Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2007
MR PETER
KING, MR
CHRIS BOARDMAN
MBE, MR ED
WARNER, MR
DAVID SPARKES
AND MR
IAN MASON
OBE
Chairman: Good morning, everybody. This
is the first of several hearings which the Committee is holding
to check up on the progress for the preparations for the London
2012 Games. I would like to welcome, first of all, Peter King
and Chris Boardman of British Cycling, Ed Warner of UK Athletics,
and David Sparkes and Ian Mason from British Swimming.
Q1 Mr Hall: One
of the yardsticks we set for a successful Olympics is the number
of medals that we actually win. On your shoulders, gentlemen,
rests a lot of the national pridecycling, athletics and
swimming. Do you think it is appropriate we should use this as
a yardstick for a successful Olympicsthe number of medals
we actually win?
Mr Boardman: I think it is appropriate
that that is ultimately how we will be judged. If you set out
a stall to achieve something then you are more likely to achieve
that. I think it is probably the only way that we can ultimately
measure our success.
Q2 Mr Hall: The
Sydney Olympics were judged a success and then we got a couple
more medals in Athens. If we are going to be coming fourth in
2012 and we want to be eighth next year in Beijing are these targets
actually achievable?
Mr Boardman: I think they are
very challenging. I do think they are achievable but it is going
to be quite close, frankly. There is perhaps possibly an over-reliance
on three sports at the momentcycling, sailing and rowing
in particular. There is a lot of expectation around those sports.
That is a particular challenge for our sport.
Q3 Mr Hall: We
are looking for a much better performance next year in swimming,
are we not? Is that on the cards?
Mr Sparkes: I think the reality
is that we are very much on-track for a substantial performance
in 2012, and that remains our long-term goal; but the reality
is that we are facing in Beijing a massive challenge. Just to
give you some ideawe will be facing about 160 nations in
the swimming pool. We have seen recently at the World Championships
a massive re-emergence of the Americans who got themselves back
organised in the swimming pool. Any of you who watched Olympics
many years ago will have seen the Americans dominate in the swimming
pool. The Chinese are a massive swimming nation. The Japanese
will not want to be seen to be stepping back from that. The Koreans
are investing enormous sums of money into the swimming pool. Swimming
is truly a world sport, and I would guess that, very similar to
athletics, we face a massive challenge, and every medal we win
will be hard-fought for, but we are hopeful. We have got more
youngsters in the medal zone than we have had for many a year,
but getting onto the podium is extremely difficult to predict.
Q4 Mr Hall: This
year's World Championships has 41 medals. That gives us quite
a good springboard, does it not, to move forward in Beijing next
year, in Olympic disciplines?
Mr Warner: In all disciplines
absolutely. Going back to your first question there are two things
I would say to you: first of all, you have to realise that the
medals table is very specifically gold-medal ranked. Looking at
it absurdly, you could get 100 silver medals and no gold medals
and appear halfway down the medal table and you could have done
incredibly well. It is not a very elegant measure. Fourth in the
medal table is fine to aspire to but that is a very narrow way
to judge the success of Olympic sports. Secondly, will the Olympics
be a great Olympics? Every summer, as long as it does not rain,
we tend to have a fantastic fortnight at Wimbledon with hardly
any British success and people come away saying, "That was
a great Wimbledon". London 2012 will consist of two things;
one is, is it a great show, yes or no? I think it will be. It
will be an even better show if we get British medals as well.
I think it is more than just medal delivery in 2012. We need medal
delivery in a great show.
Q5 Mr Hall: I
agree with that. Finally, and this relates to how we are doing
in the Paralympics, we are extremely successful in the Paralympic
Games yet we are still aiming to be second. Should we not be a
bit more ambitious and aim to overtake China?
Mr Mason: The British Swimming
Paralympic Team were top of the World Championships in December
in South Africa, but the key message coming away from that event
was the emergence of new countries; because people are now beginning
to wake up to Paralympic sport in terms of investment. The United
States, which was a sleeping giant in swimming, made tremendous
strides forward in terms of the medal count, and in fact came
second to us by only one gold medal; that is how close it was.
Going forward to Beijing, we anticipate disability swimming to
be in the top three because we see China as emerging as a country
which has previously not had a record in this area. With the vastness
of the country and the home games, we actually think China will
be the team to beat come Beijing.
Q6 Mr Hall: Is
that across the pieceathletics as well?
Mr Warner: In terms of China,
absolutely. Tanni Grey-Thompson, whom we all know of, is joining
the Board of UK Athletics at my invitation as a non-executive
director, and I was talking to her about this recently. She had
been on a trip to Beijing and was amazed at, frankly, the number
of disabled athletes that are being brought through the system
there. I think there are specific challenges in the UK, and one
of the things we are very keen to do is to work, for example,
much more closely with the Armed Forces in converting injured
soldiers coming back from Iraq and from Afghanistan into athletes.
I think there are some challenges there with regard to the Armed
Forces not necessarily wanting to publicise the number of injured
soldiers coming back, but we have to look for our Paralympians
where we can find them. There is a challenge there of identification
and then of convergence into athletes and training. I do believe
that UK Sport and Lottery funding gives us sufficient resources
to do that work, but a lot of it is about talent identification.
Q7 Mr Sanders:
How do you ensure that the money (and there is never, ever enough
for sport) is directed into the right areas, and is not directed
into chasing medals?
Mr Boardman: I think that is really
about definition of the goal from the word go. It is actually
defining what you want as a return and then measuring that particular
sporting body against it. That is pretty much how we have taken
it.
Q8 Mr Sanders:
Who should define that, Government, a funding body or the sport
itself?
Mr Boardman: Perhaps that is not
for me to answer. I would suggest it is a consultation between
both parties. If I was handing over money I would specify quite
clearly what I wanted in return.
Mr Sparkes: My position on this
is quite straightforward coming from swimming. I believe that
swimming can contribute significantly to the medal tally. We have
a significant number of shots at the podium in a swimming pool
in the Olympics and in the Paralympics; and I think we have demonstrated
we have the capacity to get onto the podium, as tough as it is
to get there.
Q9 Mr Sanders:
Which would you prefer? Would you prefer one medal winner, or
a thousand swimmers?
Mr Sparkes: The answer is: I want
both.
Q10 Mr Sanders:
You cannot have both.
Mr Sparkes: At the end of the
day, to answer the question, we also have a responsibility as
a sport to actually deliver more people having more fun in the
swimming pool more often. I think we are working hard on that
agenda. Some of the work we are doing in terms of the everyday
swimming project which we are doing with Sport England (and reports
on where we have got to on that have been circulated to all MPs)
show considerable success in changing the culture in the pool,
getting more people swimming and getting more people sticking
with swimming. I think that is really important. To my mind it
is not just about medals and/or; it is about doing both. I see
no difficulty in achieving both. They are not necessarily in some
people's eyes good bedfellows. Some people are very focussed on
medals and our coaches are probably in that area; but we have
got an awful lot of people who are focussed on getting more people
swimming more often.
Mr Warner: I agree entirely. We
have to aspire to have both. There are two pots of public funding
that come into all of our sports: one through the National Sports
Council, Sport England and so on; and the other is Lottery funding
for our elite athletes. We have clearly heard a lot from Sport
England about the risk of funding being cut for our participation
programmes. We have to fight very hard to retain that or find
other sources of income to sustain it. For us it is jargon but
there is an athlete pathway which starts in the playground and
hopefully ends up on the podium. If you starve that pathway of
talent coming in at the playground level and developing then you
are not going to get your podium athletes of the future. We talk
about a legacy from London 2012, that has to be many more people
participating in sport and for athletics. I want lots of people
to go jogging for health and fitness purposes, sure, but I actually
want people participating in track and field in athletics as a
sport and not just as a recreational health discipline. We have
to do all we can to take 2012 and make that an inspiration to
people to want to go to a club to throw things, to run, and to
jump; and not just to go for a jog to keep fit.
Mr King: Cycling is a clear example
of the fact that you can have both. We have had success in Sydney
and success in Athens, and during that period of time the number
of people taking part in competitive cycling has gone up by 60%.
Mr Boardman: We have actually
had a programme of testing in schools as well to bring people
into the sport and then into talent clubs. The last figures I
can recall were 15,000 school children were tested in a single
year. With those rises in cycling participation we only actually
have two feasible tracks, one in Newport and one in Manchester,
to achieve that. We have a participation part on the disability
side which we think is very important as well. It is an integral
part of what we do. They actually train with the able-bodied;
they use the same equipment by and large. We are top in the medal
table there as well, so I think it is possible to service all
areas.
Q11 Chairman:
Looking at swimming, I attended a launch you had here last week
where you brought along Duncan Goodhew, who plainly is a role
model but he is now a slightly ancient role model. It is a long
time since we had a household name as a British swimming champion.
Why are we not doing better at swimming?
Mr Sparkes: I want to answer that
historicallywhy are we not doing betterto be honest
with you there are a number of factors in that. Number one, I
think we certainly did lose our way a little bit. We did not have
adequate funding. We did not have sufficient 50-metre pools, and
you have probably heard me say that a few times. It is very difficult
to train Olympic champions, and we did not get enough access to
the 50-metre pools that we have got at affordable prices. The
whole thing was a little bit of a mish-mash. What we have now
done is built what I believe is a very sustainable system, whereby
we are now developing around the new 50-metre pools the opportunity
for affordable access where we can get good coaches into that
environment so that youngsters can come through. The last gold
medallist we had was Adrian Moorhouse who came from Leeds if you
recall, a Bradford boy. At the end of the day what we need are
more Adrian Moorhouses. What we have developed without doubt is
a whole raft of young talent that is very close to the podium.
We now believe that we have got adequate funding and adequate
systems in places and, I have to say, some exceptional world-class
coaches, and they have now got to convert those finalists into
medallists, which is what we all want. That takes time and you
cannot do it in a day, not when there are another 160 nations
all wanting to do it at the same time. The trick is that you need
the talent, you need the coaches and you need the pools. I believe
we are on the right road and it just will take time.
Q12 Chairman:
Swimming was the one discipline where at Athens there did not
appear to be a target for medals at all and yet you actually came
back with two. What is the target for Beijing?
Mr Sparkes: Four.
Q13 Chairman:
Are you confident?
Mr Mason: As confident as we can
be within the context that David has set of 160 nations. Just
exemplifying what David has said, in March we were down at the
Australian Institute of Sport specifically to see the new swimming
training centre and this epitomises what we are up against. This
was a dedicated, high-tech training facility on a no-compromise
basis. No public access; no student access; a three-metre, ten-lane
pool with 26 analysis cameras purely dedicated to success on the
international stage. This is a country that is relatively small
in comparison to the UK, and they now reckon that to keep ahead
of all other countries bar America they must invest in quality
daily training facilities in sports science and sports medicine
and that is the bit we have still to get to. Big improvement because
of the vast investment in the last few years but in swimming terms
(and I cannot speak for other sports) we are a mile off having
excellent daily training facilities across the board which is
required for international success.
Q14 Alan Keen:
Could I ask about cycling. I was at Herne Hill in 1948 watching
Ed Salas beating the Italians so it goes back a long way with
me. I was at Windsor Great Park watching the road race in 1948
and that was an amazing sight. In those days cycling was a massive
sport as there were not many cars about. There are not many tracks
now, are there?
Mr Boardman: Two. We have numerous
outdoor facilities, but indoor Olympic comparable facilities we
have Newport and Manchester.
Q15 Alan Keen:
We have seen a tremendous upsurge, certainly in central London,
with lots of people cycling who did not use to cycle before. There
cannot be any way that is fed into the competitive sport, presumably?
Where do the young cyclists come from? I am speaking as somebody
who lives in London and sees no sign of competitive cycling obviously.
How do you get youth fed into competitive cycling?
Mr King: As you said there about
all the people you see cycling in London that can actually be
fed into the competitive cycling arena. We have a programme called
Everyday Cycling and it is all about taking people who
are already on their bikes for one reason or another and actually
bringing them into the structured programmes which lead right
the way through as a continuous pathway to the medal level. That
is a programme that has been funded by Sport England. We are not
yet confident that it will be funded going forward but actually
it is the base of our pyramid in terms of your ordinary everyday
cyclist. In terms of the children coming through, we have a lot
of programmes where we physically go into the schools; we take
the equipment with us; and we introduce the schools, through our
coaches, to the joys of cycling; teach them the skills and transfer
them through a programme called Go Ride into elementary
cyclists and elementary competitive cyclists. Cycling is a very
tough sport and it is a very long road to take people through
from just riding a bike to actually becoming competitive cyclists.
Mr Boardman: That pathway is in
place. We have talent team coaches who are our talent scouts.
They liaise with those affiliated clubs, the clubs that have a
coach there and they have the facilities to be able to get that
designation as a Go Ride club, so we have that link from
playing field all the way through.
Q16 Alan Keen:
Is it a good link between the cycling clubs and the schools? Is
it structured?
Mr King: It is a good link in
some areas. We have an accreditation programme for the clubs and
the better clubs link well with the schools and local communities.
We are trying to expand that as fast as we can.
Q17 Alan Keen:
How important is the Olympics for cycling? You have, in a way,
punched above your weight in cycling as far as medals go. We have
been very proud of you and others. How important is the Olympics?
Does it inspire a lot of people to get into competitive cycling?
Mr Boardman: I think it is our
advertisement. It is our shop window and really that shows people
what we can aspire to. Certainly with that level of successand
we are quite expecting that to increase at the next Gamessuccess
does breed success. It is an old adage but it is actually true
because it shows the juniors coming up (and because of the limited
facilities we train in Manchester and today the youngsters are
often integrated into senior teams) all the way through there
is genuine belief that if I work at this I will get where I need
to go, and it seems to be working.
Q18 Alan Keen:
What do you really need? As far as medals are concerned you are
one of the top sports, certainly in the Olympics and World Championships.
What do you need to compete with swimming, rugby and football
really? There is no reason why the whole population cannot have
a chance to be fed through into competitive cycling. What else
do you need?
Mr Boardman: Perhaps I can answer
from one end and you can answer from the other. From the performance
perspective coaching-wise and everything else, we have got what
we need now. What we are really short of probably, certainly not
what you want to hear, are facilities. We have got two facilities,
and they are fantastic and working at capacity but we are competing
for space on the Manchester track with the Olympic team training
and the local schools. You want to serve both and we cannot do
it. We have facilities but they are working at capacity which
is great but that is one thing that we need.
Mr King: It is facilities all
the way down, actually. It is not just facilities for the elite
to train on, but facilities for people you see riding down the
streets and the kids coming out of the schools, to actually go
and cycle somewhere safely. We have very, very few closed road
circuits, off-road circuits, even outdoor tracks. We use all that
we have to the full. Unfortunately we are the one sport that has
suffered because of the London 2012 Games because we have lost
the most heavily-used facility we had which is now being redeveloped.
That is fine because, going back to your earlier question, for
us the Olympic Games is absolutely fundamental. London 2012 is
the biggest opportunity we will have in our lifetime to take sport
out to the people and change the whole culture which surrounds
it. We are very up for doing that and we know there are more people
riding bikes today than there are swimming or running, so we have
a bigger pool of available talent than probably any of the other
sports; it is just how we tap that and bring them into our sphere
of influence.
Q19 Mr Evans:
How would you best describe our performance in Athens as far as
athletics was concerned?
Mr Warner: I think one athlete
and one amazing performance by the men's 4 x 100 relay acted as
something of a fig leaf for overall a disappointing Games, although
clearly I only joined UK Athletics this year so it is just looking
back. Kelly Holmes and that relay squad did fantastically, but
it did not bode well at that point for the future of British elite
athletics; so we are working off that base really. I think that
tells you a number of things about all the sports that we are
helping to manage. One of those things is that the dividing line
between what is perceived to be a success and a failure is incredibly
fine. We go back to the question earlier about medals tables and
so onit is a very fine dividing line all the way down.
The inheritance of Niels de Vos my Chief Executive and me when
we came in this year is of an improving sport from a base which
I think we would all agree is unacceptably low.
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