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Sport is transformative. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
Sport gives us, really, an opportunity, what I feel, | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
is to dare greatly. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:13 | |
I think the more we can do to show how it can benefit you mentally, | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
physically, emotionally... | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
I mean, for me, it's sport that keeps me healthy and sane | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
in lots of different ways. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
The feeling-good factor is very important. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:27 | |
If you feel good about yourself, then, obviously, | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
there's a bit more of a strut to your step, | 0:00:30 | 0:00:32 | |
and that can aid to positive thinking | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
which is perhaps the most important part of winning at the highest level. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:39 | |
The risk of being physically inactive, | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
in terms of risk of heart disease, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:44 | |
is about the same as the risk of smoking. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
I think exercise is absolutely fundamental for our health | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
and our wellbeing in general, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:32 | |
because if you think about our background, you know, | 0:01:32 | 0:01:36 | |
when we were hunters and gatherers, | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
exercise was absolutely essential part of our life, | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
whereas now a lot of us sit in the office, pretty much all day, | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
with minimal exercise. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:48 | |
People that sit down a lot seem to be getting more heart disease, | 0:01:48 | 0:01:52 | |
more diabetes. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
They seem to have greater obesity, so they're a bit fatter, | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
and the interesting thing is | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
this doesn't seem to be completely offset by being physically active. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
So you go to the gym and you do your half-hour of activity | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
in the evening and that gives you a clear benefit. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
It appears that sitting down a lot is bad, even if you do that. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:13 | |
Our bodies are built of different systems, if you like. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
So the basic frame that we have is our bones, joints, muscles. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:32 | |
They're all designed to move. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:34 | |
Essentially, if we don't move, a lot of that system can seize, | 0:02:34 | 0:02:37 | |
it can be badly conditioned so that when we do move, | 0:02:37 | 0:02:41 | |
we maybe injure ourselves. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:42 | |
And then the second big system we have is our heart and lungs. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:46 | |
That really is the engine. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
We have to keep exercising that muscle | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
because that's what pumps blood around our body. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:53 | |
It brings oxygen into our system, which is just vital. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:57 | |
It's vital for our brain function, | 0:02:57 | 0:02:58 | |
it helps our muscles to operate effectively. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:01 | |
What happens is they have to oxidise fuels, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
and the fuels are carbohydrates, | 0:03:04 | 0:03:05 | |
which are stored in the muscle in the form of glycogen, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
and they're transporting the blood in the form of glucose. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
And fats, and you've got some fats stored in your muscle. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
You've also got fat which is transported in the circulation. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
It's liberated from your fat tissue. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
They need to oxidise these fuels and they need to do that with oxygen. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:22 | |
The oxygen is carried in the blood. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:24 | |
So your heart rate beats faster and that supplies more oxygen | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
to the muscles to enable you to do the work. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
And the third sort of set of things that are going on are | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
largely chemical and some of that's hormonal. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
So the way our hormones are balanced in our body is also | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
affected by how active we are. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
You get quite a significant release of endorphins that | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
bring about a feeling of wellbeing. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
It's during, beyond a certain length of exercise, | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
and then beyond the exercise. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
So you get that real sort of nice warmth, relaxation, feel good. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
Any form of physical activity, whether it's walking the dog | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
or swimming just with your friends once a week or twice a week, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
all of that helps keep yourself healthy. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
I think dancing gives you a lot of joy. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
Remember dancing involves music so it is rhythm, it is tune | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
but a little dancing also is a social activity. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:28 | |
A range of sports, not just team sports, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:30 | |
although teams sports remain very important for a lot of young people, | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
are increasingly looking at health and fitness type, lifestyle, exercise | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
for young people and, increasingly, you see that in schools. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
They're equipped with gyms, not just gym halls. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
So there's been quite a lot of things that have really caused us | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
to reflect on a serious problem and how to solve it | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
and part of that's been, importantly, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
talking to, and involving, young people in some of the solutions. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
In order to get to the top level of either sport or dance, | 0:05:19 | 0:05:25 | |
you have to change your lifestyle. This is not just a set of exercises. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
You do the training consistently throughout many, many years | 0:05:29 | 0:05:34 | |
and this affects how you interact with your friends. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
A lot of athletes are unable to go out with their mates. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:44 | |
Sometimes even birthday celebrations are very downbeat occasions because of the training. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:50 | |
I think I've had three epidurals. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
Which is the funniest thing in the world to have, as a man, | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
because your legs are drunk and you're all right up top, aren't you? | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
So they let me out and I tried to run to my car | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
and my legs were like that, all over the place. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
You didn't play? | 0:06:21 | 0:06:22 | |
Yeah, I had the epidural on a Monday and I played on Tuesday. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
At times, I had my knee drained of fluid on a Friday, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
just before the game, so I could play on the Saturday. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
Maybe I'll limp a little bit when I get older, a lot of people do. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
But I think everybody's proud of trying | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
to help their team-mates in that way. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
This is a guy who was fighting for his life. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
He had a 4% chance of survival when he was diagnosed with cancer. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:55 | |
He was a good cyclist beforehand but when he was able to come back | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
and started competing, he became a great cyclist. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
He admits himself the cancer actually | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
focused his mind a lot more. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
You never want to hope for an injury | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
but I also think it made me stronger mentally | 0:07:08 | 0:07:10 | |
because so many people started putting me down | 0:07:10 | 0:07:12 | |
and saying I wouldn't even make the Olympic team | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
because I was too old, I was over my prime. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
I'm just 18 years old. But it made me want it that much more | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
and I guess I like to prove people wrong, so that's kind of what I did. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:25 | |
But it wasn't even for those people, it was for me. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
I wanted to prove to myself that, even after a serious injury, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
I was able to come back, and not just come back, | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
but come back stronger and be on top of the world. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
It actually takes mental ability to do exercise, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:19 | |
so you're actually triggering nerve cells, | 0:08:19 | 0:08:22 | |
you're triggering responses, | 0:08:22 | 0:08:24 | |
you're making decisions while you're being active, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
and the more complex the skill or sport that you're involved in, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
the more that nervous system is triggered and involved. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
There is some evidence that exercise actually helps | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
develop new neurons in your brain. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:38 | |
They can see that from studies where | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
they do magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
So exercise actually might make you a little bit smarter. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
You respond, adapt, you change the way your mind processes things. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
It becomes faster at doing those things. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
So you actually are training the mind in quite a skilful way | 0:08:52 | 0:08:57 | |
and stimulating those new cells that way. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
I don't know a boxer that I've ever seen that, | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
before the bell for the first round, he thinks he's going to lose. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:21 | |
Now what creates that mentality? | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
It's a belief in yourself. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
And that mentality's not something that you find in a textbook. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:30 | |
It's something, sometimes, you find on the street. Not in the classroom. | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
Sometimes you find it in your living room. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
Sometimes you find it in your church. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
There are different ways, but it does mean the same thing. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
You believe you're invincible. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
After, it sort of clicked and then that was it, | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
I was strong in the head. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:48 | |
I knew I was going to win before I started. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
And it's a brilliant feeling to have. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
Through my own experience, I'm not sure you have to be this completely | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
self-assured, certain person that you're going to be a champion. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:01 | |
I just think that you have to try hard and keep trying, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
and when you get into a negative state, | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
do everything you can to get out of it | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
and stay focused on doing the best you can, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
training well and, hopefully, good things will come of that. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
Sports psychology is effectively part of sports science that takes | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
care of people's thoughts, people's emotions and people's behaviour. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:28 | |
One of the things we'd focused on is that | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
competition really shouldn't be different to training, | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
and not to let the moment overwhelm you. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
So the goal was, in the start gate at the Olympic Games, | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
to turn my head off and let all the work | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
and all the quality training I'd done | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
come into play and just let it happen. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
Being on the start line of the race in the Olympics, | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
so many people have helped me get where I've got to, so many things... | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
So many people and so many resources have helped me on this journey. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:58 | |
So I feel the pressure now, even eight months ahead of the race, | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
that I have to pull it off on the day. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:03 | |
It really has to happen. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:04 | |
So I think sports psychology, to help you deal with that anxiety, | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
and still perform to the best that you can, is crucial. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
One of the most essential sports psychology tool that I use is | 0:11:11 | 0:11:16 | |
the potential of the athletes and, indeed, dancers I work with. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:21 | |
I think that a lot of them perform at the highest level. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:26 | |
A lot of them had very, very successful, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:30 | |
either competitions or performances. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
And it is important for them to be aware that, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:36 | |
when they're facing a very tough competition, | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
to remember "I've done it before and it worked really well before. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:45 | |
"I managed to turn the corner and I can do it again." | 0:11:45 | 0:11:50 | |
One of the areas that's been largely kind of taboo in sport has been | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
around mental health, rather than physical disability or whatever. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
Mental health is, I think, a very kind of tricky area for sport | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
because within sport, there is a very high end of psychology, | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
the will to win, the desire to focus, all of those things | 0:12:16 | 0:12:20 | |
that are mental skills as much as they're physical skills. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
That's probably been the reason why people have been beaten | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
in certain situations or have not been able to cope with | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
a career in sport or in business. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:31 | |
It's something now that is a bit more in the public domain. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
People are a bit more comfortable about coming out and talking to it. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
If you look back, I suppose, 50 years ago, | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
homosexuality was not discussed in public and now is open and why not? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:47 | |
If you're a high-performing athlete, | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
there's a kind of euphoria around what you're doing. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
You're highly concentrated, you often lock yourself away. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
You often kind of lock out contact with wider social groups. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
You stop drinking, you maybe stop socialising. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
So, in lots of ways, | 0:13:02 | 0:13:03 | |
that has to have an impact on your wellbeing as an individual. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:06 | |
It's not uncommon, therefore, as a consequence of that, | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
for high-performing athletes or, indeed, for middle-ranking athletes | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
to begin to take on some of those everyday mental health challenges - | 0:13:13 | 0:13:17 | |
depression, sense of loneliness, sense of isolation, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
sense of actually not feeling strong inside yourself, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
but having to be physically strong, | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
whilst inside you might actually be breaking up. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
It's something that, you know, I probably went through | 0:13:29 | 0:13:35 | |
when I moved over from Australia to Leicester in 2001 | 0:13:35 | 0:13:39 | |
and I was severely homesick and just couldn't get out of bed at all. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:44 | |
I just didn't even want to sort of face the world. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
A lot of it maybe comes from if you're putting too much pressure on yourself, | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
and then it's not quite happening the way that you thought it would | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
and, you know, you start thinking, "Well, is this it?" | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
You know, when you've got family and stuff like that... | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
You know, if you've got a normal job and you come home, | 0:14:07 | 0:14:09 | |
you kind of get them things that feed your soul. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
But when you're sitting in a hotel room | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
and you don't get to see much of them anyway, | 0:14:14 | 0:14:16 | |
that can play on your mind and it was on mine. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
We're all different, some people can handle it better than others, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
but I've realised that that's something that's not going to make me happy and content, | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
so it's just finding that balance and kind of getting a schedule | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
and managing my time right, and getting a bit of everything | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
and, as long as that means you're happy doing what you're doing then that would equal success in my eyes. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:37 | |
Physical activity is one of the few things that has | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
a huge amount of evidence to support it being | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
a very effective intervention to improve mental health. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
And it doesn't need to be sport. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:47 | |
Any kind of physical activity is seen to be good for mental health. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
The Olympics is a fabulous thing to bring, the only time, probably, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
in our lifetime we'll see it in London, or in England. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
Unfortunately for us, the Olympics has coincided with | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
a period of huge recessionary problems for the country - lack of money, lack of investment - | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
and the Government's hands, I suppose, are tied | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
because this is a time, on the back of the Olympics, | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
what we should be doing is pumping millions of pounds | 0:15:50 | 0:15:54 | |
into school sports, grassroots sports, to encourage, to build. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
We can't just suddenly think, | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
"I watched the 5,000 metres on TV | 0:16:00 | 0:16:02 | |
"and I'm going to be a 5,000 metre runner." | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
There has to be a structure. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
People I can think of, it's really encouraged them | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
to take an interest in sport. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:23 | |
People have booked tickets to go and see things | 0:16:23 | 0:16:25 | |
that they would never, ever normally go and see | 0:16:25 | 0:16:27 | |
and I hope that that would have a positive effect in perhaps | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
encouraging people to try something themselves, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
become a bit more active themselves, | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
bring a lot more role models to the forefront in the country | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
that will hopefully encourage and inspire young people | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
and people across the generations to try things. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
What we do know is that, in the past, | 0:16:43 | 0:16:44 | |
there's not much evidence to suggest that that actually happens. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:48 | |
In Manchester, for example, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:49 | |
less people were doing physical activity there after the event | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
than there were before, and inequalities, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
that is the difference between the rich and poor within Manchester, | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
had widened after the 2002 Commonwealth Games. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
It's an enormous responsibility, running these major events, and, | 0:17:01 | 0:17:04 | |
therefore, requires a degree of what I would say legacy-consciousness. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:10 | |
What I mean by that is really thinking about how | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
everything that we do as a major event organiser, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:17 | |
how can we impact on the future prosperity | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
of the communities that we're working in? | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
And how can we make things, essentially, better? | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
A large amount of money, over £9 billion, | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
has been spent on providing new sports stadia, | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
providing other kinds of infrastructure | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
in the East End of London and I'm sure much of that is to be welcomed. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
What's less clear, though, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
is what is good for the actual population of the East End of London. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
Not much of that money is actually spent on the kinds of facilities | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
that would be of use to local people. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
A large number of the facilities are really aimed at elite athletes | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
rather than participation in sport, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
or just participation in physical activity. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
Those venues that we are building are, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
and the infrastructure projects, are communally relevant, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:02 | |
communally active and are open to the public | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
and the general neighbourhoods that they're being built in, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
well before the Games actually start. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
So the legacy really is starting before the Games. It's started now. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:17 | |
There is a trend whereby big sports events like this | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
get held in brownfield sites. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
That's sites that were, perhaps, in the past used for industry | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
and they were left behind and are lying derelict now. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
These sports events are used | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
almost as a regeneration tool for these areas. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:45 | |
The question, really, has to be, what could have been done with the money | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
spent on the Olympics if that was to be diverted to regeneration schemes? | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
Challenging ourselves for local community benefit is | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
absolutely something that is in our ethos, | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
and already, to this day, 83% of the contracts that have been | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
awarded to Games-related business have been from the local community. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:09 | |
So that's already having an impact. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:11 | |
There's a lot of things do help us to develop sport economically, | 0:19:11 | 0:19:16 | |
things like the Mountain Bike World Cup - huge event, | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
large numbers of people travel to Fort William to see that. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:22 | |
They spend money in shops around the area, buying food, drink, | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
you know, just gifts. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:27 | |
They also stay over in bed and breakfast accommodation, hotels etc. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:31 | |
They buy their petrol in the area. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:33 | |
So those major sporting events can be a really big, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
important part of our economy. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
I think, with something like the Paralympics, | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
you have to look beyond the purely economic because, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
what, in lots of ways, you're dealing with | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
is issues of portrayal as well. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
You're looking to actually challenge orthodox images of how | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
disabled talent is actually treated in the UK and you're looking, also, | 0:19:56 | 0:20:00 | |
to put on, in this case, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
on a world stage people of amazing calibre as performers and athletes. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:08 | |
Obviously the Blade Runner, Oscar Pistorius, | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
who'll be running in the Olympics probably, | 0:20:11 | 0:20:14 | |
and definitely in the Paralympics, | 0:20:14 | 0:20:16 | |
you're looking there at something that's world-class, | 0:20:16 | 0:20:18 | |
of immense quality, and, therefore, | 0:20:18 | 0:20:21 | |
to see that as being second best is actually something of the past. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:24 | |
I think the Paralympics will be a huge success. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
There is some evidence to suggest that being a host country | 0:20:39 | 0:20:43 | |
makes it more likely that you'll win medals. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
I'm quite patriotic and, yeah, if you ask most riders, | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
from a patriotic country, the likes of England, Australia and the US, | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
it is a big thing, especially being in London. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
I'm massively excited about it. | 0:20:57 | 0:20:59 | |
It's on a great course and we should have a great team there. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
And, obviously, it's the first medal on offer at the Olympics | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
so I'm quite excited | 0:21:08 | 0:21:10 | |
to try and get Great Britain's account opened with a gold medal. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
We did what's called a health impact assessment in Glasgow | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
when we went and asked the communities around the city | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
what kind of aspirations they had for their own city from the event. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:37 | |
The biggest thing that people wanted to see and the biggest thing they | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
wanted to derive from the event was a sense of pride in the city. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:43 | |
They wanted to be proud of a city that had once been proud | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
because of its industrial heritage, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
but had seen the city decline for a number of reasons. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
And that's what people are crying out for. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
It was interesting last year at a big World Cup race. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
I had an energy gel just before the start of the race. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
It was really gooey and sticky and left a horrible taste in your mouth. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
I had no water on my bike and there was a bottle of water | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
at the side of the road with someone stood next to it. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
I asked for a swig of the water, | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
had the water, did my race and, after, somebody said, | 0:22:48 | 0:22:50 | |
"I saw what you did at the start of the race there. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
"You should never, ever, ever do that. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:55 | |
"You don't know what could be in that water." | 0:22:55 | 0:22:57 | |
Some sports, you know, | 0:22:57 | 0:22:58 | |
will forever be scarred with the effects of ethical issues, | 0:22:58 | 0:23:04 | |
such as doping and it takes, sometimes, | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
a lifetime to change perceptions. | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
Cycling's at the forefront of anti-doping, you know. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:12 | |
There's more tests in this sport than any other sport. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:14 | |
With more tests, you catch more people. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
There's cheats in every aspect of sport, every aspect of life, | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
and if you put the time, money and effort | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
into catching cheats, you'll catch them. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
Cycling does that so, technically, | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
you could say cycling's the cleanest sport. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
What gets me more frustrated is the ignorant, close-minded | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
view of that, you know. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
"Oh, cycling? They're all cheats." | 0:23:33 | 0:23:35 | |
Well... | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
we're not. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:38 | |
The worst thing now for athletics is every time we see someone run | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
a tenth of a second faster, | 0:23:41 | 0:23:43 | |
the first thought in your mind is, "What's he on?" | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
It's quite an interesting topic in para-sport, as it gets called, | 0:23:45 | 0:23:49 | |
because if you have to take a drug for medical or therapeutic reasons, | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
you get what's called a therapeutic use exemption form. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
So there's people that I race against who are on | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
very significant amounts of morphine, painkillers, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
all sorts of drugs, some which are very much stimulants, | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
which they're allowed to be on for medical reasons. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
And you have to question how beneficial that might also be, | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
that they can push through pain barriers | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
that other people can't push through. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
How might it be affecting their performance? | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
Because it affects the fundamental integrity of the sport, | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
I think the warning signs have to be, and the penalties have to be, | 0:24:23 | 0:24:27 | |
so draconian, that it forgoes the idea of | 0:24:27 | 0:24:31 | |
"he's paid his price" because | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
the damage has not been paid for. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
So, therefore, zero tolerance. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
Life ban. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:39 | |
I played at teams where they've spat at me. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
Gone to get the ball out of the crowd and they spat in your face. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
I think we're all responsible for each other's actions, | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
be it as a fan in an audience or be it on the football pitch. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
We have to expect that whatever we do also passes on to others. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:09 | |
I think it doesn't matter what environment that's in, | 0:25:09 | 0:25:14 | |
it becomes a collective and so, you know, | 0:25:14 | 0:25:18 | |
if we're responsible out in the streets and we pick up litter, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
other people respect the environment and so it passes on. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:25 | |
So I think you can be held up as a role model as a footballer, | 0:25:25 | 0:25:30 | |
but who's the role model for the crowd? | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
I was at a game quite recently between the team I support, | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
St Johnstone, and another Premier League team, Kilmarnock. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
Now, Kilmarnock have a player, Dean Shiels, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:40 | |
who's actually got one eye. He had an eye accident as a child. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
And a small group of St Johnstone fans were chanting, | 0:25:43 | 0:25:47 | |
actually quite crassly, about this guy having one eye. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
Other St Johnstone fans turned on them and started to tell them | 0:25:50 | 0:25:53 | |
to shut up and stop disgracing the club and that. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
I think people are getting more and more... | 0:25:55 | 0:25:58 | |
that there's a duty for you not to just humiliate somebody | 0:25:58 | 0:26:00 | |
cos he happens to play in a different football team. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
There's always been this sense of, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
almost like a kind of apartheid culture where women's sport | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
was seen as disproportionately less good than male sport. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
But I think that when you see a competition at the highest end, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
if you look at something like the women's 4x100 metres or | 0:26:25 | 0:26:29 | |
the Jamaican sprint teams, or the women's tour in tennis, | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
you're talking about things of a really, really high standard. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
I think the idea that there will always be this disjuncture between | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
"men are good and women less good" is actually beginning to disappear. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
I think in the United Kingdom there certainly isn't the same | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
tradition of covering all female sports. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
And I do think this is something that is territory-specific. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
If you go to other countries in the world, you will see massive interest | 0:27:01 | 0:27:06 | |
in women's events, whether that's football, rugby, netball. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:11 | |
What we invest in covering any sport has to bear | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
some relationship to the audience that's going to turn up for that. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:20 | |
Women-only sport, when it's played out on the television in the UK, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
is not something that tends to drive big numbers of viewers. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:30 | |
Coverage of sporting events is very expensive by and large, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
and the audience expect a sophisticated level of coverage, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:39 | |
so it's difficult just to suddenly decide to | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
use two cameras in place of 12 or 14. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
It will look like a shoddy and inferior product if you do that, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
and it would do a disservice to whatever sport you're covering. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
The one area where it's fundamentally disappearing | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
is in American collegiate sport where, if you looked at soccer, | 0:28:00 | 0:28:04 | |
which is perhaps more of a sport for women in America, | 0:28:04 | 0:28:07 | |
this is something that, at college level, is phenomenally successful. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
Corporate sponsors are into it, | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
the branded sportswear companies are aware of it. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
So, therefore, simply more value is being poured into it | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
and, as more value's poured into it, then standards rise. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:43 | 0:28:46 |