Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
DAME
SUE STREET
DCB, LIZ NICHOLL
MBE, MR PETER
KEEN OBE,
MONDAY
6 FEBRUARY 2006
Q20 Mr Khan: Which leads me on to
swimming. Why was swimming allowed to get away without setting
any medal targets, given that this was a condition of funding
originally for other sports and swimming as well?
Ms Nicholl: You will be aware
that we came back with no medals in swimming from Sydney and Bill
Sweetenham was appointed as a new performance director and he
arrived back in this country with the team straight after the
Games. At that stage it would have been impossible for him to
predict four years on the medal potential of a squad that he had
not worked with. He presented a rationale to us which proved that
the medallists in swimming come from those who are within the
top 10 world ranked swimmers the year prior to the Games. Presented
with that performance related evidence, we accepted that evidence
and we set annual targets with Bill Sweetenham linked to the world
rankings, with an agreement that early in 2004, prior to the Games,
we should translate those world rankings into medal targets and
we did that. Early in 2004 there was a medal target of two medals
for the Games in Athens.
Q21 Mr Khan: Is swimming the only
exception to the normal rule?
Ms Nicholl: Yes. That was an exception
because of the particular circumstances. If the same circumstance
happened in another sport, in another Olympiad, we might take
the same approach.
Q22 Mr Khan: Are you not pursuing
a vicious circle? Are some sports not going to be the victim of
the successes of their predecessors, because they will be funded
based upon previous results, whilst other sports will be the victims
of past failures, because obviously you are not taking account
of progress made or increasing performance? Take judo as an example.
Winston Gordon went to the same school as I did and came from
Tooting. He came fourth in Athens, but did not get a medal, so
presumably his sport suffers because he came fourth and we all
know the fine line between coming fourth and coming third; it
is one slip or one throw.
Ms Nicholl: I wonder whether I
might pass this question to Peter Keen, because Peter has developed
our investment strategy which actually looks at the whole pathway
and he can explain how we manage that situation.
Mr Keen: The question you raise
is exactly the right one. What we strive to do in the formula
that we have adopted is to balance exactly those two points of
extremes, looking not just at what has been achieved historically,
even if it was very recently, and looking at what can be achieved
in the context of this part of the discussion in four years' time.
It is a delicate balancing act. What we first look for is whether
those athletes who are already successful are likely to remain
and continue to be successful, whether the athletes finishing
in the top eight in individual events are likely to remain and
develop; indeed what the cohort of athletes is coming through
in any sport in terms of the development level immediately below
what we would call world class, just outside of the top ten. In
each of the awards we now make to the governing bodies, we are
looking to get that balance right between rewarding success, which
is key to their psychological approach, but also recognising that
development is necessary and looking to see where the future may
lie in terms of the individuals within the programme and, equally
importantly, the programme itself, how it is structured, how it
is actually developing systematically the performance coming through.
Q23 Mr Khan: When you give out the
support, is any reflection given of gender breakdown? For example,
if I were to ask which elite athletes you supported, what would
be the breakdown between male and female athletes?
Ms Nicholl: I shall not be absolutely
spot on, but it is about late forties early fifties, slightly
more men than women. We do actually monitor the gender breakdown
annually.
Q24 Mr Khan: The reason for the monitoring
is?
Ms Nicholl: As part of our equity
strategy to make sure that, in fact, if we see some differentials
which seem very abnormal, then we can investigate those and address
any barriers which may be preventing the right balance.
Q25 Mr Khan: Is that also done by
ethnicity?
Ms Nicholl: We are starting to
do that. Until recently, we did not have the information which
allowed us to do that, but we are setting systems in place to
enable us to do that.
Q26 Mr Khan: What would you say the main
lessons are that you learned from Athens?
Ms Nicholl: You have to look at
the successful sports and then the sports which failed. Why did
the sports which succeeded, succeed? Predominantly, you can look
at a sport like sailing, and it is bit like the Clive Woodward
comment: the meticulous attention to detailed planning and implementation
is absolutely what ensured that our sailing squad were still top
of the sailing medal table; the no-compromise mentality which
is in the cycling squad certainly was a key factor in their success;
the world-class coaches who are supporting our athletes now. We
are creating a system here where the very best coaches in the
world want to come and be part of the UK system. We are creating
a system in which coaches in the UK want to be the next world-class
coaches of the future from the UK. In terms of where we could
have done better, there were some examples of poor health management
of athletes, there were simple issues which need to be resolved,
some technical clothing issues in one or two sports that actually
made the difference between a medal opportunity and not.
Q27 Mr Khan: Do you think if UK Sport
were directly involved in amateur boxing, we could have had more
than two boxers competing in Athens, and rather than a silver,
we could have had a gold?
Ms Nicholl: I should like to hope
so, but we are yet unproven in terms of our support for boxing
and, as at April, we take over the responsibility for that relationship.
Q28 Mr Khan: What is your target
for boxing? Is it more than two boxers taking part?
Ms Nicholl: Because we take on
the responsibility for boxing on 1 April, we have not yet had
those detailed discussions about targets for Beijing.
Q29 Mr Khan: One of the criteria
that Australia have for sports to be eligible for funding is that
it must meet a range of criteria covering areas such as competitiveness,
public interest and international profile. May I ask whether you
take into account the significance of a sport to the public when
it comes to giving funding?
Ms Nicholl: We do conduct public
interest surveys; so we do take note of the public's perspective.
I have to say, in terms of our investment in performance sport,
that we are driven by the high level target and any sport which
can contribute to the high level target is important to us. It
is a factor we are aware of, but it is not a key factor in terms
of our decision-making.
Q30 Mr Khan: Is the global sum of
money you have been given £97 million?
Ms Nicholl: Yes
Q31 Mr Khan: Obviously you will say
you want more, but is that sum adequate for the athletes?
Ms Nicholl: It is adequate to
support the target that we have set for Beijing.
Q32 Mr Bacon: May I start by asking
about the UK Sport Annual Review 2005, which has on page
four a photograph of a skier? Do you know who the skier is? Is
it a British skier, or is it just a model?
Ms Nicholl: I personally do not
know who the skier is.[1]
Q33 Mr Bacon: Is it possible you could
find out and write to us? I should like to know whether that is
a British skier, because you are putting more into cycling than
you are into the entire Winter Olympic effort, are you not?
Ms Nicholl: Yes, we are, because
our approach to funding on the Winter Olympic side is the same
as the Summer Olympic side: we shall support any athlete who has
the potential to medal. We have limited medal opportunities and
prospects in winter sports, so that is why we are funding 14 athletes
compared with the 320 on the Summer Olympic side.
Q34 Mr Bacon: I understand that you
are trying to focus on success, but it is an interesting reflection
that one sport in the Summer Olympics, which is cycling, is getting
more than our entire Winter Olympic effort. I should just like
to know in passing whether that is in fact a British skier in
your photograph.
Ms Nicholl: I shall certainly
find that out for you.
Q35 Mr Bacon: May I ask you generally
about funding for other countries and for you? In Mr Khan's last
question, he was asking whether this is enough. It struck me that
£68.1 million for the Summer Olympics over an entire four-year
cycle, which is £17 million a year, is really not a lot of
money.
Ms Nicholl: It is tight.
Q36 Mr Bacon: What I should be interested
to know is whether it is correct to suppose that if you had significantly
more money, let us say for the sake of argument double or quadruple,
we should get markedly different results in terms of performance,
in terms of medals in international competitions?
Mr Keen: Probably the easiest
way to come at that question is to explain where we are now in
our investment approach, which has moved on a lot from when this
Report was written and indeed reflects a lot of the advice in
the Report. We have essentially turned the question around and
asked what it really costs to be very successful on an athlete-by-athlete
and on a sport-by-sport basis.
Q37 Mr Bacon: I should appreciate
it if you would answer the question the way I have asked it, because
I do not have a lot of time. It mentions in the Report the difficulty
of attributing success and it is striking, if you look at the
chart, we are now slightly ahead of where we were in Athens compared
with Seoul, but in the Seoul Olympics in 1988 we were doing quite
well and then we had this terrible dip, but the World Class Performance
Programme was not in place in 1988, was it? What was it then that
caused us to do not quite as well in 1988 as we did in Athens,
if it was not the World Class Performance Programme and all this
extra money?
Ms Nicholl: I shall ask Peter
to answer that one, because I know that he actually was involved
at that time and will have much more of an insight into that.
Mr Keen: Indeed, it was my first
Olympic Games as a team official. The world, in the Olympic sense,
has moved on a lot since 1988. Some very significant events have
happened from that period until now, not least the initial dissolution
of the Soviet bloc and then its re-emergence as many competitive
nations on a sport-specific basis. Seoul was probably the final
Olympics in terms of what you might call the non-professional
dominance of most of those Olympic sports. What we have now seen
is many more nations being ambitious in this arena, indeed being
very selective in their focus and in their investment, so the
whole level of competition has changed, as has the focus of many
nations. What we saw in 1996 was probably a more realistic reflection
of where we naturally have settled as a nation, because if you
go back, certainly pre the two boycotted Olympics of 1980 and
1984, to the previous four Olympics, around 15 to 18 medals was
where we naturally seemed to be.
Q38 Mr Bacon: Right; and going back
to my question?
Mr Keen: In short, our approach
is really to consider the cost of delivering athletes in a well-organised
effective governing body programme of excellence. Once we know
that, we then, with the budget we have, shall set the goals accordingly.
Would more money make a difference? We are absolutely confident
it would, if it were targeted at the right systems and processes
and indeed athletes of the capability necessary to bridge the
gap.
Q39 Mr Bacon: On page 12, it refers
to the £68.1 million for the Summer Olympics. On page 15,
paragraph 2.2, it says that £60.6 million of the £83.5
million "... was awarded to national governing bodies to
provide a package of support services to their elite athletes".
Did most of the rest go on administration? There is a £7.5
million difference between that £60.6 million and the money
that went to the governing bodies.
Ms Nicholl: No. The personal awards
are additional to the money which goes to the governing bodies
for their World Class Performance Programmes.
1 Note by witness: The skier shown is Chemmy
Alcott, a British athlete funded by UK Sport who competed in the
2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin. Back
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