Olympics

An emotional farewell and back to reality

2012-09-28T14:28:33Z

It is a fact of elite sport that you rarely get to choose the way you retire.

There are some who finish on the immense high of an Olympic gold, there are many more whose last moment of being an international athlete might be losing a selection trial, or finally giving up the battle against injury one morning in March.

Steve Redgrave is a name that will forever be associated with Olympic glory. Alison Knowles and Hester Goodsell were not names that even made it on to the Team GB list this summer, as both retired in the spring after winters blighted by illness and injury.

Everybody dreams of the fairytale ending but only a tiny number of people actually achieve it.

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Which is why I decided that I was going to take control of the final act of my rowing career by organising an event in Cornwall after the Games to bring together Olympic rowing and gig rowing - big heavy wooden boats with fixed seats which row in the open sea.

I persuaded 11 Team GB rowers - Helen, Heather, Melanie, Beth, Frances, Sophie, Lou, Jess, Rosamund and Katherine - down to Cornwall for a series of races in gigs. For the last six months, and especially the seven weeks after the Games, the 'Cornish Rowing Challenge' took over my life.

It was a hugely emotional evening for me, just a few miles away from where I first learnt to row on the River Fowey. I'd put so much work into it and it went exactly as I'd dreamed.

The stats stack up well: 2,500 spectators, several thousand pounds raised for charity, front page of the main regional paper, live coverage on both regional TV evening news as well as a live national broadcast on The One Show.

I couldn't have chosen a better way to row the last few strokes of my career. My family have always found my rowing very stressful because although they're immensely proud of me, they also see how much pressure I've been under and how much it can rip me apart.

They've spent the last eight years travelling round Europe to hot, barren lakes on the outskirts of foreign cities to watch me race in the distance and it's an environment they've never enjoyed, so it was also really important that they could come down to St Mawes and share the final chapter with me.

I then stepped back into normality.

First impressions? It's life - but not as we know it. Life as a full-time athlete is one of extremes as you push mind, body and soul to the absolute limit.

My life now is therefore pretty odd because everything has changed. Every tiny detail.

Energy levels:

Then - exhausted, lethargic, constant need to sit down or preferably to sleep, at any time of the day. The kind of deep, bone-aching tiredness where simply going to the supermarket becomes a struggle and staying awake is problematic - missing my stop on the train was a regular occurrence. Anything less than nine hours' sleep and I was useless the next day.

Now - six hours a night and I'm bright and breezy! And if I'm a bit knackered after a busy day - well, it's nothing that an early night or a coffee in the morning won't fix!

Appetite:

Then - the word 'hungry' doesn't even cover it. Endurance athletes will know that after a big session, you're so hungry that you feel like your body is starting to devour itself from the inside, and if you don't eat something substantial, right now, you might pass out. Sometimes a massive meal won't even touch the sides. I'd often eat a huge plate and then have toast for pudding.

Now - if I get a bit peckish, the feeling will often go away on its own. Failing that, a cuppa or some fruit fills me right up.

Body shape:

Then - see my previous blog on this subject. Big shoulders, big quads and callouses on our hands that can rip a pashmina to pieces (and I simply CANNOT live without a pashmina, darling).

Now - My shoulders, arms and quads are slowly deflating, and I can wear rings on my fingers again after eight years of being unable to squeeze them over callouses.

Drugs testing:

Then - a daily requirement to inform UK Anti-Doping of my location under the 'Whereabouts' rules, so they could test me whenever they wished, was a constant source of stress and it's only now I can appreciate how much it was on my mind. Early morning or late night noises that sounded anything like a knock at the door had me jumping out of bed to rush downstairs to see if it was the testers, because failing to hear them at the door counted as a missed test, and three missed tests would have automatically meant the humiliation of a life ban.

Now - I don't need to tell anyone where I am! When I'm on holiday I no longer have to text in regular updates! I'm free! This has without a doubt been the most joyous change to my life, and I didn't realise how much 'Whereabouts' was constantly on my mind until it was taken away.

Of course, I'm focusing on the extremes of the bad bits about being a full-time athlete. Being tired, stressed and hungry all the time are things I won't miss about rowing, but at the same time that feeling of always working towards a goal, and being part of a mission, is hard to let go of.

I have spent the last eight years in the company of a group of ambitious, passionate women who are great fun to be around and are some of the best in the world at their job.

Whatever I do next, however rewarding it may be, will never allow me again to say that I spend every day working towards my dreams.

Proud and confused - but that's sport

2012-09-03T10:37:22Z

I have been trying to write this blog for most of the last fortnight and what I have wanted to say has changed every day.

The logical part of my brain tells me I have got so much to be proud of. I am a two-time Olympian, part of an elite group. I won a silver medal at the 2008 Games in Beijing and have stood on the podium at three World Championships since then.

To then represent my country at a home Olympics is an indescribable honour. However, the emotional part of my brain leaves me feeling confused about London 2012.

How should I feel about coming fifth in the final of the women's eight? How should I feel about all that has happened in the last eight years, the incredible highs and horrific lows?

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GB's women's eight finish fifth in the Olympic final at London 2012. Pic: Getty

It has taken me a while to work out what the Olympics mean to me. It will mean something different to the journalists writing about it, to the country at large, to the organising committee, and to family and friends of the competitors. And particularly to the athletes, those who achieved what they had dreamed and those who did not.

In 2008, there was the crushing disappointment of being in a boat that staked everything on winning gold, but came away with silver, a result that absolutely ripped me apart. In 2012, I was part of a crew that promised so much more than fifth.

It is easy to stand on the middle step of the podium, gold medal round your neck, and think it was all worth it. What happens to those who come away from the Games feeling like a failure? How do I begin to relate to this behemoth called the Olympics?

Having spent most of the last two weeks since the Games with a montage of my entire rowing career constantly running through my head, I think I am beginning to understand.

It comes down to one very simple answer: it's sport. Sport can be a cruel mistress. It will chew you up and spit you out, but it's sport. It is irrational, it gets under your skin and takes you over, but it's sport. It means the world to you, but it's still only sport.

I love sport, I really do. I love the fact it gives you the opportunity, at any level, to truly express yourself. I can put my heart and soul into my rowing and I can turn myself inside out to be the best I can be, irrespective of the outcome. I can work with a team of committed, driven, passionate people in pursuit of our dreams and we can create something really special together, something we will remember for the rest of our lives.

The cruel side of sport is that the person who comes first and the person who comes last put in the same commitment, make the same sacrifices and experience the same emotional rollercoaster, but to the victor the spoils. One person gets their moment on top of the podium, the other goes home with nothing.

That is another reason I love sport so much. I love the people who are brave enough to gamble it all, to put their entire life into one thing, racing a boat, knowing that only a very small number of people get the fairytale ending. I love the people who are prepared to put mind, body and soul into something with absolutely no guarantee of success.

You will not meet a group of people more passionately committed to representing their country and wearing the union jack with pride - and, in my case, the Cornish flag - than the women who make up the British rowing team. I feel immensely privileged to have been a part of it for eight years.

So how do I process all the highs and lows of my career? With that one word: sport.

I know I have never stepped away from a challenge, never been afraid to fail and never, ever accepted second best from myself. I have rowed with some brilliant, inspirational, nutty people and I have got some magical memories that I will take to my grave.

There is so, so much more to this last four years than the number five. Actually, finishing fifth is the least important part of it all. It will take some time to be able to realise all this and to accept it, because right now it is raw and it hurts. I have got a few plans for the next few months and then reality beckons.

At the risk of using a cliche, I will finish with the Olympic motto, which is something I held on to after the crushing disappointment of Beijing...

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

Broadcasting revolution of the digital Olympics

2012-08-16T13:21:14Z

So the party's over, but the clean-up goes on.

While the past few weeks of the Olympics have been incredibly special, the work doesn't let up for BBC Sport. Alongside the huge network TV viewing figures we have seen unprecedented audience numbers for our digital services - and the challenge now is how we build on what we have seen in London for our week-in, week-out online sports coverage.

Big sporting events have traditionally been the catalyst for change in broadcasting - from the advent of colour TV to the introduction of HD - and I'd like to think what we have seen during London 2012 will have a bearing on how sport is covered in the future.

]]> So we're already planning our next steps, such as:

• Enhancing our mobile offering, including the introduction of a BBC Sport app for smartphones;
• Taking some time to develop online video for live sport, following the success of London 2012; and
• Building a genuine, effective 'connected TV' service - ultimately to replace the red button, which has served us well in the past, but which is due to be scaled back in the coming months - and learning the lessons from the special 24 channels we had during the Olympics.

When we began our digital Olympics project, back in 2005 after London won the right to stage the Games, we came up with a phrase to describe our ambition. We wanted the 2012 Olympics to do for digital media what the Coronation had done for TV. In other words, to be the moment when it moved from the preserve of 'early adopters' (I'm not sure they were called that back in 1953) into the mainstream.

The reason we felt optimistic was down to the timing. From a digital perspective we were lucky that the BBC got to broadcast a home Olympics in 2012. If the Games had come to the UK in 2008 it would have been slightly too early, the technology and audience behaviour wasn't quite ready back then. Similarly if it had been in 2016, the moment would probably have passed. As it was, 2012 felt perfect: it was when the UK was due to switch off analogue TV and move to a fully digital landscape. It looked like being the 'sweet-spot' where technology and audience uptake were set to converge.

Much has changed in the intervening seven years, of course. Back in 2005 there were no tablets. Mobiles, for the vast majority of people, were just for making calls and texting. Only around half of UK households had digital TV. Social media was in its infancy - Facebook was only starting to pick up momentum; Twitter didn't even exist.

By 2012 viewers were ready for a new type of sports coverage - and, crucially, more of us have the kit and access to the signal we needed to enjoy the full Olympic experience.

That comparison with the Coronation has served as useful journalistic shorthand: a reminder to all of us at the BBC that public broadcasters have a duty to deliver big national events on behalf of the whole population. It's too early of course to tell whether we have witnessed something as seismic as the original surge in TV viewing back in 1953. But it does feel that we have seen significant change over the past few weeks.

London 2012 has proved to be a spur for a new type of media consumption: fully connected at all times, on-demand and on-the-go. The statistics are pretty bold, with 39 million UK browsers of BBC Sport, around a third of whom were accessing us on mobile devices.

But the anecdotal evidence is just as powerful. I have heard tales of TV viewers in their 90s using the Red Button for the first time, such was the pull of the sport on offer. I watched in amazement as a whole carriage on a train crowded round three different mobile screens to see Usain Bolt win his 200m gold. And you are reminded that this is now part of the national conversation when even the fabled front page of Private Eye is referencing the Red Button, This then genuinely did feel mainstream.

The key mission for our coverage was that you would 'never miss a moment' - built around offering every sport as it happened; a total of 2,500 hours of video in up to 24 different video streams at any one time. Across the 17 days of the Games, some 24m viewers watched at least 15 minutes of our Red Button service - and what was particularly gratifying is that all the different sports proved to be a draw for the audience, with each of those 24 'channels' receiving at least 100,000 viewers at some point.

Here are the peak audiences for each of the top 20 sports on Red Button (excluding Freeview numbers):

Beyond the phenomenal surge in multi-event viewing there have been other developments in sports coverage that we're tracking.

We are continuing to see the rise of live blogging or, as we prefer to call it at BBC Sport, live text commentary. These pages were the most popular on our London 2012 site - the classic one-stop shop where our journalists could capture all the stories from the panoply of Olympic sports. Essentially they represent a new form of story-telling: dynamic, bite-sized and interactive, with audience comments at the heart of them. They are the bedrock of our coverage of football, cricket and other big sports and we are always looking to take them to another level.

Then there is social media. This was the Olympics where Twitter made a huge impact.

As well as being the place where Olympians interacted with their armies of fans, Twitter has established itself, in pretty short order, as a key element of the journalist's armoury. We use it as an additional way for our reporters to get news and comment out there quickly - and to monitor stories from elsewhere.

BBC Sport used Twitter extensively during the Games, from taking photos of police officers mimicking Usain Bolt's trademark pose to sparking 4,000 retweets from Dutch fans after we linked their thrashing of Team GB's hockey team to their earlier dressage defeat.

But my personal favourite tweet during London 2012 was from our chief sports writer, Tom Fordyce. In seven words it summed up the sheer disbelief that many of us felt at what we were seeing from Team GB - plus that peculiar ability of sports fans to switch from despondency to arrogance at the flick of a switch. It read simply:

'World: can we play you every week?'

London Olympics finally kick off

2012-07-25T19:19:46Z

"How did the London Olympics of 2012 begin, Grandpa?"

"In Cardiff, lad, with a toot on a whistle, and without a flame or cauldron in sight."

"Whatever, Grandpa. What really happened?"

For all the talk of opening ceremonies, flag-bearers and celebrity cauldron-lighters, the start of the biggest sporting celebration ever staged in Britain was both reassuringly familiar and a touch surreal.

Fully 53 hours before Danny Boyle's much-anticipated spectacular in Stratford, an American referee named Kari Seitz walked to the centre circle of the Millennium Stadium, signalled to the 22 women from Great Britain and New Zealand's football teams and stepped away as GB number 14 Anita Asante swung back her right foot and touched the ball to Kelly Smith.

]]> There were no fireworks, no gigantic klaxon sounding, no glorious oratory and no roller-skating nuns (wait and see). Quiet history was made, nonetheless: the Games of the XXX Olympiad were unofficially under way.

Few in the 24,549 crowd were entirely sure how to react. There was a good-sized cheer, a decent amount of smiling and a little bemusement. Was this how the Olympics were supposed to feel?

Young fans witnesses history as they saw the first women's Great Britain football team competing at the Olympics. Photo: Getty

Smith, perhaps understandably overloaded on adrenaline, immediately booted Asante's kick-off straight into touch on the left wing. You rather hoped it wasn't an omen for Team GB over the next 19 nation-shaking days.

This is not the first time that the Olympics have started before they have begun. It is now the norm that the first round of football matches take place before the opening ceremony; there are too many games and too few potential rest-days for the entire competition to be squeezed into the usual two-and-a-bit weeks.

It also happens at most big athletics championships, usually to something like the men's shot put qualifying, which has previously given Britain's Carl Myerscough the unfortunate distinction of going out of the World Championships before they have actually been declared open.

No-one in Cardiff was complaining. On the trains in from Bristol, Swansea, Swindon and Newport, kids had bounced in their seats while parents tried to keep them quiet with Olympic-based quizzes. What was Usain Bolt's favourite food? Does Sir Chris Hoy own a dog? How many medals did Michael Phelps win in Beijing?

There were Union Flag face-paints and early incursions into carefully-made picnics, excited texts and tweets to absent friends and double-checking of wallets and pockets holding precious tickets.

Around the Millennium Stadium the sense of Olympic fever was similarly unmistakable, if restrained in a stereotypically British way.

Volunteers in the official purple T-shirts we will soon see as ubiquitous smiled and directed. Security staff dished out clear plastic bags, airport-style, and issued cheerful warnings of the checks ahead. Hawkers of unofficial merchandise did rapid business while keeping eyes and ears on the policemen strolling past in shirt-sleeves.

For those used to the Millennium mayhem of Six Nations matches or the giddy madness of pre-new Wembley cup finals and play-off deciders, it was Cardiff city centre as seldom seen before, more in tune with the atmosphere around a Test ground before the first day's play rather than the boozy beery sing-a-longs of rugby and football.

It was also extraordinarily warm, and uncharacteristically cloudless up above. In the wettest summer in memory, the Olympics had somehow managed to arrive on the hottest, sunniest day of the year.

Security was tight but efficient. Bodies had to be patted down and bottles of water emptied onto the baking pavements, but the queues that did form moved along at a lick and ended with smiles and small-talk from the staff on duty.

Inside the stadium, only the second verse of the national anthem caused any alarm. Humming and mumbling filled the gaps; if a few west country accents occasionally talked inadvertently of the England team, the Welsh natives soon put them right.

We even had our first chants of pan-nation support: not cheers of "Bri-tain! Bri-tain!" but a brand-pleasing, pedant-riling "TEAM GB!" (clap clap clap) "TEAM GB!" (clap clap clap).

Thankfully here the result was a rather happier one than Myerscough's experience in Paris's Stade de France back in 2003. Steph Houghton's fine second-half free-kick, curled past Kiwi goalkeeper Jenny Bindon, gave Britain a start to the Games that was as perfect as the sky above.

Houghton celebrated with fitting glee. The first goal-scorer of the London Olympics, the first ever for Great Britain's women's team in their debut Games, the first British headline-grabber in what the country hopes will be a long, long list.

There will be more high-profile sporting ding-dongs to come in these Olympics. There will be more thrilling clashes, spicier atmospheres, more unforgettable displays.

But it has begun, even by stealth. And those who saw it, if nothing else, will be able to say: I was there, and it was nothing like you might think.

No rows, just planning for Opening Ceremony

2012-07-25T12:50:24Z

There's been a minor flurry in the past 24 hours about commentary for the Opening Ceremony based on a misleading story in a newspaper.

So here for the record is the true position.

]]> We've been working with the Olympic organisers at Locog for literally years on the ceremony planning.

It's emphatically their ceremony and Danny Boyle's creative vision, with the main television coverage from a global feed and not filmed by the BBC.

But we've wanted to support them to the best of our ability - hence the special films we've made and a range of logistical help behind the scenes.

On commentary we initially felt it would be influenced by two factors. First, there's a particularly strong soundtrack in the stadium.

And also Locog originally planned to talk more about the big themes of the ceremony ahead of time than has actually been the case.

So what we've been doing in recent weeks is meeting with Danny Boyle to talk through how this will work in practice.

Huw Edwards, the team and I have a great relationship with Danny; and he's told us that in planning the ceremony he's sometimes thought about what Huw might say at what point.

Understanding this is key to making the ceremony work for television viewers - and though the ceremony is Locog's and the commentary is ours, it's massively better if we get into the director's mind and see what he's trying to achieve.

We can also work out where the gaps are where comment is appropriate, and where the music should not be interrupted.

So disappointingly for anyone looking for rows, there haven't been any: just sensible planning and working together for the benefit of our respective audiences.

Hard work is done, time for nerves of steel

2012-07-20T13:28:21Z

This blog comes to you from Lago di Varese in northern Italy, where we're putting the final touches to our preparation for the Olympic Games.

We transfer to Dorney Lake early next week with the Olympic regatta starting on Saturday morning.

The heats for the women's eight are scheduled to start the day after that, which leaves us the best part of a week before battle commences.

What we're trying to do out here is absolutely not to come up with a performance that will win us the Olympics.

]]> That may sound like an odd thing to say, but in my opinion that's not how sport works - it's not that simple.

What we're trying to do is to come up with a robust, repeatable, predictable performance than we have 101% confidence in; then take that to Dorney and race the hell out of it.

The thing to remember is that at all big events, World Championships and Olympic Games, the standard of sport will be incredibly high right across the board, and all the athletes will all be incredibly talented and in the form of their lives.

What makes the difference, then? Quite simply - the ability of the people involved to get it right on the day.

It's about being able to sink the crucial putt when the Open depends on it; Jonny Wilkinson kicking the drop goal with seconds of the World Cup final remaining; Roger Federer landing an ace when he's match-point down.

You don't win major championships by rowing well - that's a given. All the crews row well. You win major championships by being tough, gutsy, and having nerves of steel.

The Olympic Games are a pressure cooker, and it becomes less about rowing and more about character, and how we as people will react to the atmosphere of the Olympic cauldron.

It's not the rowing which will win it - it will be the crew that grabs the six-minute window of opportunity with both hands and doesn't let go. We know that Olympic medals are decided by a few hundredths of a second - an inch or two - so there will literally be the blink of an eye that separates the euphoric joy of success, from the crushing disappointment of failure.

And there's no second chance. The result we get at our Olympic regatta will live with us for the rest of our lives.

From my own experience in Beijing, where I was part of the quad, I'd put my heart, body and soul into winning gold, so when we came away with silver I was left with the bitter, wrenching, shocking disbelief of failure which has stayed with me ever since.

So the purpose of all the work we're doing at the moment is to remove the possibility that we'll underperform, and instead establish a platform from which we can fight the rest of the world.

We've done the hard yards, we've done the planning, talking, and ironing out of inconsistencies, so that we can sit on that start line in August with the only unknown being how far we can reach into the depths of our souls to find a performance of which we never knew we were capable.

Digital quirk forces Freeview change

2012-07-20T12:18:02Z

This blog's changing. As we get into Olympic Games-time it's going to be shorter, snappier and more frequent - maybe even daily when the action starts.

What I'm going to do is pick up some of the main issues about our coverage, and give people the chance to offer us feedback.

So here's the first one, which is advance notice of the way we're going to have to arrange our commentary services for the Opening Ceremony.

We said a while ago that we'd offer Audio Description - a commentary service specially tailored for people who are blind or partially-sighted - for the first time live for the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

]]> The good news is that this will definitely be available on satellite, cable and the BBC website.

But on Freeview unfortunately we've discovered a quirk of the digital age, which is that TV platforms can struggle and go "blocky" when we play out the same pictures on multiple channels - especially when the pictures have a lot of activity in them.

Over the past month a lot of technical effort has gone into trying to finding a solution.

Audio only option

But we've reluctantly accepted that on Freeview we can't broadcast the same pictures, as had been planned, on BBC One standard-definition; channel 301 (which would have accommodated the two audio choices); and on the BBC News Channel, with some pictures also appearing in the News on BBC Two.

The result is that we're having to reduce the Freeview 301 offering to audio-only, which means the AD service will be there - but not the "no commentary" option, which won't be available on Digital Terrestrial services.

We know this will disappoint some people, and we've tried really hard to find a solution.

But we have to follow this course to protect the picture quality on BBC One where the overwhelming majority will be watching.

And, as I say, if you use cable or satellite or click on our website then you will find all the services as previously advertised - and Audio Description will still be on Freeview albeit as sound only.

Inside the Olympic bubble at training camp

2012-07-09T09:36:49Z

I'm writing this from Breisach am Rhein, the venue for our training camp in Germany. Breisach is where the women and lightweights come every year for our final work camp before the World Championships or Olympic Games - and when I say 'work camp' it truly lives up to its name through a familiar cocktail of weights, ergos and rowing.

We'll put in some serious volume as we build the engine to take us down the track at Dorney in about three weeks' time. Katie Greves worked out that we will have trained for something like 25 hours per Olympiad for every stroke we row in our Olympic final, and many of those hours will have been put in here, on the Rhine, in the steaming hot 'California of Germany', as the town mayor likes to call it (the resemblance based on it being a wine-producing region).

Throughout this final countdown, our focus narrows down to the absolute essentials of what is needed to produce our best race over 2000m on one day in August: and right now that's boat, team-mates, stopwatch, sugary carbohydrates, and sleep. Countries could invade each other, governments may rise and fall, the Higgs-Boson particle could turn up on Polzeath Beach for all I care - if it's not going to make my boat go faster, it's not relevant.

This is not to say I don't care about the outside world, but more to point out that as athletes we have a very small window of opportunity to get it right. We have one shot and if we mess it up there's no second chance, which means I can't afford to do anything other than keep my eye completely focused on the ball (or perhaps the oar) at the moment. During this time in 2008 there was a global banking crisis, with Lehman Brothers going bankrupt the month after the Olympics: was I aware of it at the time? No. I was training for Beijing.

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The Olympic women's eight crew was put together during the World Cup season. Photo: Katie James

It's consequently an incredibly energising and exciting time. The reason we get out of bed and go training every day for four years is to give us the opportunity to produce the performance of our lives at the Olympic Games; and finally, the stage is in sight.

There's no planning for next year, or talk about when the squad will re-commence for training for next season, or discussion about building over the Olympiad: the talking's over. You wanted to be an Olympic rower? Here's your chance. You want to finally do what you've been dreaming about for four years? Off you go. We'll have one day, one race, one chance, to do or die. And that is a pretty thrilling prospect.

The key to the Olympics is that it draws together all sports from all countries, and there are not any other occupations that could say that. One of my brothers is a pretty good journalist, but he would never be able to go to a journalists' competition to test himself against other journalists, from every country in the world from Norway to Niger, Fiji to France. But for us as athletes, we do. Being an Olympian means exactly the same thing to every athlete, from every sport, from every country.

This period has also presented some new challenges to me because it's my first season racing in the women's eight. The eight is a very unique boat because it's the biggest and the heaviest boat, so although it takes a while to get it up to speed, when it gets there it goes like a juggernaut. Rowing in an eight is a bit like being in an arranged marriage with eight other women: we haven't chosen each other, have ended up together through circumstance, but we've got to make it work for sake of the kids (or in our case, for the sake of the Olympic medals which will be handed out in 20-odd days' time).

It's been a hugely exciting learning experience for me and it certainly has kept things interesting. Our next stage is to translate all the work we've done out here into speed at race pace, and really test out what we've created to see how much speed we can eke out over 2000m.

BBC's sport programmes move to the fore

2012-07-09T08:15:28Z

In our planning for 2012, there was never any doubt about what would be the most intense period: the Olympic Games themselves from July 27 to August 12.

But we also knew that this would be a summer where people would want to enjoy the build-up to the big event.

That's why we committed to covering the Olympic torch relay on every step of the journey and why we've always been enthusiastic supporters of the London 2012 Festival.

]]> On both those fronts we'd say "so far, so good". The torch has been a major hit in communities right across the UK, and as an addition to the schedule we'll be marking the journey with a documentary on BBC One on Wednesday July 25.

The festival, meanwhile, has had some remarkable broadcast pieces: the Radio 1 Hackney Weekend, Britain In A Day, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra concert from Stirling - and the magnificent series of Shakespeare films on BBC Two.

As we get closer to the Games, the emphasis naturally moves towards sport and I want to pick out some of the programmes you'll be able to see and hear before the Opening Ceremony.

It's not a comprehensive list, but I hope it illustrates the range that's on offer across the BBC.

The most ambitious series runs this week. "Faster, Higher, Stronger" is four one-hour history programmes about the Olympics, though they're not a typical chronology of the Games.

Mark Spitz, who won a then record seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics

Instead, each show is based around a particular sport or event: the 100m, the 1500m, swimming and gymnastics.

What makes it for me is the brilliant use of archive, which offers both nostalgia and insight. I'd no idea until now about how the butterfly stroke started, for instance; and the dissection of how the 100m is run is the best I've seen on television.

It's all supplemented with interviews with the stars as they are today, and journalists at the BBC Olympics launch loved Nadia Comaneci's account of that perfect 10 in Montreal.

Highly recommended not just by me but by the newspaper previewers too. Monday to Thursday at 7pm on BBC Two.

There are more sport documentaries coming up on BBC One.

The featured stars are:

Usain Bolt, July 16

Victoria Pendleton, July 18

Tom Daley, provisionally July 26

Over on BBC Three there will be a film they're calling the "Bad Boy Olympian" - judo's Ashley McKenzie - as well as a countdown of the Olympics' Amazing Moments.

On July 17 they'll be asking the question, increasingly salient, "Can Anyone Beat Bolt?"

Throughout London's Olympic and Paralympic story, probably the most diligent chronicler in the BBC has been Radio 5 Live and they're not letting up in the closing days.

This week on the evening of July 10 we have a Virtual Medal Table - looking at how Team GB might do - and on July 11 an Olympic Glossary that tries to explain the Games. Then the regular London Calling strand with Eleanor Oldroyd goes international on July 12.

For those who aren't out-and-out sport fans, we have other genres coming into play too.

The warm, history-based drama "Bert and Dickie" will have a peak slot on BBC One just before the Games; and the show we all love in the BBC 2012 project "Twenty Twelve" will be raising some laughs again from Tuesday night on BBC Two.

We'll alert you to more programmes and the precise timings as each one becomes closer; and our hope is that by the time we're ready for the Opening Ceremony, you'll be in the mood for the feast of live sport that follows.

Highlights audiences dwindle in multimedia world

2012-07-02T16:15:52Z

I spoke last week at a lunch organised by the Broadcasting Press Guild.

It's one of the more intimidating outings for a broadcasting executive because the media correspondents from many of the national newspapers are there - from The Guardian to The Sun - and it's also "on the record": everything you say can be reported.

A small number of stories did emerge - about the technology we're planning to use and about the Opening Ceremony, where I'd note that "creative risk" remains a good thing in my book.

]]> But what generated almost no coverage was the disclosure that we won't have a formal daily highlights programme for the London Olympics in the way that we have done for previous Games.

The reason it didn't make headlines, I'd like to think, is that the case is a rational one: the scheduling makes it difficult, and viewing habits have changed.

But I know a previous blog on this subject a couple of years back received some mixed reaction, so let me spin through the argument in a bit more detail.

First, the live action from the London Games will continue until almost midnight.

Not all of it will be front-rank sport, but we want the ability to take you to the continuing live events whether it's basketball or beach volleyball or boxing.

In which case it's impossible to schedule highlights on BBC One until midnight - and if you were waiting for a particular sport it might not take to the air until close to 1am.

This is a different case from Athens, the last time the Games were in a European time-zone, where the two-hour difference meant the action finished early enough to allow for a highlights show.

Live action from the Olympic Games will continue well into the evening

But second, the thinning out of the sport schedule as the day winds down does allow for the programme that will come on air at 10.40pm - hosted by Gabby Logan - to combine the live sport that remains with some of the biggest moments of the day that's passed.

In particular, we expect to get many of the medal-winners into the studio for this programme; so we'd hope to celebrate their achievements and watch their performances with them, interspersed by updates on the action that's continuing.

This mixed approach makes more editorial sense than that programme being either live only or highlights only.

The third big factor in our thinking is that there's now a multitude of ways to catch highlights without there being a dedicated show.

There's the sport website, which will include the ability to rewind and review any session; there's the iPlayer; and there will be headlines including clips of the best bits across our BBC One and BBC Three schedule, including the news bulletins.

And the evidence of other sport events is that audiences for highlights have dwindled massively, precisely because there are so many other ways to see what you want.

But even then we're making sure we do cater for people who want a digest of each day's Olympics with a high story count and all the relevant information.

There will be special editions of Sportsday on the BBC News Channel at 6.30pm, 10.30pm and 0.15am - with the latter also broadcast on BBC One - so you can catch anything you may have missed. If there's something you want to see at greater length, the choice will be yours via all our catch-up services.

Additionally, as we announced a few months back, there will be a 3D highlights programme - a chance to see the day through a different pair of lenses - scheduled on the BBC HD channel around 11pm each night.

As a statement of the obvious, this will only include sport that was filmed in 3D for the world feed; so it won't include some non-3D sports like rowing and sailing.

Finally we will, of course, also be reviewing the Games at the end of the 17 days.

The ultimate highlights programme is likely to run in the hour or so before the Closing Ceremony and that will be the polished, considered view of the whole of London 2012 in the same style as our much-appreciated review of Beijing in 2008.

The aim overall: that you need never miss a moment, and that we'll help you find anything you want to view live and then again at the time of your choice.

How can anyone stop the Brownlees?

2012-06-25T07:46:22Z

Alistair Brownlee threatened to retire from triathlon 50 times. He barely trained for more than a month in his home Olympic year. He missed the first three races of this year's World Series.

And then he came back and beat a strong field by such a wide margin as to be almost ridiculous.

The senior Brownlee, aged 24, romped home in Kitzbuehel 50 seconds ahead of his 22-year-old brother, Jonny, and more than a minute in front of third-place Javier Gomez, the Spaniard who once ruled men's triathlon before the Brownlees ruined his fun.

How he must curse them. He has trained with them, raced alongside them for a French domestic team, gone up against them many times. They get along well. But they have taken his sport and moved it beyond the reach of Gomez or, for that matter, anyone else who cares to try.

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Alistair Brownlee beats brother Jonny in Kitzbuehel one-two

"Those guys are above the rest. Nobody is going to get near them," their domestique, Stuart Hayes, told us having crossed the Kitzbuehel finish line. Hayes and the Brownlees make up the men's Olympic team for Britain this summer, with the former employed as a domestique for the latter.

He took to that role admirably in Austria, riding on the front of the pack and controlling the pace after the Brownlees' early break had been caught. Jonny admitted Hayes' presence had made their lives much easier - allowed the brothers to rest and regroup while preventing any of their rivals from breaking clear.

But would they have won anyway had Hayes not been there? The gut answer is: probably. If only because it has been such a long time since a Brownlee did not win a major triathlon.

This sounds like hyperbole but the facts sustain it. In the last 12 months, Alistair has won all six major Olympic-distance races he has entered: six World Series events and the European Championships. In a spell stretching from May 2009, he has won 12 of the 15 World Series races he started. When he missed this year's Madrid and San Diego races through his torn Achilles tendon, Jonny won them instead.

Even knowing the training Alistair had missed and the undoubted setback of his injury, secretly, it was hard not to expect this victory in Kitzbuehel; hard not to start forming the opening paragraphs of a 'Brownlee wins comeback' story while he was still out on the bike. It felt inevitable to watching journalists, let alone triathletes in the act of being punished.

Last year we saw it at the European Championships. Alistair had briefly worn a protective boot around one foot that spring, too - not as bad an injury but still not ideal - and then he turned up in Spain, took a puncture in the ride, was brought back to the pack by his team-mates while Jonny slowed things down at the front, and in the end he won comfortably.

No matter what you throw at Alistair Brownlee, it does not stick. What a psychological dampener that must cast over everyone else in the field. Here's a man who spent the first half of 2012 entirely missing in action: he comes back for his first race and takes the world's top 50 to triathlon school.

How can he and Jonny possibly be beaten at London 2012?

Kitzbuehel: Another podium shared between the Brownlee brothers. Photo: Getty Images

Don't misunderstand, there are clearly many ways in which that Olympic race in Hyde Park can finish without a Brownlee on the podium, let alone winning the title. Injury, illness, misfortune, all the devils that lap at any Olympian's heels.

But what can their rivals do? What plan can they realistically come up with?

If they go out hard from the very start, the Brownlees are highly unlikely to be too far behind them after the swim, and with the help of Hayes they will surely gobble up anyone who attempts to simply go out at maximum speed on the bike and stay there. Then the race is theirs to control.

Try to get in a breakaway with the Brownlees on the bike and they will keep you there, use you as a domestique whle you take your turn on the front, then spit you out on the run. In Kitzbuehel, Alistair exploded into the run with such a turn of pace that he left a dozen world-class opponents, all in transition alongside him, for dead.

Maybe you could team up with a few other triathletes and launch break after break on the bike to wear the brothers out. But the Brownlees work together too effectively - they manipulate the peloton, regulating its pace, deciding its strategy. Can you outwit them? In an Olympic race where international alliances are nothing like as easily forged as a sibling bond?

There are probably many other tricks left in triathlon's book - by all means name some in the comments, Gomez and co will be grateful. But the world has seen each of the brothers win alone, win together, and now win with Hayes thrown in for good measure. It feels like they will have an answer.

Any lingering doubts that Alistair Brownlee will start the London 2012 triathlon as the favourite are gone. Now, we may see the shortest odds on a British one-two in Olympic history.

Mixed messages over Olympic legacy?

2012-06-22T10:36:29Z

Have Olympic legacy chiefs done a massive U-turn - or maybe a screeching handbrake turn - on their goals under new boss Daniel Moylan?

Every time I have spoken to the London Legacy Development Corporation (previously known as the Olympic Park Legacy Company) in the last two years, I've been told that they are hoping to build a wonderful, environment for families to live in after the Games.

The talk has been of "terraced housing, mews housing and duplex apartments within tree-lined avenues, intimate streets and open squares."

There are plans for the Park to have an entertainment district near the Olympic Stadium, which will stage concerts as well as sport, and the Orbit Tower is likely to be a big tourist attraction.

But legacy officials have told me before that they want the entertainment part of the Park to have the relaxing atmosphere of London's South Bank with its theatres and cultural activities.

So, I'm very confused today as I read in a national newspaper about leaked plans for Formula One motor racing in the Park.

One of the bids for the stadium is said to involve a company keen to run a world championship race through the Park.

Chief executive Andrew Altman didn't mention this to me when I took a boat with him the other day through the Park. The talk was of a calm, green environment for east Londoners.

And, of course, I asked him about the stadium plans and Formula One wasn't mentioned.

So, I can only assume it's all part of the new regime under Boris Johnson-appointed Moylan, who has taken over from Baroness Ford as LLDC chair in the last few weeks.

Altman has also just announced he is leaving in August so it's all change at the Corporation, which is run by the Mayor.

On the surface it sounds like an ambitious, exciting project and a good idea to grab newspaper headlines.

But how practical is it to run an annual F1 race through an area where they want to build more apartments and houses after the Games?

It works in Monaco, the motor racing fans will say. But of course, Monte Carlo is a different kind of place.

The last time I was in Monaco when the world athletics championships were awarded to London, a British tax exile told me that anybody who wanted to live there had to prove that they could pay all of their bills WITHOUT working.

So, if they don't like the Formula One week, most of them can jump on a flight to their second, third or fourth, residence near a beach somewhere.

The last time I looked, very few people in Stratford could afford to do that.

Anybody wanting to buy a flat or house on the Park may also think twice when they find out that every year, their peace is going to be upset by noisy motor racing cars.

And there's plenty to homes to sell yet.

Now, this could all be just headline-making. Under new leadership, the Corporation is maybe keen to show it is cracking on with the legacy as we get close to the Games.

But that would also be a change of policy.

Baroness Ford's tactic was always to keep commercial confidentiality while she was negotiating deals and not to make a lot of public noise about bidders until contracts were signed.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company was always very careful not to talk about bidders.

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Emotion and anger as Olympic dreams die

2012-06-22T09:35:20Z

Taekwondo has given Team GB its highest-profile selection drama yet ahead of a home Olympics, but the same scenes are playing out across many sports.

Britain will send a huge number of athletes to London 2012 but, for each athlete picked, others must tell family, friends and sponsors that they did not make it.

All the recent grief over Olympic selection has been well-publicised, chiefly world number one Aaron Cook's omission from the GB taekwondo team, leading some to wonder why things are so much worse this year than before any other Games.

In some respects, they aren't. Appeals are a fact of life ahead of any Olympics but this year's have gained more coverage because a home Games is on the horizon, which also accounts for the fact that some of the battles are more bitterly contested: the prize is that much greater, both psychologically and financially with sponsors showing great interest in sports they would never normally touch.

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Aaron Cook (right) was controversially not selected by British Taekwondo. Photo: Getty

"Normally, it's not as public as it is now," agrees Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of UK Sport. Nicholl and her colleagues distribute the millions of pounds in funding to each of Britain's Olympic sports teams, so they take an interest in every selection decision made to see where their money goes. UK Sport even invests in Sport Resolutions, the independent body designed to oversee selection appeals.

"This is very high-profile and it's a difficult one - many of the sports we're talking about don't have a huge number of professionals working with them to manage the circumstances that evolve around this, particularly with media interest. It's difficult for the athletes and a very emotive time for them."

Host-nation places are where things most frequently turn sour. At the Olympics the hosts are always given many more places than usual as a reward for staging the Games. The problem is, the athletes going for these places are the ones who did not reach the Olympics on merit (otherwise they wouldn't need them) - so subjective decisions must be made, and arguments ensue.

"We had been told that if we were going to the Olympics, we would get a phone call on the Friday morning - and if not, we wouldn't," says fencer Jon Willis, who was relying on a host-nation place in the men's epee tournament for his ticket to London 2012.

"I was travelling to Stockholm for a competition that weekend, so I had my phone turned off on the flight on Friday morning.

"I got there, turned my phone on, and no message had been left. It was heartbreak in the baggage reclaim hall."

Willis has now announced his retirement, after an unsuccessful appeal in which he argued that British Fencing performance director Alex Newton had been biased against him.

The two have not had the easiest relationship and Willis felt that, even though he did not reach the Games on merit, his record outshone those of several fencers selected ahead of him.

"For 12 months, for me, it's been clear that I was never in the plans. I was dropped from funding a year ago," he says.

"Alex Newton never made any attempt to get to know me. She never bothered coming to visit me [at a training centre in Germany] to see what I do, she never asked to see my training diary, she couldn't tell you anything about me.

"It's like I was discarded from the very start and I'll never understand that. But [at the appeal] how do you prove someone has it in for you? You can't do it. I've got my opinions and I'm sure she's got hers, but she'll deny it every time. 'I've got no problem with Jon, I put the data to the selectors.' What can I say to that?"

That is, indeed, exactly how Newton - who joined British Fencing at the start of 2011 - sees it. She has had more than Willis to deal with, too. Five fencers have launched unsuccessful appeals and an online forum has been alive with criticism of her panel's Olympic selections, particularly young sabre fencer Sophie Williams, picked ahead of the more experienced Jo Hutchison.

Last month, The Times ran an article in which it was suggested Williams may owe her selection to her father being a prominent sponsor of the sport in Britain.

"I'm really sad for Sophie," says Newton, "for the negative press and comments about her. We should be celebrating a 21-year-old, someone for the future, who could perform as well as any of the other athletes.

"I'm not surprised people are disappointed that some athletes were not selected, but I am surprised they are taking it out on other athletes. Is it Sophie's fault? No. Has it knocked her confidence? Wouldn't it knock yours if you had a half-page spread in The Times saying your dad bought your place?

"I went on the forum and had a read of it. In the job I've got, you've got to develop a very, very thick skin. I don't like being called some of the names but it comes with the territory."

Host-nation places aren't the only source of rancour. Lucy Hall knows how Sophie Williams feels even though she competes in triathlon, a sport in which Britain earned its six places at the Games on merit alone.

But the selectors could still decide who from the squad took up those places and Hall, 20, was picked ahead of several contenders with much more experience of top-level triathlon.

British Triathlon wanted Hall to do a specific job. Her fast swim and strong skills on the bike make her an ideal candidate to perform as a domestique to GB's world number one, Helen Jenkins, helping Jenkins to victory.

"They made it very clear that I would be going to the Games to help Helen," she says. "I know I'm not a fast enough runner to go individually."

News of the selectors' phone calls to various triathletes soon leaked out online, while some of those involved confronted each other during training. Not everyone felt Hall had earned her place.

"It's controversial and some people aren't happy about it but unfortunately none of the other girls hit the selection criteria and I'm there to do a job," says Hall.

"I think they are fantastic athletes, and it's a really difficult situation - they are very upset. I can sympathise with that. Hopefully nobody has taken it personally, they know I'm not the head of selection. Sport is cruel, it really is."

Will Clarke was one of the triathletes overlooked. He feels he had comfortably marked himself out as the third-best male triathlete in Britain behind the all-conquering Brownlee brothers (GB receives three triathlon places per gender at the Games), but Stuart Hayes was selected as the Brownlees' domestique instead.

Clarke's argument is that he and other leading triathletes have given their careers towards reaching London 2012 but have had scant reward for years at the top level. He feels the selection policy set the bar unrealistically high and, when none of GB's second-tier triathletes cleared it, unfairly handed the likes of Hall a chance without proving themselves on the world stage.

He was with top female GB triathlete Liz Blatchford when both received the calls to say they would not make the team.

"Liz was really upset and so was [fellow triathlete] Jodie Stimpson," recalls Clarke. "I think they feel they've been screwed over a bit, pretty betrayed. I'm sure Lucy Hall is the most fortunate Olympian out there.

"It was pretty emotional. There were a few tears kicking around. The goalposts kept on getting moved as to what I had to do to qualify, it was a really bad system. The team was basically picked around the Brownlees and Helen Jenkins and we had no chance to qualify in our own right, it was made too hard."

Now, Clarke and several similarly overlooked colleagues are planning to strike out for the Ironman triathlon circuit, largely based in the United States, as something to take their minds off their Olympic disappointment. Clarke says he could come back for Rio 2016, but only if he knows he has a strong chance of selection.

"I think relationships within British triathlon will be a bit rough and there'll be a lot of bitchiness out there," says Clarke. "It will change things, it will be hard for a while."

For Willis, the journey is over and he is finding it hard not to hold a grudge.

"I can't be two-faced about it," he says. "I can't be nice to somebody who I think has ended my fencing career and stamped out my dream. I can do my best to be civil, but why would I want to spend any more time than I have to?

"I think this will be a divided GB team. I hope it won't be, I hope somehow we'll all be friends, but this was always going to be the problem. I don't see how it can be a happy camp."

Newton defends the process and looks ahead. "The winners are obviously happy and the losers are obviously unhappy, but we have a genuine agreement that we need to work together and support each other," she concludes.

"I've always said host-nation places would be a double-edged sword with so much at stake. We could easily get sidetracked by the noise and distractions, and lose focus. It's been a tough time.

"Come Rio 2016, there won't be host-nation places: you qualify on merit, or you don't go. These places are gifts to athletes who have not qualified, and it's a home Games - any athlete wants to go. Don't we all?"

London 2012 Festival takes centre stage

2012-06-20T17:46:57Z

When we started the BBC 2012 website many moons ago, we were counting down on the front page to three events: the start of the Torch Relay; the first day of the London 2012 Festival; and the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Well, after today it's two down and only one to go.

The torch is almost half way through its journey and the festival is officially under way.

]]> I'll be christening it in what's expected to be a suitably rain-sodden British way in Stirling tonight, when the BBC will be broadcasting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in a project that unites some of the world's best musicians with young people from a tough part of town.

It's another inspiring story in a year that is already showcasing great performances and the human beings behind them.

It seems like the festival itself has made huge strides from the little-understood "Cultural Olympiad" with which the arts contribution to London 2012 began.

People understand the idea of a festival; they like the events that offer free tickets and it's another way in which the whole of the UK can feel part of the Olympics.

There will be something near you and it has a decent chance of being good - or in some cases, to use one of the favourite cultural words, "extraordinary".

Here at the BBC we've long supported the Cultural Olympiad and now the London 2012 Festival across many of our platforms and services. And the best is yet to come.

Rehearsals ahead of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra concert in Stirling

That may sound ambitious considering the critical success of "Britain In A Day", but after the Simon Bolivar Orchestra's concert in Scotland we move to London for Radio 1's Hackney Weekend - the biggest event in the station's history, and probably the most star-studded line-up for any concert in the world this year.

Then from July 13th there's the BBC Proms season, which again promises global talent and incredible moments, and live every night on Radio 3.

In drama, the highlight of the Shakespeare season will be the BBC's epic films of the 'middle histories' - Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V - which are coming soon to BBC Two.

And our London season, about our capital's history and culture and people, has been drawing appreciative audiences with Julien Temple's film celebration of the city another likely high-spot.

Many of these events will be on the BBC Big Screens - our official Live Sites partnership with Locog, city councils and other partners.

Stirling is a particularly good example because there'll be a live relay to the Big Screens ahead of the BBC Four broadcast later in the evening.

This commitment to the arts is designed to complement the sport we're looking forward to from the end of July, and it's part of the simple promise we made: we want to offer something for everybody inspired by London 2012.

Most people will thrill to the 100m final, but if you don't, there's Barenboim or Hiddleston or Rihanna.

Or best of all - try something new, and see if you enjoy it. This summer is about opportunities that may not come by again.

BBC to make Opening Ceremony films

2012-06-12T09:30:00Z

This is a summer in which it's just one event after another. From the Jubilee and now into the Euros, with Wimbledon and the Open Golf just around the corner - before we get to the Olympics at the end of next month.

Of all of them, we can predict that the biggest television audience globally will be for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. Statistics should always be treated with caution, as I've mentioned here before.

But on July 27th we can expect an enormous live international viewing figure, with getting on for three-quarters of the world's population seeing something of London's ceremony in news bulletins and subsequent replays of the key moments.

]]> So that's why there's such a lot at stake in Danny Boyle's direction of the opening celebrations, about which we've been hearing today.

From the initial "Isles of Wonder" concept to today's disclosure of the pastoral scene that will welcome spectators, we can see the outlines of what's being planned - but there's no avoiding the fact that a lot will be at stake on the night.

That struck me forcibly yesterday as I looked at Olympic Park from a vantage point in Canary Wharf and could barely see it through the rain and murk.

Of course, the Opening Ceremony is organised by Locog and it's Danny's creative vision.

It will be transmitted globally via host broadcast operations. But here at the BBC we want to support as best we can the moment when the United Kingdom presents itself to such a massive audience.

Danny Boyle surveys a model of the set being built in the stadium

That's why we're announcing today that the BBC is being designated as the "London 2012 Olympic Ceremonies Featured Film Producer" and we'll be contributing two short films to the Opening Ceremony.

I'm not going to give much more away because we want there to be some surprises on the night, however much giddy speculation and rumour there is beforehand.

But Danny Boyle will be using film and other media to supplement the action in the stadium and pretty much the first thing viewers globally will see is a piece of film made by BBC Drama.

That doesn't mean it's a drama: simply that we're using the in-house department most used to doing a specific type of filming. Then another short film will appear later.

The BBC will be involved in the ceremony in other supporting roles too because as the national broadcaster we think it's right that we should support the UK's representation of itself - and, quite simply, we want this to be a great progamme for British viewers to watch along with the the rest of the world.

We've no doubt that opinions will vary about the extent to which that succeeds, but this is one occasion when sitting on the sidelines isn't an option. It's a challenge for the creative sector to show what Britain can do, and we're ready to play our part.