Olympic Spark: Fire Up Your Future

My name is Samantha Murray and I am a modern pentathlete.

The earliest memory I have is riding my tricycle

when I was about four years old.

My mum and my grandma were just good female role models.

I look at my early years growing up on the farm. That shaped me

and that made me ready for things to be thrown at me.

I was a member of the Brownies and we had a swimming gala.

I hadn't had many swimming lessons,

but I got in the pool and my arms

spun about as fast as possible,

and I got to the end

and I won the race!

And my mum said that Brown Owl

literally went, "Aah!"

cos she couldn't believe it,

that I'd just kind of got some rocket hidden up my costume or something.

I think it was obvious then that I wasn't just full of energy,

in trouble and a pretty gutsy girl,

I was also really competitive

and I liked the competitive environment.

I was going to the swimming club, was into running,

loved the horses and horse-riding,

and the running coach said, "You know, if you come fencing with us,

"you can do a pentathlon at the end of summer."

And I loved it.

And then at the award ceremony at the end of the day,

there was a poster of a woman crossing a finish line,

really muscular, like, strong-looking woman.

That lady is called Dr Steph Cook and she won the gold medal

in the modern pentathlon in the Sydney Olympics.

And then, that was it, she was like my inspiration.

And I remember my mum sent me this letter.

She said on the front, "Open this when you feel like you most need it,"

and inside, she'd put in pictures of me when I was a little girl,

um, at the farm just messing about,

and it... Oh!

..it was like...

just cos I'm going to the Olympics and doing my dream, I'm still me.

Samantha Murray.

Quite a surprise to some people,

so many highly-ranked women

modern pentathletes in this country.

The fencing, for me, was like... if I could do a good score,

I'd definitely be able to make the podium,

and I think that's why walking into the hall, I was really scared.

Sam doesn't want to be rushed into doing something

that she might regret, but she gets that touch.

Next, we went to the swimming pool

and I felt a little bit drained, a bit tired.

Take your marks...

I came second in the swim,

and this is when we knew that we were rocking and rolling

and there was a medal that was possibly going to come.

It was the riding next,

so nerve-racking, 24,000 people

watching you on a horse.

And then I thought, "No, Samantha, come on, focus, ride,"

and then I was like, "OK, right turn to the next fence."

Two fences down

and 20 time faults as well.

I got through the riding

and I was kind of in fourth place

after the ride, and then we were

going into the combined event

of run and shoot. I'm ready to run, but at the same time,

I'm ready to pick up my pistol.

It's all about combining precision

with power and speed,

which is quite difficult to do.

So every time I hit the target, the crowd would chant,

"One, two, three,

"four, five... Wahey!"

That really lifted me,

it kept me really fighting.

And when she re-enters the arena

here in Greenwich,

you will hear the crowd roar her home.

It's going to be a silver medal

for Great Britain!

Samantha Murray, 22 years old,

a true Lancashire lass.

I crossed the line and, yeah, I'd done it,

I'd got what I came for. I'd got the medal, and...

it's going to be here forever,

for the rest of time, that it's mine.

Don't limit your opportunities. Don't do something just because

your friends are doing it, or cos it's cool, or because it's easy.

Do something that motivates you and actually, somewhere inside you,

really inspires you and makes you feel excited.

My name is Etienne Stott, I'm a canoe slalomist,

and I won the gold medal in the London Olympics

with my crewmate, Tim Bailey.

This is looking good for Great Britain.

Tight in, and you see Etienne at the back

putting the power down as they turn the bow, back down,

one gate to go.

When I was younger, I always remember being quite lively,

but also kind of shy and a little bit uncomfortable with people.

I wasn't in the cool gang, for sure.

I think when I was a kid, everyone's looking to try and find

the sort of person that they want to be,

and the sort of person that you are,

it is you, but you can also add things onto that

and make yourself into a slightly different person.

When I got involved with canoeing, I met a lot of people

who I really liked and I thought they were really sound,

cool and interesting people and they were living a life that

I suppose I could see myself living.

Canoeing on white water is a dynamic environment,

there's a lot of power, and it can be dangerous, you know.

There is white water even now that I would look at and think,

"There's no way I'm going down that!"

One of the cool things about canoe slalom is that

it's a time-trial race, we're not racing in lanes,

head-to-head, against each other,

we're basically racing against the rapid.

So in that way, it kind of sets us free.

It's not about beating your competitors,

it's about actually doing your best

and putting your best out onto the racecourse,

and if you can do that, you know that you'll be successful.

I just wanted to do something that was going to take me on a journey,

I suppose, you know, absorb my energy and absorb my interest.

So I remember one of my early memories in...

in canoeing was when we were going on our Scout camp,

our annual Scout camp, and they let us go down this little rapid,

a little gravelly shoal rapid.

My Scout leader Tim said to me,

"Oh, man, you were brilliant out there, you must be a natural,

"it must be your Canadian blood. You really know which way to paddle."

My mum is Canadian, so I am half-Canadian.

It kind of went in my mind and I was like, "Wow, that's cool,

"you know, I did actually go down that rapid, I can do this.

"I could be good at this, and he thinks I'm good."

And that sort of flicked a little switch in my mind

and kind of encouraged me and I suppose inspired me, really.

And that really did change my life at that point.

In training, we crashed into an obstacle

and the force tore my shoulder from its socket

and dislocated my shoulder joint.

It's a very, very painful injury

and it's also very, very serious for a canoeist and kayakist.

At that point, all our plans that we'd made

going towards the London Olympics just kind of...

disappeared, went up in smoke.

Great Britain are flying here,

no penalties whatsoever.

Valiant Stott,

through the finish line, 106.41!

So amazingly, it turned out, you know,

I managed to win one of these that day,

but 18 months before, it looked like it was going to be impossible.

Olympic champions in Canoe Slalom.

And I suppose this gold medal is so special because we won it,

but a lot of people really helped us,

so it's divided into lots and lots of small pieces

and a lot of people own a little piece of this,

and I think that's what's so cool about it.

Sometimes, you come to a wave and it kicks you one way,

and sometimes, you seem to come to that exact same wave

in the same way and it kicks you the other,

but you're always trying to react to the rapid

and react to the river in a way that gives you the best outcome.

That's why I think it is a little bit like life, in some ways,

that sort of idea of trying to do your absolute best at something,

and also, the idea of learning from everything that you do.

So if it turns out good or bad or absolutely terrible,

I always try and, you know, notice that little thought

and that little noise in my mind and say to myself,

actually, nobody knows the future, so it doesn't matter

where you are at that point, it's where you think you could be,

or where you have the imagination to end up.

My name's Gemma Gibbons, I'm an Olympic judo player

and I fight in the weight category under 78 kilograms.

I grew up in Charlton, in Greenwich, in South-East London,

and that's where I've lived my whole life.

It was just me and my mum growing up.

When I was young, I had a lot of energy

and I was running around all the time,

and I think that's why my mum took me to judo,

to probably get me to waste a bit of that energy

so I was a bit more calm when I was at home.

Go on, Gemma!

When I first went to the judo club, I was actually really shy,

but as soon as I stepped on the mat, I loved it,

and couldn't wait to get to go back each week.

Go on, Gemma!

My mum was my biggest supporter, she always took me to training,

went to all my competitions with me,

and then sadly, when I was 17, she died of cancer.

I'm actually the first Judo Great Britain Olympic medallist

in 12 years, and actually, funnily enough,

the person who won the last Olympic medal for Great Britain in Judo

was a lady called Kate Howey, who's actually my coach.

Kate's a massive inspiration.

When I was younger, she was the person that I looked up to,

the person that I wanted to be like, the person who I'd get excited

if they were in my magazine,

and if I ever saw, her I would've been really, really excited.

I think it's really important to have role models, it was brilliant

having Kate as a role model growing up, she definitely was to me,

and I know for thousands of other young girls and boys

around the country. I don't feel like a role model,

but I also know that I probably am,

and I just hope that I do a good job of being one.

Judo's a sport which originated in Japan, it's about...

Everything in judo is about technique, it's about power,

it's about strength, speed, and agility.

Judo is one of the only sports where you need

every physical attribute going to be good at it.

I think it's really hard when people have high expectations of you,

because you don't want to let yourself down

or let anyone else down. But going into the Games,

I wasn't expected to win, but I knew if I fought my best

and gave it everything, we could come away with a win.

And in the quarter-finals,

I faced a girl from Holland.

Again, at the time, she was in the top ten in the world, I was ranked

42nd in the world, and I managed to go out there and win.

It was a great feeling to make the semi-final.

It was a pretty close fight, at the end of the five minutes

and still no score, so it went into something called golden score.

Is this Gemma Gibbons' moment?

Golden score - it's the first score,

as small as it is, as big as it is,

as soon as that score's scored, that person wins.

-Oh, yes!

-She's done it!

I don't think I ever imagined that I would be in a semi-final

and win and be on my way to an Olympic final.

I'd imagined it since a young age.

I try not to think of my mum on competition days,

cos obviously, it's something that makes me feel sad,

but after I got through to the Olympic final,

I was just overcome with different emotions

and it was something that just came out, that I said,

"I love you, Mum."

When my mum died, I realised just how much your parents do for you

and I just wanted to say, thank you and I love you.

The Olympic final definitely could've gone the other way,

but I'm just really happy that

I was lucky enough for my judo

to come off at the right time,

because there's a lot of people out there

that are as good as...

at judo as me, probably better,

and unfortunately, that day wasn't their day, and they didn't

come away with a medal, so I feel really lucky that I did.

What I'd say, probably - don't moan as much,

cos I did definitely love a moan when I was younger,

and although the majority of the time, I did try my hardest,

there were times when I didn't, and I'd just like to say to myself

to always try your best,

cos then you can never be upset with yourself.

My name is Carl Hester, I'm from the island of Sark,

in the Channel Islands.

Dressage means to train a horse,

and that actually goes back to

when we used to use horses for fighting in war,

and they were trained in some of these movements

to help the riders get out of a situation

where they might be killed.

I'm from Sark, which is an island in the Channel Islands,

very small, 600 people live there,

and it's only 3.5 miles long

and 1.5 miles wide.

My school was just literally one room.

There was 22 of us in that room

and we had one teacher, and that teacher taught us all subjects.

We would finish school at 3:30 on Sark

and we would be down the beach and often picking up a donkey

that I used to ride on the way, and we used to lead this donkey

down to the beach, and without anyone knowing,

my friend and I would charge ten pence a ride on this donkey,

so we could make some pocket money.

We used to do that for a bit of fun,

and that was our after-school entertainment.

I was very much inspired by my grandmother.

When my gran said to me, "You're going to England

"and you are going to really follow your dream,

"because you cannot do that in a small place like this,"

I came to England for a week's work experience.

I was totally blown away.

I had never been in stables, I had never been around horses

that were pampered by lots of people.

All of our horses, where I come from, lived in fields

and didn't see brushes, didn't see shampoo.

When you turn out a horse, if you're competing,

presentation is so important.

Grand Prix is the top end of my sport

and not every horse is actually going to be able to make that level.

What we're working on is teaching them

that they go in a straight line

when you tell them to go in a straight line.

When we touch them with our legs, that's the accelerator,

so at that point, the horse has to increase speed.

And then very subtly, we use the reins,

which is giving the horse signals either to bend, turn,

go straight, or start, or stop.

At international top level, we have seven judges.

We are being marked on 36 individual movements

and the first thing we have to do is just canter

straight up the middle of the arena, we stand still, and we trot off.

The canter pirouette is the most difficult thing in canter

and you'll see the horse turning

and he has to do six to eight steps, in a balance, all the way round.

Obviously, if you get the difficult things right

and you get an eight or a nine, or even a ten out of ten,

which is possible, that can really lift your score

to gold-medal position.

Take it all in...

Carl Hester.

When I started competing,

I did 15 years of not winning a medal.

It does go to show that if you stick at it long enough,

keep trying to get better, watch the other competitors...

Yes, we all have to have a little bit of luck,

but I think the harder that I work, the luckier I get.

None of us have ever reached perfection,

none of us ever get that 100 per cent,

it's still unobtainable. So that has made me strive for years

to try and reach that level, and the fact that this is

as good as it gets in my sport is very special to me.

For me to be successful in my career, I had to learn

in the beginning that it was not about money, it was about hard work.

My name is Christine Ohuruogu

and I'm a 400-metre runner for Great Britain.

Christine Ohuruogu has really attacked this first 200!

I think my real venture into sport, where I started

thinking about it seriously, would've been in secondary school.

I became a regular and a feature on the netball team

and my love for netball just blossomed.

I really, really stuck at it.

I think after a while, they said that

they had trials for the county netball team

and, to my surprise, I got through!

And I said, "One day, I'm going to play for England."

I made the England under-17s, then again for England under-19s.

So for a lot of my childhood, netball was my first love.

I didn't start running until I was about 16 years old,

and I only did 400,

because at the club I was at, nobody else wanted to do it.

I was told, it's one lap of a track, just jog the first bit,

and then try and sprint really hard for the last half.

I think because I was successful and I didn't complain,

they put me in for the next race, and the next, and the next,

and then before you knew, I was a resident 400-metre runner.

My spark for athletics happened around the school sports day

and I trained for it, you know,

I took it really seriously.

You know, when people run and they say they enjoy, like,

feeling the wind, I think especially as a kid and you...

you're running really fast, you actually do feel like you're flying.

It's an immense sense of freedom.

It kind of got me thinking, like,

if I trained as hard as I did for netball, and I was able to...

go far, what would happen if I did the same thing for athletics?

The London Olympics was...

in my mind, approaching with a lot of mixed feelings.

I was Olympic champion from Beijing,

I just knew that I couldn't allow this to not work out for me.

For the final, I was really nervous at the start line,

thinking, this is it, this is everything I've been working towards.

So you're standing there waiting,

getting really nervous on the start line,

and you get into the blocks, you think,

"OK, this is it." The man says, "On your marks," you think,

"OK, getting closer and closer." "Set." Then, "Go," the gun goes.

I had one focus, which was to try and chase the girl on the outside,

because I was in lane eight.

I lost a bit of ground with the girl on the outside

and I think that's something that I paid for heavily.

You know, when you're running, you're making decisions all the time.

You're constantly thinking about your pace

and your mind's full of the people that are on the inside lane,

who might be coming through.

Sanya Richards-Ross coming through

and Christine Ohuruogu is coming again!

As I was running, coming down the home straight,

I believe that I was running really well,

and I know that when I came off the line, I was a bit disappointed,

getting a silver medal, but when I did my lap of honour

and I saw how proud everybody was, it really did get to me.

I started crying because I just couldn't believe

that everybody was so happy and, like, I'd made their night.

It's proven that if people are active and take part in some activity,

they feel better, and if people feel better, they're more productive

and they're more likely to go out there, look for opportunities,

and to go out and push themselves, without saying,

"Oh, it's too hard."

They're more likely to go out and feel better about themselves.

So that's why sport is great on so many levels.

I would sort of describe myself as a kid that was definitely

very sort of driven and focused when I was young.

The first time I did a gym session was in, like, a local leisure centre.

I sort of walk in quite shy

and then I'm basically just running round like a nutter.

I knew I loved it straightaway.

I was 12 when I did my first international competition

for Great Britain. Competing with the Union Flag on your chest

is one of the best feelings in the world.

I just love competing, you know, for my country and just making,

like, my family proud, and really thought, this is what I want to do.

Men's gymnastics is split into six apparatus.

You've got the floor, which is generally all legs.

You've got the pommel horse, which is all upper-body strength.

The vault is just absolute power,

it's almost like the 100-metre sprint for gymnastics.

Parallel bars is very technical.

Lovely stuff. And this is lovely swinging from Sam Oldham.

And then the high bar is sort of the big event

at the end that the crowd tend to love the most,

and it's almost a bit like watching the circus

and you just throw yourself about

and you have to...

catch this bar at two metres high.

It is really dangerous, what you do.

If something's just

a little bit wrong, you know,

you can get injured very easily,

and I've had loads of injuries.

The only sort of way I can describe

the relationship with my body is almost like -

a builder has his tools in his toolbox, but my tools is my body.

The only reason I can do what I'm doing is my body.

I've got to make sure it's in the best shape it can be in all the time.

I got goose bumps everywhere, it just went through me.

Can Sam Oldham capitalise?

I was incredibly nervous

and trying to just go through my normal routine.

I was doing my elements and I was just, you know, shaking

because of the adrenaline and the nerves and excitement.

As soon as I landed that first dismount, I was on my feet,

that was it, it was just complete relief,

and the crowd went absolutely nuts.

We qualified for the team final for the first time in however many years,

and it was almost like every hour that went by

was one hour closer to day of days.

It was really nerve-racking.

Great Britain take a bronze

in the men's team final!

And, look... Royal approval! Royal approval!

What more could you want?!

To have an Olympic medal is crazy, it really is.

It still doesn't feel like I've got one.

In gymnastics, the Olympics is the pinnacle, it really is.

When I was 12, 13 years old,

I was training 45 hours a week.

You know, adults don't work that much.

It's just such a massive sense of relief to get to now

and actually have one, and for it to have all paid off.

I hope, you know, in the future, in four years' time,

I'll be able to get my hands on a couple more.

'This really is a dream come true, we've been working so hard...'

for so many years, and to repeat what we did in qualifying

is just unbelievable.

Honestly, it's just a dream come true and I cannot believe this.

We did amazing today.

You're always going to have fears, whatever you do.

You know, whether it's starting a new job or...

in gymnastics, trying a new skill, or diving,

jumping off the ten-metre board for the first time.

Whatever it may be, there's always going to be fears,

but it's how you overcome them and how you get through them

and that's, you know, it's not always about the end result,

it's about the journey.

My name's Katherine Grainger and I refer to myself as Katherine.

Rowing falls into two categories.

It's called sweep and sculling.

If it's sweep, you only have one oar,

and if it's sculling, you have two.

When I was growing up,

I'd never thought of sport as a potential career.

You know, the British team was something that

I could never be part of. Certainly, when I started rowing,

I wasn't the best at it, I wasn't the best by a long way.

In fact, I was one of the worst. But I loved it,

I loved what I did, and it took someone else

saying to me, "Go and have a go, just try. Just see, why not?

"What have you got to lose?"

When I was at university, I spent the first year rowing,

but being awful, but then I thought, well, I'm in my second year,

and was quite confident. I knew how to row now, I'd be fine.

And they selected four boats and I wasn't in any of them,

so I completely, completely failed.

And I left the meeting and I walked up this hill -

I was in Edinburgh, this hill in the middle of the city -

and it was quite dark and I just climbed this hill on my own.

I was so frustrated and so annoyed at myself and so disappointed,

and I just thought, at that point,

"I will never find myself back in this situation,"

and that's still the mentality I have now.

I never feel I'm good enough,

I never feel I've got all the answers in my sport,

I always want to be better at it.

Rowing's all about rhythm. You use all your different muscles.

Your legs are the strongest bit we have, so it's about

really driving the legs strongly and fast and hard.

You're creating huge amounts of power and force.

it's very smooth and it's within time with the boat,

it's in time with the water. When you create the two together,

then you get pure speed.

The start line of the Olympics is an interesting place.

It's surprisingly quiet.

I could feel my heart pounding.

I could hear it, it was so quiet.

And as terrifying as

this moment was about to be,

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.

For the fourth and final time in Katherine Grainger's

long and established career,

she leaves the start line now in an Olympic final.

Feels like you're going into battle, taking on the world,

with this one other person with you.

Ladies and gentleman, what we are seeing right now

is that dreams do come true,

and Great Britain's Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins

are going to win a gold medal in the women's double sculls!

The last few hundred metres was truly deafening

cos of the crowds.

I didn't want to think about winning,

I didn't want to think about the crowd.

I just wanted to think about getting the boat still moving

as well as it could possibly move until we crossed the line.

So it wasn't until I crossed the line

that I kind of lifted the lid on the emotional side.

At long, long last,

Katherine Grainger is the Olympic champion,

and the crowd are going mad!

The biggest thing I would say to anyone is -

you're all capable of far more than you know right now,

but you might think there are limits

and other people might tell you there are limits,

but you have no idea what you're capable of,

and the biggest thing you owe yourself

is the chance to go out there and find out just what you can do.

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