Episode 8 Inspire: The Olympic Journey

The journey to reach the top in any sport can be long and tough.

Often it's filled with lonely hours on the road, in a gym, at the range.

Away from family and friends.

But the rewards for getting it right can be so great,

it's worth every bit of sacrifice.

This month, we meet three people at three very different

stages in their lives and their Olympic journeys.

I've come to Portugal to meet a wheelchair racing legend.

A six-time Paralympic gold medallist,

six-time London Marathon winner,

and at 34 years old, David Weir isn't finished yet.

Also in today's show, Lee McKenzie spends the day with the teen

skeet shooting sensation Amber Hill and her family.

It's incredible, she gets it every time. Every time.

Denise Lewis meets up with Eilish McColgan and mum, Liz,

where the focus is firmly on this summer's Commonwealth Games.

I don't want to just make teams any more, I want to perform well,

I want to be in the finals, I want to be mixing with the best.

And we want to inspire you to get active.

Whatever your age or skill level, find out more about getting

involved in a sport near you by visiting our website:

And you can also get in touch with us via Twitter at:

-Hi, David.

-Hi.

Great to meet you. This is fantastic.

I can see why the warm weather training is quite

an attractive option.

Yes, it's nice to have a bit of sun on your back, you know.

You've come out here pretty much every year for eight years?

Yeah, pretty much.

I've never been somewhere where there's been good roads

to train on for the longer stuff and a good track to train on

that isn't far from the hotel so you haven't got to load a bus up,

you know, get everything ready and drive for an hour.

You can literally push to the track

and then you can push straight onto the circuit of the marathon training.

So I've always done well

when I've come out here first before the marathon.

-A bit of superstition as well?

-Yeah, a little bit, yeah.

You'd had a falling out of love with the Paralympics

after your first experience?

Yeah, in '96, yeah. I was very young, you know.

I got into sport when I was eight and people noticed I was a talent then.

I was thrown in the mix straightaway.

Racing for Great Britain at the age of 12 in Ireland for

the senior squad and beating men. I was training a lot.

-And I just lost the love of it, you know. But...

-You weren't impressed, really?

No, I just wasn't impressed with the whole Paralympic movement.

I just didn't think there would be a future in it.

And racing in Atlanta, you know, counting how many, there was

probably more people sitting down by the pool here

than there was in the whole of the stadium and...

I trained for a bit when I got back and then I just said,

"I don't want to do it any more."

-COMMENTATOR:

-She is a different class.

And that is four gold medals for Tanni Grey-Thompson.

It was watching Sydney?

Yes, just watching Sydney and Tanni

and the Great Britain team doing so well and seeing the crowds.

I was, yeah, bitterly disappointed in myself

and I felt like I'd let down a lot of people.

I said to myself, "I'm going to get back into the sport."

I didn't know what I was going to do but it was afterwards

I just got my chair out and slowly got back into it.

Are you now impressed with how things have changed?

Yeah, and I think London was such an amazing experience for me.

Not just winning all them gold medals.

I remember underneath the stadium as we were going in

and they already said the tickets were sold out.

But you still had that little doubt, "Have they, have they really?" You know.

And I looked up and all I could see was the top layer and it was full.

And I just had a big smile. And I just thought, "We've done it."

The pressure's building for all that time,

the relief as the valve comes out must have been enormous.

Was it at the back of your mind that you'd have to take off

quite a bit of time to decompress, almost?

It only took about two months when I had a bit more downtime where I could sit down and watch my races.

I remember my eldest daughter, she come downstairs and she could see that I was crying a little bit

because I was just watching my races back and I just didn't believe it was me.

I couldn't believe I did that in London, in my home back yard.

Yeah, I was in a flood of tears.

But I watched it all day and then she came down a bit later and said,

-"Are you still watching yourself?"

-Putting yourself through it?

Yeah, I was putting myself through it.

But you still had to have that downtime

and you came through 2013 with very little in the way of your normal

success, fifth in London, which for you must have felt slightly strange?

It was a bit strange,

but I just had to think about it and process it after and say,

"Well, you know, them guys probably trained straight after London.

"You've had four months off." And it wasn't a bad position.

Yes, I was a little big gutted and I knew I'm better than that

and I think I need time like that to drive me on a little bit.

But I always said to my family and friends

that the races I do in 2013 will just be for fun, really.

I will train for them, but I won't put the intensity in,

because mentally and physically I was still drained and tired.

That year, I said, "Look, Jen,

"can I have the whole of August off this year?"

I've never been on a summer holiday with my family.

She said, "You don't even have to ask me, you can do what you want.

-"I'm just here when you want to come back."

-See if the grass is greener?

Yeah. So, I just really enjoyed myself in 2013.

But I always had a date when I was coming back and I know

when I'm coming back.

And the date was September 1st, get back into training

as soon as you are back off holiday and work hard all winter.

You've got all those incredible memories now.

Do you draw on them in those difficult days of training?

Yeah, you think of what you've done and it drives you on.

And I still have a few challenges left.

If I didn't have that, then...

I probably would have retired.

I've still got goals I want to achieve and I still think...

You want to beat Tanni's marathon record?

Yeah, I'd love to do that.

It's going to be tough because the strength

and depth in the men's wheelchair racing is getting tougher

and tougher each year and I'm not getting any younger.

You can see whether David wins a record seventh

London Marathon from 8:30am next Sunday morning on BBC One.

David's determined to stay at the top of his sport for as long as he can.

As long as he has the motivation and drive and his experiences,

both good and bad, have shaped how he feels about Paralympic sport.

Well, at 16 years old, Amber Hill is blazing a trail in her chosen sport.

Inspired by her grandad, she's a real shooting

star of the future, as Lee McKenzie has been finding out.

Amber Hill is different.

Not different for the choices she's made to become a top class athlete.

And not different for the sacrifices she's made

to follow her dreams to get to the top.

But she's different for her choice of sports.

Most girls her age won't even have heard of skeet shooting.

She's the youngest ever winner of a senior competition.

And now she's got her sights firmly set on Rio.

Incredible, she gets it every time, every time.

GUNSHOT

It's incredible. You must miss them.

I've not seen you miss any but, do you leave here and think,

"That was a really good training session?"

To be fair, I'm not happy until I hit all of them.

That's pretty much how I train.

That's unbelievable.

You're just so calm.

Yeah, you have to stay really calm throughout

because if you get too worked up, your body becomes

more tense and make everything twice as hard for yourself.

It's almost like an extension of your body. It's like another limb?

Yeah, it's sort of like part of you. They're not light at all.

My gun is the same weight as any other men's gun

because it's got to be a certain weight for balance.

You've just got to get on with it.

It's so nice to see you in your home from home.

How much time do you actually spend here?

I spend quite a bit of time up here training.

I shoot about three to four times a week at the moment

preparing for my competitions, so hopefully everything will go

all right with all the practice I'm getting in.

It's been an incredible year for you.

This time last year you were still at school

and how often could you practice then?

It was very tough for me last year, I had to juggle my GCSEs,

my shooting, my social life.

I was probably training about once a week, which was nothing

compared to some of the international shooters I was shooting against.

But I made it work and I had an incredible year, last year.

You're number one in Great Britain.

Can you still enjoy the same sort of life as you used to?

Is it worth the sacrifices?

It is definitely worth the sacrifice. Definitely.

But I still make time to see my friends as much as I can,

because you need that, being a teenager and stuff.

But, I'm just enjoying what I'm doing at the moment

-and I wouldn't change it for the world.

-What have you got coming up?

I'm aiming to qualify for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow,

which should be an amazing event, seeing as it's in Scotland.

All my family will be able to come up and support me, which I don't normally get.

Hopefully everything goes well and I'll get there.

It's the support from her family, hard work and dedication that's

got Amber to where she is today and it was her biggest fan,

grandad Bill, who started Amber on her Olympic journey.

Bill, I understand it's your fault Amber got into shooting?

Yes, I'm afraid so.

About nine or 10 when she picked up a small gun which

we had with us at the time and she said, "Can I have a go?"

I said, "Yeah, but it will put you on your back!"

But she fired it and loved it.

And ever since she's been doing the same old thing as you've seen today.

At which point did you think she had a real talent?

Within about a couple of months of her shooting,

you could see she was a natural with a gun.

She had a lot of training to do

and we did a lot of work together on it, but she was there, you know?

I understand you lost a bit of money in a bet to young, innocent Amber?

-She fleeced you?

-She did fleece me.

Quite a long time ago now, but we went out one afternoon

and I said to her, "If you beat me, you win £50.

"If I beat you, you give me a pound."

And she went out in the afternoon and won £250 off me.

Bets off from that day on.

With all bets off, it's time for me to have a shot.

I feel like I'm the novice that's about to get

involved in something I've got no right to be at.

I'm not going to try and compare myself anywhere near to Amber, because she's

-the benchmark for most shooters in Britain now, isn't she?

-She is.

You know, you'll be all right, you'll be good.

OK, well, we'll let you have a go first. I'll learn from you.

-It's incredible how easy you make it look.

-Thank you.

-It's just such a skill.

-You and me.

-Me?!

-Go on.

Pull.

Argh!

No, I missed it.

-Well, that £50 is coming your way.

-You weren't even close that time.

LAUGHTER

-That time(!)

-Ignore him, he's harsh.

But we could wind you up?

You won't wind me up with this thing.

-Because the pink cartridges suit you.

-They do, don't they?

Pull.

He started you off and now he's using your gun,

he's using your cartridges?

Yeah, it's nice to think that he's still involved in my shooting.

Pull.

That's amazing. You were saying earlier you haven't shot for almost...?

-Just over a year.

-But it never leaves you?

No, you can still do it, but the trouble is I blame the pink cartridges.

-It's got to be, a lady's thing.

-Is it the pink cartridges?

-Never.

It's been such a pleasure to spend time with both of you today.

The one thing my eyes have been opened with, it's

a really difficult sport to do. The speed, the composure.

-I mean, it's an incredible talent to have.

-Thank you, yeah.

It is a difficult discipline. I don't think people realise,

because they don't have the opportunity to give it a go.

It's just a lot of skill involved,

but I've managed to pick up things over the years from different

people because I've been shooting since I was 10.

So, everything is falling into place now

and I'm just enjoying what I am doing.

Your emotions, you're standing here holding Amber's gun,

using Amber's cartridges...

it's a long way from the little girl who used to come along here

-to learn how to shoot?

-It is a very long way.

When you think about it, in five years where she's come from,

from a little tiny girl... still a little tiny girl.

But number one GB, who could imagine it? It's fantastic.

You're obviously looking forward to Rio. That's your big aim.

But it's difficult when there's so much to happen before that.

How easy is it to focus on a week-by-week basis?

You do have to take things one step at a time,

otherwise you just get lost in it.

So much is going on with the Commonwealth Games

this year in Glasgow, the World Championships, World Cups,

but the one I'm aiming for is Rio.

But I'm going to take one thing at a time and keep practising hard

and hopefully everything will fall into place.

There is an exciting future ahead for Amber Hill and her family, that's for sure.

For David Weir out here in Portugal, it's about conditioning,

stretching, doing the miles on the road.

Miles and miles of training that he will draw on

when he needs the most in competition.

Driving David on is someone he's known since he was eight years old.

Former Wimbledon Football Club fitness coach Jenny Archer,

who he turned to in 2002 after taking a break from the sport.

I asked him what he really wanted from me and what he wanted

and he said, "I want world records, world gold medals.

"I want to be number one in the world." Like an idiot, I said,

"I'll take you there."

So, I thought, "I can't let this guy down now."

So, why did he come back to you at that point, do you think?

Because you had all kinds of different hats you'd been

-wearing in your professional life, hadn't you?

-Yeah...

From school teacher to Crazy Gang fitness coach.

I think that's what he likes about it,

he knows that I will kick his backside for him.

He had a load of talent and I've always said to people,

I've never taken it away from him that he's had talent

but he just needed someone there to give him that extra push.

He came and asked for help and I've been there ever since.

And it's been an honour, for me,

to be by his side in all these years, you know.

What's the difference in coaching somebody who's wheelchair racing

to a group of slightly crazy footballers,

who over-achieved...

THEY LAUGH

Erm, I look at Dave and I think, Well, OK, he's in a chair but I look

at his arms and I think, you've got your calves, your quads, hammies.

You know, and I said, "You're no different,

"All you're doing is using your arms."

And I see his arms as his legs.

-Right.

-I know it sounds crazy, but that's the way I looked at it.

So, the programmes that I had,

I started to adapt and it started to work for him.

But as the years have gone on, I've had to go one step higher

every year to keep him up at that top-class level.

This year, we've got to, yet again, step up another level for him.

Keep him up there.

I've not only got David, I've got Shelly Woods on board now,

Mickey Bushell's now on board.

Those days of coaching Vinnie Jones and the like,

how much did that prepare you for the mood swings,

the temperamental changes that you see in athletes?

Cos athletes are quite finely tuned, aren't they?

They're a bit like racehorses, everything has to be quite,

you know, perfect.

Working with the Crazy Gang, it was a fantastic experience!

One that I will always remember.

You see this hard man called Vinnie Jones,

underneath it all, he's a soft guy, he's a lovely guy

and working alongside Don Howe at the time

and he was the England manager as well and Bobby Gould.

I look at Don Howe and he was a great mentor to have.

I was there for ten years

and it's ten years that I really, really enjoyed.

Do you get as much out of your relationship with

David as he does out of you, do you think?

Yeah...there's a special bond there and I lost my mother three years ago

and I nursed her through the last six months of cancer

and just going out with Dave for three hours in the morning

and an hour in the evening just kept me going through that six months.

She passed away just before the London Marathon and

he actually dedicated the race to my mother and that was it,

it just totally destroyed me when he said that.

Is it a case of you now handing over your coaching skills to David,

so that when he's ready to stop racing, he's able to bring...?

I keep telling him,

"You might be a good athlete but it doesn't make you a good coach."

SHE LAUGHS

While David puts in the hard yards here in Portugal,

back in Loughborough, Eilish McColgan is preparing

herself for what, potentially, could be a career defining year.

A Commonwealth Games in her home country may well be the moment

she really makes her name on the world stage.

It certainly was for her mum, Liz, back in Edinburgh, in 1986.

Denise Lewis went to find out how preparations are coming along.

Eilish, it's really good to see you.

I knew I'd find you here in the great outdoors,

because mileage is such an important part of what you do.

Tell us what you've done this morning.

Erm, so this morning, I just had an easy five mile run and,

to be honest, that's what the bulk of my training is, easy runs in

between my main hard track sessions, that I would do three times a week.

Very different from Kenya, which is

where you've been training for the past few weeks.

Yeah, it's been a bit of a shock to the system, coming back and,

I mean, we had perfect weather for five weeks.

Erm, so to come back here and there's snow and hail in my first

session on the track, it was a little bit of a shock to the system.

Kenya seems to be almost like an integral

part of the preparation for you guys, what's so special about it?

It's absolutely perfect for endurance running.

You can go out on the trails and run for miles and miles and, erm,

the weather's perfect and, obviously,

it's the added altitude of 8,000 feet.

There's so many of the world record holders

and Olympic champions all in the one town, it's a really unique situation.

If you're a runner, it's difficult not to be inspired

when you're out there.

Training is the one priority that they have

and life is just pretty simple and basic.

So, I've tried to replicate that as I've come home and get myself in a

good routine, where my athletics and my running is my number one focus.

And the season ahead, we've got the Commonwealth Games

and the European Championships.

Yeah, I mean, my main focus is, obviously,

the Commonwealth Games, being in Scotland it's a huge event for me.

I'm very fortunate that I've got that to look forward to.

One person who knows what success at a home Commonwealth Games feels like

is Eilish's coach and mum, Liz.

Whilst Eilish will be running the 3,000m steeplechase in Glasgow,

it was in the 10,000m that Liz took the gold.

Liz Lynch takes the 10,000m gold for Scotland.

What a great moment for the host nation.

-Hello!

-It's good to see you!

Ha-ha! Good to see you!

-How are you doing?

-Really good.

-In you come.

-Thank you. Miserable weather!

Did you always have an inkling that she might run?

I always knew, at a very young age, that Eilish was capable of running.

She was always energetic.

She was always pretty good

at anything she put her hand to at sport.

She was a very good style of runner. She made it easy, it was effortless.

So, it was great to be able to develop it such a young age.

Is she as tough as you, as robust as you?

Because I remember you were a gritty, gritty athlete.

I would say that Eilish is as robust as me, or as tough as me,

but in a different way.

She's very, very gutsy, especially on her race tactics. She'll dig in.

But I don't think Eilish is as intense as I was on my training.

Eilish can lighten the load and turn off,

whereas, I think, with me, I was always on it.

I think that's the difference. That's a good difference

because one of my bad traits was that

I never took the foot off the pedal.

I was always going, going, going.

I never took the opportunity to actually enjoy my success,

whereas Eilish is slightly different in that way.

Liz McColgan finishes in second place

with the silver for Great Britain.

It must be a fine line between wanting to give her

all of the knowledge, and maybe making her work a few things out.

We do discuss everything very openly,

but the good thing for me, as a mother-coach,

is the fact that I know it's Eilish's career.

I don't look at it from what I did and when I did it,

I look at it from where you are and where you need to go with it.

It works really, really well.

I think, because I was self-coached,

I feel that I know endurance running inside out.

I know the highs of it and the lows of it

and I think I've worked out a pretty good philosophy

on what it takes to be a really good endurance runner.

But the whole ethos of that whole package

is the athlete that you've got,

and I'm very fortunate that I've got a great athlete to work with.

When Eilish is in the UK,

she is based at Loughborough University because of the top-class

training facilities and medical experts that are available to her.

At what point did you realise you just didn't have a regular mummy,

she was a little bit special, almost like a celebrity?

Yeah, I think when I was younger I was a bit naive to it all.

I wasn't aware in the slightest.

I thought everyone's parents were sporty

and everyone's parents went for runs.

I suppose it wasn't until I got to the end of primary school

that I realised she was at the highest level of our sport.

It took me quite a while to realise that.

How do you cope with the comparisons between you and your mum?

Mentally, I think people think we are probably quite similar.

And the fact that I'm just determined to work hard.

I know you've got to work hard in this sport to be successful,

but I enjoy running, so it's easy to do.

It's not difficult for me to enjoy it.

Do you feel like you've got an advantage over the other athletes

because you've got such a formidable woman, mother, in your back pocket?

Yeah, maybe slightly.

I feel like I've got the advantage of someone who's been there and done it.

To get advice from someone who got a silver at the Olympics

and a World Champion,

it's obviously going to be beneficial to me.

I can't really ask for anything more than that.

So, Eilish McColgan, first Olympic Games.

-It's great to see her here, Brendan.

-It is great to see her here.

I hope she's enjoying the Olympic experience.

You've had two very important years,

two big major championships - thrown in at the deep end.

It was pretty impressive to see how you managed to cope with all that.

Yeah, I mean, it's been a difficult two years.

The Olympics just came far too early for me.

I was competing at Scottish University level,

then going from that, maybe ten people in the crowd in the stadium,

to 80,000 at the Olympics was a massive, massive shock.

I wasn't really prepared or ready for the Olympics.

That's probably why I didn't compete to the level I probably should have.

I feel that my mindset, in that way, has changed.

I don't want to just make teams any more, I want to perform well.

I want to be in the finals, mixing with the best.

The Commonwealth Games on home soil,

what type of advice has your mum given you?

Yeah, she said that the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh

were her standout memory of all the races she did throughout the years.

She said that would be the same for me in Glasgow,

regardless of how I perform.

She said the support you will get with that crowd being Scottish

and being a Scottish athlete will just be on another level.

You can see how Eilish, Amber and David

get on at the Commonwealth Games.

There's coverage right across the BBC from 23rd July.

Getting to the top is not without its sacrifices.

Having three children, that's something

David Weir knows only too well.

The training's great when you're out here,

but your kids are back home with Emily.

I think it would have been tougher if my kids were really little.

When you miss certain things like crawling and walking and stuff.

But now Mason can talk on the phone, it's slightly easier.

I can hear Tilly in the background.

It is hard when he's saying, "Is Daddy coming back now?

"Are you racing?"

Emily says every time he gets off the phone,

she has to put YouTube clips up of me racing in 2012

so he thinks I'm racing and winning.

It is tough, but Emily is very understanding

and she's a great mum. She backs me.

And by the time Rio comes around,

he'll really understand what's going on.

Yeah, he will understand.

I don't know if they're going to go yet.

I think they'll see more on TV.

I won't be able to get out of the village much,

because I will be racing constantly.

So, it'll be easier for them to be at home,

but that's going to be another hard trip.

London set the benchmark so high in terms of packing out the stadiums.

It was all-encompassing, wasn't it?

-It turned you guys into household names.

-Yeah.

Yeah, they don't look at the chair and feel pitiful.

They look at you and see that you are a great athlete.

To win four gold medals,

you can't just rock up that day and win them, can you?

What does it mean to you when a child comes up to you

and tells you that you are their hero?

You know, you get little clips on Twitter where people have said,

"My kid is sitting on his skateboard and he thinks he's David Weir."

They're just able-bodied kids.

They don't care that you're in a wheelchair and doing sport.

It just gives you happiness and joy

that we're being recognised for what we do, you know?

We're athletes.

Yes, we might push a machine, but it takes a lot of effort to do it.

And the kids realise that now, I think.

David, it's been great to meet you and to see all the hard work

-in action out here.

-Thank you very much.

-Best of luck.

-Cheers.

David Weir's success of the past 12 years

has genuinely inspired people

and changed attitudes towards Paralympic sport.

And, as a figurehead, he continues to demand more of himself

and those around him.

At the other end of her journey,

Amber Hills' focus and drive is so impressive.

A level head and supportive family mean

she has a great chance of success at the very highest level.

The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will present Eilish McColgan with

a new level of pressure and expectation.

But it's a challenge she's ready to meet head on.

Would you like to get involved in sport? Visit our website

to find a range of activities happening near you. Go to...

You can also get in touch via Twitter at...

We're back on 11th May,

when I'll be catching up with sprinter Adam Gemili.

In the meantime, here's a taste of

the Olympic sport coming up on the BBC over the next month.

See you next time.