Eritrea) and
Ramaala (South Africa), you don't see nearly the representation
from countries like Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  In
fact, it seems like the countries have to be poor, but not too
poor, and also have somewhat stable governments.

Also, anyone have any ideas as to what happened to Mexican distance prowess?  In the mid-90s, there was Silva, Vera, Espinosa, and even Barrios, but since the new millenium, I haven't heard of a world class Mexican marathoner. I would be interested if anyone had any theories about this.
By Serendipitous

4 May 2009 at 17:31pm
Mr. Bicourt raises a very interesting point that I have
personally been struggling with for a while.

I am a Kenyan and was born close to the very area where a lot of world class distance runners come from. We moved to the city (Nairobi) when I was 2 yrs old,  I am an ‘average runner’ and despite all my efforts in high school and college, I was never able to ascend to levels of running performance of some of my relatives. 
By Kenyan

4 May 2009 at 21:24pm
The mexican community no longer is prominent in distance running
because the boarder patrol has increased their efforts. The
mexicans are now better swimmers than runners and look to field a
pretty dominant team in the next summer olympics. ;)
By Funny

After running through the streets of London today in the Flora London Marathon with a million spectators I now know how fantastic it will be when it stages the Olympics in 2012.

It's still three years away so still a bit of time away but running It will be absolutely amazing. Today I heard people calling out, "She's one of us!" and some of the pubs along the route were calling out, "She's British - give her a cheer!" That was great. Just to be here running here in 2012 would be brilliant.

Their support today was fantastic. There were people all round the course shouting, "Go Mara". There were a few "Marias", "Marys" and "Morias" as well. I hope a few more recognise me now.

I felt really good in the first half today. The last four or five miles were quite tough but I felt pretty good up to that point.

I felt here I am leading the race with the defending champion but I don't care, I'm not scared of doing that kind of thing, which I would have been two years ago. I think the knowledge that I have improved over the last year or so and the experience of knowing that the more you race the more you realise that these people up on a pedestal aren't unbeatable. I beat all the Olympic medallists from Beijing today so that will give me confidence for the next time out.

I haven't thought as far ahead as the World Championships in Berlin yet. I think the race there will be a very fast. If people are running 2 hours 20min or 2hours 21min then 2:23 isn't fast enough. I'm nearly there and I think I can challenge for a medal.

Championship races are very different. They can produce very unexpected results. They are usually so open and it is not normally the fastest person on paper who wins.

I was ninth in the World Championships in Osaka in 2007 and sixth in the Olympics in Beijing last year. If I jump up in threes again then I will get a medal in Berlin!

But I think I disappointed a lot of people in Beijing because I was so close to the medals but didn't get one. This time I was so close to winning but didn't. I think I still have a long to improve in race tactics.

I only really took up serious marathon running when I was 30 so I still have room for improvement. I don't think my training has been that ideal for the marathon so I definitely have the scope to get better. I have just taken two minutes off my best. If I can keep that going for another few years it would be great.

I have definitely benefitted from being raised in Kenya and now living in Japan. I was born in Oxford but brought up until the age of eight in Kenya at altitude. Then I lived in the UK before I moved to Japan, where I'm in a Japanese team and live in Tokyo.

Japan is where I can make a living as a marathon runner. It has a great marathon scene and lots of really good races. At the moment we are going to stay there, although I will keep coming back. I was quite anonymous but am beginning to get recognised more since Beijing.

Mara Yamauchi finished second in the Flora London Marathon today in a personal best of 2 hours 23min 12sec, 61 seconds behind the winner, Irina Mikitenko, of Germany. Yamauchi, 35, was born in Oxford, raised in Kenya and now lives in Tokyo.  

  On the face of it, the new marriage between Simon Clegg, the former chief executive of the British Olympic Association who has this week taken on the same role at Championship football club Ipswich Town, and Roy Keane, the notoriously volcanic former Manchester United and Ireland player who has been hired as the Suffolk club's new manager, appears an extremely odd one.

But, as I have been arguing to my colleagues, over the past couple of days, it could actually be a match made in heaven.

The most notorious incident in Keane's career that was littered with wonderful moments - remember how he single-handily inspired Manchester United from two-down at Juventus in 1999 to carry the Premiership club into the final of the Champions League when he knew he would already miss the match because of suspension? - as well as plenty of red cards occurred at the World Cup in Japan in 2002.

Keane was sent home by Ireland's manager Mick McCarthy, who as a player he had already publicly ridiculed, after a dispute involving how well prepared the team were for the biggest tournament in the world.

In Ireland, the "Saipan Incident" (as it came to be known) split the public right down the middle, with one half of the nation standing by Keane and the other half supporting McCarthy. It was even claimed by some to be the most dramatic ideological split the country had seen since the Irish Civil War.

It is an incident brilliantly retold in the book Laptop Dancing and the Nanny Goat Mambo: A Sports Writer's Year by Tom Humphries, the Irish Times journalist that Keane regularly confides in.

Now, you can accuse Clegg (pictured) of many things - indeed senior figures within the BOA have been only too happy to tell me of his short-comings, which is the reason that the chairman Colin Moynihan first demoted him last year and was then not too upset when he left in December - but the one thing that you could never accuse him of is being disorganised.

As befits a man who was once the youngest officer in the British Army, Clegg is meticulous when it comes to preparation.

Indeed, he always considered it a personal challenge at an Olympic Games to make sure that the British team had the best position in the Athletes' Village and were the best looked after.

Clegg also normally achieved his own personal gold medal by making sure the British team declaration was the first of the 205 to be delivered to the International Olympic Committee.

In short, Clegg is a brilliant organiser, certainly the best I have ever come across. I wish he was in charge of my life.

My only surprise about his appointment is that in the 20 years I have known him, Clegg has never once expressed an interest in football so Keane (pictured) is unlikely to respond well to him if he starts questioning him on the sport.

That, of course, is without the unique dynamic of Clegg having been formerly a member of the 7th Parachute Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, which served in Northern Ireland during the troubles, while Keane is from Cork, a city nicknamed "The Rebel County" because of a reputation for rebelliousness stretching back to the 15th century when it was ruled by Britain.

One football insider just told me that he would give the relationship between Clegg and Keane two months, especially as Keane is not known as a people person. "The thing about management is that it requires connection with fellow members of the human race, something in which Keane has never shown much interest," wrote Jim White in the Daily Telegraph today.

"It won't last long," White predicted of Keane's spell at Ipswich.

Now, I am clearly out-of-step here with everyone else. I think Clegg's achievements at the BOA have been vastly under-rated. He took over there as chief executive in 1997 a year after the team's embarrassing failure at the Atlanta Olympics when the only gold medal won was by rowers Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. He left having overseen the most successful British team to leave these shores ever when they finished fourth overall in the medals table in Beijing last year, winning 47 medals, including 19 gold.

That would not have been achieved without the huge financial muscle of UK Sport, who have pumped hundreds of millions into sport, of that there is no doubt, but there is no question that Clegg played a large role in helping turn all those pounds into medals.

He is motivated by being so unceremoniously dumped by the BOA having played such a vital role in London being awarded the 2012 Olympics and leading Britain to those most successful Games for a century. Keane is determined to prove himself after his spell as manager at Sunderland ended with them nose-diving towards relegation from the Premiership. Two men desperate to prove themselves.

They may be the odd couple but, as I said earlier, they are a match made in heaven....

Duncan Mackay is the publisher and editor of insidethegames.com. He was the 2004 British Sports Journalist of the Year and was the athletics correspondent of The Guardian for 11 years.

  By Mike Rowbottom - 23 April 2009
 

If you wanted a graphic example of how sport and education can complement each other, the pupils of Morpeth School in Bethnal Green offered one this week.

 

 

Set in motion by the "Ready-set-go!" of Olympic marathoner Liz Yelling – a former PE teacher entirely in her element – the group of 10-14 year-olds charged off in a sequence of short relays which saw them transfer cards bearing the details of a mathematical challenge into a central pile behind the start line.

 

 

Yelling, guest of honour at what was the official launch of the London Marathon’s Playing for Success (PfS) centre, needed no convincing about the effectiveness of the format on show, even if the fact that she was seven months’ pregnant militated against her natural inclination to join in.

 

Nor was it lost on her husband and fellow athlete Martin that the exercise was artfully arranged by centre manager Hugh Flannery to engage children in activity almost as a byproduct of what they were doing. "They’re all getting a natural recovery period," he said to his wife. "They probably don’t realise how hard they’re working."

 

Last year I saw children similarly engaged with sport in the PfS centre at West Ham United. Luis Boa Morte may not have been flavour of the month with the Upton Park faithful after two glaring misses in his most recent match, but his effect upon the 20 or so eager pupils of West Ham Church School was mesmeric as he arrived in their computer suite for a session of what was termed "mentoring".

 

While Boa Morte remains a spikey, even spiteful figure on the pitch, his persona away from the field is quiet and reflective to the point of shyness. And as he sat with his back to a slide screen while the children attempted to tell him what image it was showing without using the word itself, his face took on the look of a puzzled child.

 

The first clue – "It’s quite big" – hardly narrowed things down. "You use it to do things," offered another pupil. Still not crystal clear. But the third clue – "it helps you think" – proved sufficient for Boa Morte to twig that he had a big picture of a brain behind him.

 

While the Portuguese star spent perhaps an hour with the pupils, you could see that his visit would live for a far longer time in their memories.

 

This week Yelling was having a similar effect upon the children from Morpeth and Manorfield schools. As 10-year-old Billy Lee-Ives searched the web in the newly built computer suite to complete a questionnaire on the woman who finished 26th in last year’s Beijing marathon despite cracking a rib in an early fall, the question of who was his favourite runner prompted a careful response.

 

"She is," he said, pointing above his head to the signed poster of Kelly Holmes. "And Liz Yelling," he added loyally.

 

There are 162 PfS centres in the UK, all aiming to stimulate literacy, numeracy and IT skills through sports from football to rugby to ballet to crown bowls.

 

The problem for the children of Tower Hamlets, however, was the fact that there was no obvious club or stadium with which to attach such a centre. At which point the lateral thinking of Clair Hawkins, Joint Head of Children’s Services at Tower Hamlets, came up with an elegant solution: as a good proportion of the London Marathon is run through the Borough, why not attach it to a world renowned event?

 

While the initial application caused the Marathon’s chief executive Nick Bitel a moment or two of puzzlement, he soon saw its inspired logic. There followed an offer to sponsor the centre for £26,000 a year over the next three years – a grand for every mile of the marathon.

 

And as he watched Yelling and the Tower Hamlets mayor Muhammed Abdullah Salique cut the ribbon stretched across the computer suite’s entrance, Bitel reflected upon the circumstance which enhanced his personal satisfaction at being able to help support the scheme.

 

"My father, Max, was born 200 yards away in that direction," Bitel said with a grin. "Bancroft Road."

 

Having seen Tower Hamlets succeed in wrapping a PfS centre around an event rather than a physical entity, Bitel is now anticipating other some of the other five Boroughs through which the Marathon runs to try their luck.

 

They will have to be patient, however. The next centre to be opened – on May 25, 150 yards away from the 2012 Olympic stadium – is the last of the current batch being proposed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. For Cllr Hawkins it has been a marathon not a sprint – but reaching the finish has proved glorious indeed.

 

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now freelancing and wrties regularly for insidethegames  

Comments
How nice to read something positive about Tower Hamlets for a
change. Well done Mike.
By Tower Hamlets resident

24 April 2009 at 17:18pm