Olympic Success

The statistics state that over a billion people will have watched the Paris 24 Olympic opening ceremony last Friday. It was certainly one to remember, what with the rain and the extent to which it sought to represent diversity in all its forms throughout. I’m not sure I’d spend 4 hours watching it again but it surely was a spectacle to be remembered.

The number of sports represented at the event has grown to such an extent that the BBC (and I suspect every terrestrial broadcaster) can no longer cover all of the sports. This is in stark contrast to London 2012 when my then 12-year-old son spent 2 weeks on the sofa watching all sorts of arcane sports with his Mum and loved any minute. We were also fortunate enough to have acquired tickets for one of the days of the athletics. My son moved back home last weekend as he wants to move to another part of London, which has cost me a small sum as I’ve had to pay to access certain sports, in this case Basketball.

My wife and I went to a gig the night he moved back in and we got home late in the late evening to see our son watching a documentary about the British sprinter Linford Christie. I mentioned that I’d been told that one featuring Daley Thompson (Olympic Decathlon Gold Medal Winner in 1980 and 1984) had come highly recommended and despite the fact that my wife and I had to leave for France for an early morning flight, we watched the majority of that programme. This brought back a ton of memories as well as some unique insight into the man himself, from him and some of the people who knew him well. Undeniably, one of the most talented and dedicated athletes ever to emerge from the UK.

In recent Olympics by any comparative measure (GDP per capita, indexed population), the UK has performed extremely well by way of its medal haul. Much of this has been made possible by the contribution from the National Lottery. Since their funding for Olympic and Paralympic sport started British athletes have won 863 medals, the majority of which has gone to rowing and cycling. By contrast, Thompson received next to no money to fund his training, things were certainly different in the 70s and 80s.

On a personal level, the Olympics come alive when the athletics starts. Daley’s career coincided with the very intense rivalry between two very talented middle-distance runners Sebastian Coe (who features in the documentary) and Steve Ovett, to say that the relationship between the two runners was less than cordial is an understatement. With the later emergence of Steve Cram, the UK  dominated 800m and 1500m events for many years and the end of their careers left a gap which the UK has found difficult to fill. However, the emergence of Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr who have won the last two World Championships at 1500m puts the UK firmly back in the running.

Whilst many people enjoy the drama of the sprints, the 800m and 1500m events are the most interesting as they are the races where arguably planning is paramount. All of the athletes at this level will have a clear understanding of their objectives. Whilst all the competitors in the final hope to win the race, it will be a select few who can realistically win or medal and some of the runners will see making the Olympic final as a huge achievement, which it undoubtedly is. Similarly, the athletes and their teams will have collected a significant amount of information about all of the competitors in the field and will be using this to plan how each of their athletes will manage their races.

The most intriguing element for me is the need for a flexible strategy. Whilst the 5,000m & 10,000m races are interesting, the need for the level of strategy required only really comes into play in the last 2-3 laps. In the 800m & 1500m, this need for think, plan and execute in the race is constant and these races for me are the most exciting.

Yes, each athlete will have a dominant strategy, linked to their abilities and often linked to their finishing speeds compared to the other athletes, but these will need to be constantly updated and renewed as the races unfold. I’m expecting it to be a very exciting week.