Duncan Goodhew Extra Time

The 100 metres breast wreck final in Moscow four years later. How did he

achieve his transformation and why did he decide to go to Moscow, given

the boycott urged by the British government? And with the buildup to

the Rio games, is it about the individual or the team?

Duncan Goodhew, welcome to Extra Time. You are first in the Montreal

Olympics in 1976 and then Moscow in 1980. The last few minutes before

the race are spent in the call room. How different were your two

experiences? In the first one, I had never swum for Great Britain before,

except for the semifinals and finals. I got into a classroom on

the side of the pool, double glazed 1-way glass. Nobody else could see

in. A television monitor on either rent, you could clearly see what was

going on, gold medals being won and lost. It was an intimidating

experience? Yes, it was. Here I was, nobody from nowhere, standing there

with seven gods of my sport. You won the heat, didn't you? Yes they did,

I broke the record. I was going well. I think the problem is, as you

step up to the plate at the Olympic Games, it feels strange, different.

Walking into that room, I certainly felt threatened, like a lamb to the

slaughter. As the doors shut, you are kind of hermetically sealed

wards I suddenly didn't feel very well, there is a self talk cycle

that drags you down. There is a lovely quote here, I felt like

someone had pulled the plug out of the room and I had gone down the

plug hole. That was it. It is quite shocking because I think as a young

athlete coming through, you feel invincible. You just get to a point

where you think you can do anything. What happened in the lead up to that

games is, I started saying, who, me? I am vulnerable, I will spill slid

down my tie. Whiny, of all the billions of people on the planet,

why should I be the best in the world? Bay at two really had

westerns to answer. You had the answer to those in Montreal? Not

even the beginning of an answer, just a desperation to do well. You

can see it with athletes, they can't cope any more with the pressure.

They just slow down. That's exactly what I did. In a sense you knew you

were beaten before you left the courtroom Wegelius, I was just

desperate. When I hit the water, I swam a few strokes before anybody

came up. By the end of the race, bolts were falling off me. I was

exhausted. And yet, four years later, you knew you had effectively

won the race in the call room? That is an enormous contrasts. What

happened in four years to change your psychological approach? So much

more is known about coaching now and you look at how the British coast

deals with it... I had to find my own way at the time. My coach said,

don't think so much. All I did at first was try to do it physically,

lifting heavier weights, working harder than everybody else.

Eventually I came out with working hardest on the worst day. If you

have one minute every four years and somebody else has picked it for you,

then you don't have time to have a bad day, let alone a minute or an

hour while. That was the focus. I went to the World Championships in

1978, two years after that first experience. I lost by just the

smallest margin and got fourth place. I basically lost a whole

bunch of races where I came second and third. It was by less than a

second, all of them put together. At that point, why Amy had become, it

could be me? I just realised it was in the head, not the body. I started

not only training my hardest on my worst days, but I started

visualising the race, the perfect race. I started emotion lies in what

it would feel like to swim that race. Eventually the best bit I got

was sitting on the side watching myself win the race. In effect, I

was preparing myself for not being surprised when it happened. Actually

accepting it. And then when it did happen, it was massive. There was a

bit of a tautology with you in the call room, you are reading a book? I

was working on different techniques, I try different things building up

to a competition. Eventually I decided just to keep my own space. I

walked in, you can imagine, it is very intense. Everybody is staring

each other down. I tried that and it didn't work for me. I took myself

off and I sat in the corner of this little box room made of glass with

the seven fast as people in the world standing there. As I sat in

the corner on the floor, I could see them glance at me going, what's

wrong with him? Has he fallen to pieces? I took out a Wilbur Smith

book and I had the good sense to check it was the right way around.

And then I actually did read, it was right in the middle of a good yarn

at the time. Over the top of the page I could see all of my

competitors looking at me, too often. It was almost like a little

comic book bubble. You could see them going... He is sitting on the

floor, he's reading a book. Doesn't he know what's going on? At that

point I knew that all I had to do was tie up my swimsuit and I had won

the race. But even then I tried to screw it up. When I came to breed at

about 25 metres from the end, I had had an injury so there was a lot

going on. As libraries, the monkey on the shoulder started talking to

me and said, if you don't do something right now, you are not

going to win. All the training, all the preparation came through. It is

something that is absolutely unbelievable. I said to myself, that

is absurd. At 25 metres to go, all the training click together and I

said what I needed to say to myself. And I touched the end, grabbed the

blocks and I knew my life would always be different. They say when

you drown, your whole life goes before your eyes. In that case, it

was drowning in my own emotions. All of the people that work with me, all

of my peers who had helped me as well, it was all there in that

moment. As I touched the end, I thought I had held it for minutes.

We watched the replay is, it is a couple of points of a second. It was

almost like time had slowed down. To the medal ceremony, no union jack

because the British Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, had

urged to you and fellow competitors not to go as part of a boycott of

the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Did you have any misgivings? It was

tough. My stepfather was an air Vice Marshal and a war hero, he told me

shouldn't go. A family row? Yes, in fact, my mother went and my

stepfather didn't go. It was a very difficult situation, the press were

very... It was a huge story as you can imagine. Each one of us searched

within ourselves as to whether or not should go. I remember sitting

down with an ex- swimmer and a manager of mind. We talked about it

and he said, look, if an ogre was playing a structure virus violin,

which he destroyed? The Olympic Games are so special that you

shouldn't destroy it because of that. I was looking around at

Britain at the time, we were doing nothing else, just the athletes were

being asked to boycott the games. You will appreciate certain sporting

boycotts, such as South Africa, have worked? -- Stratovarius. How much of

that change would have happened... What I would say on the reverse is

that there were only two things being discussed with Russia at the

time, which was sports results and the weather. It seemed a bad time to

stop talking about sports results. When you went to rush it was obvious

that it was like a cultural atom bomb going off in Moscow. The change

during the time we were there was incredible. I personally would like

to feel that it's better change. Yours in the presence of other

athletes was the force of good. Exactly. I think if you look at

depriving people, that is usually not the way to do things. It is the

cultural exchange, sport is such a massive cultural exchange. The way I

see the Olympics is, we all under one roof, the world is speaking the

common language of sport. You can't hide behind that. Do you subscribe

to the view that sport and politics don't and should never mix? It

doesn't work that way. People want to use sport for social good, for

social change. They want to use putting the Olympics in different

cities around the world to accelerate the change around the

world. You look at where the Olympics have corner of the years,

places like Athens. You can't uncouple them, nor should you. I

think you'd have to focus on what good comes out of it. Brings is

up-to-date, and dealing with modern Russia and the doping positives

which have been very much part of the rear Olympics. The world anti-

doping agency delivered three key findings in their investigations

with specific reference to the Winter Olympics of 2014. In summary,

positive tests were either disappeared or swapped with clean

ones. The whole process was conducted and overseen by Russia's

Minister of sport and other key bodies. How do you react to that? It

is unbelievable to me that we are seeing what happened in my

generation, is all the East Germans and the Russians et cetera cheating,

it seems like nothing has changed. That is really quite worrying. It is

worrying for where Russia is at the moment, because you could say it is

morally corrupt. You are feeding young people... In effect how long

they will live, the health of their future. It might affect their

children. And you look at a state-sponsored... It's moral

bankruptcy, really, in terms of a nation. We have seen it in China as

well. It is outrageous. The question is, what is to be done about it?

There is a key philosophical question around it. The IOC

president said we have to take decisions based on fact, which it

seems we have now, and to find the right balance between a collective

responsibility and individual justice. In the lead up to Rio,

there may be more twists and turns. Where do you stand on that

particular dilemma? If it is just an individual, it is

very clear that either they have taken it or they haven't. The ban is

not long enough it should be more Draconian in my opinion. When it

comes to a state, it is more difficult. Maybe someone has not

cheated so is it the individual or the state? But when you have a state

like Russia, it is organised, it is state sponsored and I suspect, am

starting to lean towards, you have to ban them. I suspect there will be

legal ramifications for that and if I was in that position to make that

decision - thank God I am not - I would be going for ramifications

when we have legal claims against us. Vladimir Putin saying this is

unjust and unfair. If some of your family committed a crime would it be

fair to implicate the whole family, would it be fair? It is a huge

dilemma and one that will rumble on for a long time. I think, when you

have state-sponsored cheating, then you have to set the whole team out

and say, no, it is not right, not least because how can you prove who

has and who has not the cause it is all covered up in the first place so

you cannot reach into the country and prove one way or the other. Part

of the Russian complain is they have been singled out are flailing. There

is evidence of drug cheating systematic drug cheating in other

countries. You suspect there is a little bit of politics in all of

this? I hope not but you can never know. Russia is a western country,

it should be setting a moral tone... What do you mean by a Western

country? It is a major economy in the world, part of it is in Europe

and... Obviously one would expect a higher code of conduct in that

country than some of the countries that are more developing and have

found corruption problems. Let's bring it now closer to home. Adam

peaty, a swimmer, he said, if I win Olympic goal and people look at me

as a cheap it is hugely disrespectful. You do not want it

for thinking you are a cheap simply because you are fast. You can

sympathise with that. You have to assume everyone is innocent until

proven guilty and sometimes in this world, nowadays, people have

forgotten that. What I would say to Adam is, if somebody has stood take

drugs or has coaches that believe you need drugs in order to beat you,

then psychologically you are flawed and you have lost before you have

even started. I think you can beat drugs cheats. I had it in my day,

you know, East Germans and Russians... Were you deprived of the

medals? Is certainly not the one I won! LAUGHTER. I do not think so.

The eastern Russia and East Germans seem to have used them for the women

swimmers which seemed to have been proven now. They were undetectable

and they won. It is not a moral judgement. No. You know, Sharron

Davies, for instance, she was really handicapped by what happened back

then and, interestingly, when it was all proven that she was beaten by

somebody taking drugs she said I do not want their medals because, in

their case, they were given it. They did not have a choice stop one of

the interesting thing as this unfolds is how much the athletes

actually knew about what was going on and what they were and were not

being given. Will you ever tempted to take drugs? And I do not wish it

to be a disrespectful question. It was not in me. It is not something I

would have ever thought about. To me, sport is such a fuel thing and

you do a best time on your rain merits and that is what gave me a

charge in my career. I was born dyslexic, things are not going well,

it was self-improvement. It is not really self-improvement if you are

taking drugs. At any championship, would you feel comfortable now about

entering a race and feeling the race was clean, whether they were

Russians in it or not? It is a while ago but what was really interesting

is use all, with China, they came out of nowhere and started breaking

world records and then they came up again and were caught a second time

and disappeared. At the time we had a few drug cheats caught. Either the

drugs in China and the few cheats that were caught had very much there

to drugs than anybody else or else the sport was clean. Clearly we have

had some drug infringements but they have been relatively small and it is

shocking when you find a nation like Russia has committed, devious

systematic cheating. The settling has been controversial- the ten

o'clock starts and three o'clock finishing, all determined by

American television, how do you feel about that? I always remember

interviewing Michael Phelps when he was first coming out and he said, my

goal is to make swimming as big as baseball or football. I do not know

if he has done that but he managed to change the schedule where it was

played on American television. It is the same for everybody. So it isn't

even field. The performances themselves will not be at the

Olympic standards. Fewer records. Are we going to see a substandard

swimming event at the games? I doubt it. You could argue the point but

what has happened in swimming across the field has really changed. We

have Mel Marshall and Adam peaty, fantastic. James, and other new

generations of coaches. But they seem to be springing up in different

countries. Japan is doing the most extraordinary revival in swimming.

It is very exciting but it may make winning gold medals more difficult.

Returning to you, always destined to be a swimmer. Your father installed

a swimming pool, and there was only one way to go. I was never going to

win Wimbledon. Swimming has been the most fantastic sport. A good day to

me is one swim a day, a great day is to swim is a day. It is something

beyond something you do to compete. It is a really wonderful sport where

you dive into the water and Flex the ceiling rather than crash the floor.

Diving into an outdoor swimming pool with the Sun on the water, it is

brilliant. I love it still so I very fortunate. You mentioned your

dyslexia. It has produced an entirely different adult? Yes, it

was a process of change for me. It has been just wonderful. Not only

has it given me as sport but a business life where I have

businesses working in sport, really breaking the mould is. It has been

ever so exciting. Duncan Goodhew, it has been a pleasure talking to you.

Thank you. Very nice.