Episode 7 Inspire: The Olympic Journey

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Mountains like this fascinate us.

It's a beautiful but hostile landscape,

which offers so many challenges.

For a few brave individuals,

these challenges cannot be resisted.

Our winter Olympians have to travel far and wide

to find snow and ice...

..but their commitment runs deep...

..and their desire is unwavering

as they take the next step on their Olympic journey.

I've come to Stirling,

once the ancient capital of Scotland,

and known as The Gateway To The Highlands.

It's also the home to our men's and women's curling teams.

They're fortunate to have some fantastic facilities

to train on here.

Eve Muirhead and her team are fine-tuning their performance

ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Eve is the skip of the current World Curling Champions,

and they know a gold medal is very much within their grasp.

Also on Inspire: The Olympic Journey,

Steve Cram travels to Norway

to meet cross-country skier Andrew Musgrave,

a man who has given up so much on his quest for glory.

I decided that the best way to get better

was to come to the country with the best skiers in the world,

to train with the best skiers in the world.

Katherine Grainger meets John Jackson,

a man who has come back from the brink

to pursue his Olympic dream.

Sometimes the results aren't great but at least I'm here racing,

doing what I love best. And that's driving a bobsleigh.

If you want to get inspired and try a new sport,

go to our website to find out how you can get involved.

It's rare to find British athletes

who will travel to a Winter Olympics not just as contenders

but as favourites for gold.

Eve Muirhead and her team won the curling world title in March

and for them it wasn't a surprise.

They're dedicated to being the best

and they're getting ready for what Sochi has in store.

Just wait!

Today's session, then, what's planned?

Well, all four of us are here so it's going to be a team session

and we've had a few tournaments just past,

so we've a couple of things we want to work on,

so we'll just be working on them

and getting them good for heading away next week.

So how far in advance

will you tell them what you're going to do in the session?

From previous competitions,

we kind of all individually know what we're going to work on,

so we kind of hit the ice

and each of us kind of explain to each other, kind of,

"Just remind me do this, remind me to maybe just

"make sure I'm right out to my in-turn or my out-turn."

So we're all pretty switched on when it comes to practice.

And is it about, right now,

just trying to replicate as close as you can

a competition environment,

-so that you get a chance to practise decision making?

-Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what we do.

You know, there's always little things that we like to change.

Nothing too technical, though.

You know, you don't want to make big changes

just before major tournaments.

And you're going in as World Champions, as well.

That must have another impact,

another effect on the expectation from you.

And the other teams must really be looking to you guys

as the ones to shoot down.

Yeah. You know what?

It's a big target on our back, going in as World Champions.

But if anyone kind of asked us,

"Would you like to go in as World Champions,

"or as mid-table?"

You know what you're going to pick

and it's going to be the World Champions, isn't it?

So we're looking forward to it.

We know how to deal with a lot of the pressure.

We know how to win major tournaments now,

so we're looking forward to it.

It's fascinating to see Eve's composure and authority on the ice.

She's still only 23,

but commands the total respect of her team-mates.

She's a great leader.

She's got a very experienced head for such a young person,

which is great.

She calls a really aggressive game

and she's got no fear, no fear at all.

And we've every confidence in her because of that.

So, no, she's great to play with.

Just in general, she's a good all-rounder.

She's good at making the pressure shots

when it comes to it.

I actually used to skip against Eve and we were rivals for a long time

but you know what the saying is, "If you can't beat them, join them."

So I joined Eve three years ago.

And since then, I think it's gone great.

She puts so much expectation on herself

and she was so young, of course, in Vancouver, as well,

and desperately disappointed to not come away with a medal.

Obviously she's really channelled that

into the kind of determination for Sochi.

Have you seen that express itself?

Eve will admit herself that they didn't put enough work in.

And she knows that.

And she went out and this...the past three years,

we've really done everything we can

to ensure that we're going to have the best chance in Sochi.

I think we went back and started from basics.

We know that every team out there are going to be tough to beat,

so we go out there not expecting anything

and I think that's one of the main things

that'll help us in our trip.

And what are you expecting of Sochi?

-Because you haven't had that Olympic experience.

-I think...

The main thing is to try and just treat it

like every other competition.

Like we're just going out to play a normal championship,

like we do all the time. But at the same time,

it feels like we've got the opportunity of a lifetime,

so we want to kind of make the most of it.

Eve and the rest of the team spend hours training here

and that hard work has paid off.

Their success has proved that.

So how do British athletes compete in winter sports,

where facilities are limited and competition is scarce?

Well, for cross-country skier Andrew Musgrave

that means making a lot of sacrifices

and travelling a long, long way from home.

It's 7:00 in the morning and I'm in Trondheim in Norway.

just 300km from the Arctic Circle.

Now, I know Norway pretty well, I ran here a lot.

And they love their athletics, they love their football

but the sport that gets them up in the morning

and which they're really passionate about

is cross-country skiing.

And the interesting thing is, at the minute,

Great Britain has a man

who's trying to take them on at their own game

and I'm here to meet him.

If you want to be the best internationally,

then you've got to train with the best.

And it's where you find the best - in Norway.

I feel I'm half-Norwegian now,

or at least they treat me as if I'm a Norwegian.

I do skiing cos like it, not because I want to be a star.

But it would always be a bit of a bonus!

So why Trondheim? How have you ended up here?

Well, I finished school in Scotland,

when I was 18,

and I had decided then that I wanted to be a cross-country skier.

So I ended up coming to Norway,

spent a few years learning the language

and decided I wanted to start at uni.

And I ended up coming to Trondheim because of the university here.

Cross-country skiing as a sport

is not a...a normal one for British boys to decide to take part in.

How did you get involved?

No, it's not the most common sport in Britain, no.

But I ended up moving around quite a bit when I was younger

because of my dad's job n the oil industry.

And I lived for five years in Alaska,

from when I was five until I was ten.

So I started skiing there.

But I was never any good at all at skiing

and did really bad in the few races that I did.

Moved back to Huntly in Scotland

and just randomly enough there was a cross-country ski club in Huntly,

one of the only two in Scotland, I think.

And I ended up getting more involved in the sport through them.

That's still a really big leap to make,

to go from, you know, a sport which you're having fun at

and to make the commitment to up sticks, you know,

and move to a place where it's such a high profile sport.

Yeah, it is. But if you want to progress in the sport,

you've got to take steps to become better.

And I decided that the best way to get better

was to come to the country with the best skiers in the world,

to train with the best skiers in the world.

DISCUSSION IN NORWEGIAN

Talk me through a typical training day, if you like.

The morning will either be an intensity session

with the, sort of, harder interval-type training

or a long distance session where we're out for several hours.

And then the afternoon will usually be a shorter session -

strength, something like that.

And which are the aspects of your training

which you enjoy the most?

I like intensity sessions where you feel like you're working hard

and you get to the end and you're properly tired.

But at the same time, I like being out in the woods for three hours

and just not really having to think about anything

and just being out in nature.

My old coach, Jimmy, used to always go on to me

about how every single training session mattered.

And it's sometimes the most boring stuff that you don't see,

this three hour run he's doing today,

which is the most important. You have to do it.

You can't decide, "You know what? Today, I think I'll have a day off."

Mind you, there are worse places to do a long three hour run.

We're watching you train hard

but how are preparations going for Sochi?

As far as I can tell they're going well.

I think I'm...I've been injury-free and healthy all season,

so everything's on track and as it should be.

And how would you compare yourself to four years ago,

when you went to the Olympics in Vancouver?

How much of a better athlete are you now?

I'm older, wiser maybe!

But I notice definitely that I'm stronger

and I think I'm faster and my endurance has improved as well.

So I think I'm better than I was four years ago, hopefully.

Andrew is committed to life in Norway,

totally dedicated to his sport

and has been accepted by the cross-country skiing community.

When he come, we were a little excited,

if he could beat us or if he was any good.

But he proved very fast to be a very good skier.

And he's a great guy, so...

Thanks! Save that for the camera.

So when you did so well in the Norwegian Championships last year,

how did you manage to explain to all of your Norwegian friends

that actually, back home,

it wasn't going to make too many ripples in the pond, as it were?!

When I was on the podium, it was all a bit of an uproar,

"Oh, this British guy on the podium."

And everyone thought I was going to be famous back home.

But no, didn't turn out like that!

So Norway has this fantastic tradition in cross-country skiing

and expectations must be really, really high

for them to do well in Sochi?

Many countries are starting and doing well,

so it's getting harder.

But the Norwegian people want the same as always,

many golds from the Olympics, and yeah, bring home many medals.

And what about you? What are your expectations?

How are you going to do?

I'm focusing on the sprint, so I feel I should definitely

be in the semifinal in the sprint in Sochi.

And once you make the semifinal, anything can happen.

There's lots of pushing, shoving, falls, people getting tired.

You... From there, anything could happen.

So you've got high expectations?

You've always got to have high expectations

but just got to see what happens.

Andrew's dedication is already paying off.

He's just won the sprint freestyle race

at the Norwegian National Championships,

a remarkable feat for a foreigner.

He beat a field packed with skiers

fighting for places on Norway's Olympic team for Sochi.

We'll bring you all the news on how Andrew and our other athletes fare

in The Winter Olympics.

We just saw Andrew Musgrave there.

He's got to travel thousands of miles

to get the right training for his winter sport.

I guess you guys are lucky, aren't you,

having this incredible facility on your doorstep.

Yeah, we are really lucky, here in Stirling.

Three of us are based in Stirling and Claire's in Glasgow,

which is only half an hour away,

so yeah, we use The Peak, here, as our training facility, which...

It's top class. Like, you know, we get the gym facilities,

we get the ice facilities

and we also use a rink in Perth as well.

It's only 30 minutes' drive which is also great ice

and it's good to practise on.

But, on the flip side, you also, like Andrew and the rest,

have to travel to get your competition.

You're not going to get competition on the doorstep here, are you?

Yeah, exactly. It's just part of what we do.

You know, like, I would say

probably four out of five weekends, we're away on the road.

We kind of sleep together, we eat together,

we...everything together, you know what I mean?

Like, we live out of each other's suitcases.

So yeah, we're forever on the go.

Your Olympic experience from Vancouver

didn't go the way you had it planned.

It didn't go the way you wanted it to.

And how that's fuelled the four year cycle since?

Yeah, Vancouver definitely didn't go the way we wanted it to.

You know, like, we went in there looking for a medal

and came away with no medal, which was disappointing.

And you know, like, it hurt a lot.

Like, the few weeks after, your head's constantly going

and you're thinking, like, "This is one chance in a lifetime

"I've worked hard for two or three years,

"leading up to these games."

And you come away disappointed and it was tough.

And you know what? When I look back there,

you think, "Well, obviously I didn't practise hard enough,

"didn't train hard enough, didn't do enough gym work."

So those are things that we've really stepped up with this new team.

It is very scientific now,

the training and how much weight you actually manage to push and press,

and what you're doing with your training?

Yeah. Over these last few years,

curling has moved on when it comes to the kind of fitness side of it.

If you can imagine the stamina you need.

Like, you could be on the ice for up to three hours

and you could have up to two or three games a day in a lot of tournaments.

And you burn a lot of calories out there,

so we need to be physically fit for that.

And as well, all the strength training we do,

like the strength and conditioning, a lot of stability's very key,

cos as you can imagine, you want to be as consistent

-every single release and every single shot.

-Mm-hm.

So all these little inches add up here and there.

-But yeah, the gym work is a huge, huge part of it nowadays.

-And that's

-stepped up a lot since Vancouver?

-Yeah, it has a lot.

And do you know, it's really good for me to know

that I've got, like, three girls behind me

that are willing to put in as much work as each other.

Like, you know what, all these girls are 100% committed.

We all train as hard as each other and it's great to know

that we've all got the clear goal at the end of the day.

For people that don't follow curling all the time,

the skipper is really very, very important -

both on and off the ice.

And it is about Eve and the team, isn't it,

as opposed to perhaps an equal weight amongst the four of you?

Yeah, I guess a little bit.

But you know what? They're just as important as I am.

Yeah, maybe the skip does get a lot more of the kind of attention

cos I guess I either win the game for the team

-or I lose the game for the team.

-So tell us how you would do that.

Well, I have the last shot of the game

and that shot is either going to come off

or it's not going to come off sometimes

and so you either get the glory or you get all the slack for losing.

But, like, we're all in it.

Like, each team member is as important as each other.

Those girls set up for me and when we won the World Championships,

that was an example of it coming down to my last shot.

But if it wasn't for the girls playing such a great end,

then I might have been left with a shot that wasn't as easy.

-Mm-hm.

-Do you know what I mean?

CHEERING

What was it about curling that got you hooked at such a young age?

From a young age, very young age,

my mum used to take me and my brothers along

to watch my dad competing,

like kind of dragging us along in the pram, screaming!

And really, from the first time Dad gave us a shot on the ice,

you know, it's fun. Like, you're out there on a surface of ice.

And you know, you just want to kind of slide around

and launch the stones up and down and have a laugh.

And when you get some friends, as well,

that are willing to give it a go

and you get yourself a school team together for the school league

and then you slowly get moving on to national then international level.

-So at the start it's just fun?

-It basically is.

Like, it is. And I think a lot of girls maybe give it a shot once

and then don't bother going back.

Which, I think, that's one of the messages

that we need to put over for people getting involved in the sport.

Like, don't just give it one shot and give up.

As every sport, it takes a lot to practise and get good at

so go back and give it another shot.

And the more you play, the better you get.

Eve and her team may have a world title

but never underestimate what an Olympic medal would mean to them.

It's the same for all our winter athletes.

Great Britain's bobsleigh pilot John Jackson's Olympic journey

nearly came to an end in the summer, when he ruptured his Achilles.

The Royal Marine commando has spent the last few months

racing against time to be fit for Sochi.

Katherine Grainger travelled to the Alps

to see how his progress is going.

Nice to see you again, Jacko.

The last time I saw you was at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre

where you probably were spending more time than you'd liked

as part of the intensive rehab unit.

Yeah, I got quite attached to that place.

I spent quite a lot of time there this summer,

obviously with the injury, and it's a phenomenal facility.

And you know, if I'm going to spend a lot of time doing rehab,

I might as well spend it at the best facility in the UK.

So the injury happened in July. Is that right?

Yeah. We were doing our normal training session,

sort of plyometrics.

So we were jumping over hurdles

and off the last hurdle, we would sprint off.

And literally the last rep of the day,

it was...landed and as I went to sprint off,

it just went "bang."

I just absolutely obliterated my Achilles.

So, the operation you had

was quite ground-breaking by the sounds of it.

The way that my operation works is

I've got two little anchor points in the muscle just above the Achilles

and I've got, sort of, surgical cables going down

so now all the fibres are all intertwined with the cables

and that's attached to three points, three pins in my heel.

Once I'd had the operation

and the surgeon was like that, "It's been a success,"

I texted the guys straight away and I said,

"We will stand together on the Olympic start line."

And from that point on, I've never looked back.

Your mental attitude determines how quickly you get back.

If you don't want to be fit

and you're quite happy to just mope around and be unfit,

or whatever the problem is,

you'll stay like that.

If you're focused on getting back and you've got goals

and you're the type of person

who's determined to get back as quickly as possible,

it is a big factor in it.

There have not been any points where I've been like,

"I don't really want to do this,"

because it's like I've got no choice, I have to push on.

I have to push on because I haven't got an extra week,

an extra two weeks, an extra three months

to try and stretch the rehab out to, you know, do it properly.

It's like we've got to push, push, push, push every day.

Where's the goal now?

It's back on the medal.

You know, we're back aiming for the stars again

and that's where we want to be.

We're here to compete, we're not here to take part.

As the pilot of the bobsleigh,

the responsibility for the speed and the safety of the team

lies with Jacko.

And although the tracks they race on are different all over the world,

the one thing that remains constant throughout is the sled.

-This is where I would push, as the driver.

-OK.

On this handle, there's a little lever in here

that just releases the handle.

-And then all this stuff inside here...

-Oh, wow.

..is where the magic happens.

-This is what you control?

-Yeah.

So basically, as you can see, this is the steering pin.

And it acts a little bit like an old go-kart.

-Yeah, it's like a rudder on a boat.

-Yeah.

-We've got those.

Yeah, simple as that.

So the way to get in is from this position,

you'd run, you'd jump...

..in like so.

-You've done that a few times.

-Yeah, it's a lot of practice.

What speed are you running when you take off?

27mph, which is as fast as what Usain Bolt would run 100m in.

And he just has to run in a straight line.

He has to run in a straight like

and I have to fit into a bathtub very, very fast.

Even more respect now, may I say!

Well, yeah, sometimes it goes wrong. Sometimes people fall off.

And I've struggled getting in, in the past,

and had one leg hanging out

while we've been going into the first corner but...

What happens then?

-You hope that you get in before the first corner!

-That you get in!

Which is what happened. So, do you want to have a go?

-We didn't agree to this!

-I know.

-You made it look really easy.

-Yeah, it is. Just jump in.

-All right.

SHE SQUEALS

-And the handle. Where does the handle come down?

-That...

There you go.

Yeah. And then you'd just look,

your eye line would come straight over the top there

and you'd look as far forward as you can.

And obviously the corner's coming at you at close to 90mph.

-So if I lift that up...

-Oh.

-..and you pull,

you can feel it moving.

-Basically, how you steer the sled.

-Strong!

-Yeah.

As simple as the mechanics of the sled may be,

driving is at speeds of up to 90mph is a dangerous business

and there's a fine line between success and failure.

-COMMENTATOR:

-...as they head on down. Oh, they're gone!

Oh, my goodness!

-In the Vancouver Games, you flipped, didn't you?

-Yeah.

When that happens, I assume there's nothing you can do,

just you have to wait till the sled stops?

Yeah, you've just got to cos obviously you're trapped inside it

and you've got the weight of the sled

and, you know, you're doing 5 or 6gs on your head

rather than, you know..on the run is where it's meant to be.

Crashing on the biggest stage,

you know, it's never great

but we're not here to worry about crashing,

-we're here to worry about getting down fast.

-Absolutely.

And the margins are so tight -

it's tenths of seconds, it's hundredths of seconds.

-What is it that makes the difference?

-It's hard to say.

You know, one corner could make the difference.

You know from racing, that's all it takes sometimes -

it's just that couple of hundredths is the difference.

And when you're doing 80/90mph, you're talking about centimetres.

-Yeah.

-And it is that close.

With every hundredth of a second counting,

Jacko's miraculous recovery and return to fitness

was essential for Team GB's Olympic qualification.

Well, he's the pilot of the sled, so it's key.

Yeah, all the years he's had on the track

has built up his experience to drive tracks.

And that's what we need.

We can't bring in somebody

that's only been in the sport a couple of years

to substitute for that. So that's how key he is.

And he also brings that team together.

You know, he's the leader of that team

and all of the other guys look to him for that leadership

so it was critical we got him back.

We thought, "This is it. That's The Games over.

You know, Jacko is the GB1 Pilot,

he's intrinsic to the team.

And so we thought with him out,

he's one of the few people that's irreplaceable on a squad like this.

You know, with him out, there is no team.

It's surgery that had never been done on anyone I'd ever seen

and certainly this is the first surgery in the UK

that had been done in the UK on an elite athlete of this type.

222. Hold it there, hold it there.

To get something like this right, it's about a huge team.

It's about an athlete that absolutely believes

and has the determination that Jacko has.

That tendon's looking good. It's elastic, it's strong.

We'll get him there. We'll absolutely get him there.

From the very first race, we couldn't believe he was running.

We were adamant he was going to be sitting in,

we were going to be pushing a big 110kg lump down the track.

But there he was, running on the first race.

So we knew from then it was going to be all right.

Do you feel he's as good as he's been?

Is he getting better all the time?

Yeah, he's even better than he's been. It's really weird.

I don't know what happened!

He came back from his injury even better than he left.

So it's really good and he's more focused on driving,

his running's going really well and he's a lot more relaxed, you know?

He had quite a big injury,

which I thought would kind of ramp up the panic a little bit coming to the Olympics.

But it's actually, you know, put things in perspective for him

and he's really chilled out and nice.

Not grumpy any more!

It has been brilliant spending time with the bobsleigh team.

They're a brilliant bunch of guys to hang out with

and I've got much, much more appreciation than ever before

about how tough this sport is

and what an amazing challenge they all face.

Considering the season they've had,

this group is so upbeat and so positive

and confident, looking forward to Sochi.

They're not worried about what's happened in the past.

They're focused purely on performance at the Olympic Games.

And that's, as an athlete, all you need to think about.

You know, at the end of the day, I've had a serious injury

and I'm just happy to be here, racing.

You know, sometimes the results aren't great

but at least I'm here racing, doing what I love best.

And that's, you know, driving a bobsleigh.

If it goes again, it goes again. I'm not holding back

just for the sake of, you know, my Achilles hurts.

I'll push off and I'd tear my whole body apart

before I stopped.

Like Andrew Musgrave, John Jackson has that desire to keep persevering,

no matter what.

Making it to Sochi has been a battle he's fought and won.

And John won't be alone.

His four-man crew will be one of four British bobsleigh teams

who've qualified for The Winter Olympics.

Well, Eve Muirhead and her team

were the first British athletes to qualify, back in March.

They've been honing their skills, dedicated to their training

for getting the very best they can out of themselves

when it comes to The Winter Olympics.

And I'm hoping a bit of that might rub off on me.

So tell me what, today, perhaps technically,

you are working on that I could, you know, pick up on

and show people that it's so much more intricate

than it might appear?

You don't want to change too much.

Because we're so close to The Games now

and so close to all the major competitions, like, technically,

you don't change an awful lot.

It's just fine-tuning little bits here and there.

So is just working on the, kind of, consistency

for every single shot.

I've got this in my hand, which may look like a Japanese flip-flop

-but in fact this is going to help me, apparently, deliver a stone.

-Yeah.

So you're going to have to give me, Eve, some big pointers

as to how to do this. So I'm right-handed,

-so I would put this on my left foot?

-On your left foot, yeah.

-Is that about right?

-That's about right.

Push your toes a little bit forward.

And you're also going to need one of these - a brush.

-Excellent.

-What position?

-Is this that way or that way?

You're going to hold the brush and back and then drive forward.

-OK. So it's like a trigger?

-Basically.

I'm delaying this, by the way. You may have noticed, crew!

OK. So, forward...

Back. Grand.

-That's it!

-O-o-oh!

THEY ALL LAUGH

-Bye!

-That was good!

THEY LAUGH AGAIN

-Yeah...

-That was good for your first attempt.

-Yeah?

-I've seen a lot worse.

-I want to do another one. Can I do one more?

-Yeah, no problem.

That's it!

Nearly! Apart from...

It's kind of getting there.

-But slightly less...

-It's actually a little bit heavy.

-You...

-Yeah.

-You're going to bounce off the back.

-It's coming out the house, yeah.

Never mind!

Anyway, guys, listen, I think it's probably a bit late for Sochi for me

but that's...it's really great to kind of get an insight

into what it feels like. Thank you.

Maybe Eve's magic didn't quite rub off on me after all

but the determination of all these athletes impresses me so much.

They get very little attention in their home country

but they're all so driven to succeed.

For Andrew Musgrave, an Olympic medal would be a great achievement

but his sport has given him so much already.

He's pursuing his dreams and pushing himself to the limit.

John Jackson has been through so much to get back to the top.

When he lines up with his team-mates in Sochi,

he'll be savouring every moment.

And if Eve and her team stay strong, stay focused

and believe in their abilities,

then it will take a great team to stop them in Russia.

If our Winter Olympians

have made you want to get more involved with sport,

go to...

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That's it from us. We'll be back after the Winter Olympics

with more stories of courage, dedication and commitment.

I hope you've been inspired by today's amazing athletes.

See you next time.