Athletics

Britain’s Olympic coach speaks to Standard Sport’s Mihir Bose about the controversy that’s raging off the track

Evening Standard

'You’re British or you’re not. Sport is about bringing people together. That’s how I look at it,' says Charles van Commenee. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Charles van Commenee has never been afraid to speak his mind — he famously called Kelly Sotherton “a wimp” for only managing a bronze at the Athens Olympics when he felt she should have got silver.

But did the Dutch coach of UK Athletics stir more controversy than he could handle by appointing Tiffany Porter captain of the British team for the recent World Indoor Championships in Istanbul?

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BBC London Radio

With Jason Solomons, Michael Smiley, Mihir Bose, ‘Cover To Cover’ and Seal.

The Robert Elms show is a celebration of every aspect of London.

Three hours a day, revel in the stories and characters, memories and aspirations which make London such a great place to live and work.

Art, architecture, history, movies, shopping, drinking and dining all carried out to a soundtrack of music for grown ups.

The Robert Elms Show is tailor-made for you, dear Londoner.

Click here to listen to the programme (Note: Section with Mihir starts at 1:36:40.  This programme will only be available until the 26th January)

Click here to read more about The Spirit of the Game

Evening Standard

How to achieve the perfect long jump: Chris Tomlinson (in sequence above) features in Aviva's new TV advert. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Three weeks ago, Chris Tomlinson set a new British long jump record at the Paris Diamond League meeting with a leap of 8.35metres. But he still harbours one great regret.

He wishes he had not made Bernie Slaven, the former Middlesbrough striker, his role model when growing up besotted by the Teesside club.

“I should have picked a defender because, at six foot six, if you’re quick and can jump, you can be a good defender,” he says. “Look at the likes of John Terry. They’re just big strong guys and they get stuck in. But I wanted to score goals like Bernie Slaven and ended up giving up football when I was 12.”

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SportAccord Convention 2011

David Eades discusses the role of sporting heroes in modern sport with a panel including Mihir Bose, distinguished journalist and author; Sir Clive Woodward, former England rugby captain and Director of Elite Performance for the British Olympic Association; Edwin Moses, American track and field athlete who won 2 gold medals in the 400 metre hurdles at the 1976 and 1984 Olympics; Dame Kelly Holmes, double Olympic medallist; and John Jackson, cristened ‘Chief Rotter’ and pioneer of new-side reporting of sport.

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Evening Standard

Sorry sight: Michael Johnson is saddened by the fall-out from the Seoul Olympics, where Ben Johnson saluted the crowd after winning gold only to have it taken away after he was found to have taken drugs. Imae courtesy of Evening Standard

Michael Johnson admits that athletics, indeed sport, has lost the innocence it had when he was a young boy in Dallas dreaming of just running fast.

“The great thing about sports is the debates you have,” says the 43-year-old. “Twenty years ago the debate between two guys in the bar would be who is the better athlete? Now it is which guy is on drugs? And whether that performance they saw is real or not? It has opened up a whole new debate about sport.”

I am talking to Johnson during a break at a conference on international sports security in Doha, Qatar where the subject of drug cheats is debated.

The four-time Olympic champion is one of the speakers and tells me he knows the moment when drugs changed sport forever.

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