On Saturday a delegation of Britain's most talented young winter sport athletes departed to compete in the tenth edition of the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival (EYOWF) in Liberec, Czech Republic.

For every one of the 15 athletes representing Team GB on the snow and ice, the EYOWF will be their first taste of Olympic competition and their first exposure to the unique Olympic environment.

An unforgettable experience and an important step on their aspirational journey towards becoming future Olympians lies in wait for the outstanding young athletes involved.

The group of Team GB athletes that has travelled to Liberec is packed with exciting talent and great potential. As chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), I will be supporting every Team GB competitor out in Liberec. I will also be a proud father watching nervously as my son races in the alpine events.

All the Team GB athletes will be aiming to follow in the footsteps of triple Olympian skier Chemmy Alcott, who won a pair of medals at the 1999 EYOWF and I am sure they will have drawn hope and inspiration from the outstanding achievement of Britain's Amy Williams, who became skeleton Olympic Champion twelve months ago in Whistler, despite the absence of an ice track in the UK.

I am a passionate believer in the benefits that sporting participation can deliver, especially to young people. Sporting participation is the base of the pyramid from which all our sporting heroes rise. It is key to a proactive health policy. Its social, economic and educational benefits are indisputable and the opportunity it offers for enjoyment and excitement can never be underestimated. Chairing the European Olympic Committees' (EOC) Youth and Sport Commission, which met at the BOA headquarters last September we reviewed the breakthrough success of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games held in Singapore last summer. Our conclusion was that the Games had been a resounding success and provided a platform on which future generations will build.

Like the Youth Olympic Games, the European Youth Olympic Festivals - summer and winter versions - were the inspirational brainchild of International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge. He developed the concept of bringing together the best young athletes from across the continent during his time as EOC President with the first Festival taking place in 1990.

The President's foresight and ambition has provided generations of young athletes with the opportunity to test themselves against the very best competitors of their age group in a high quality Olympic sport environment.

The benefits are far wider and greater than purely the experience gained on the field of play. Youth Olympic events are focused on combining high-level sporting competition with an environment where young athletes are encouraged to learn, share and build friendships. To gain an in-depth knowledge and respect for the Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship whilst aspiring to their own goals, is unique to the Olympic Movement.

Unlike a Junior World Championships, the multi-sport nature of Youth Olympic events offer young athletes exposure to many different sports, cultures and backgrounds. In addition, the Olympic values underpin every element of the Olympic Movement and therefore ensure that these events stand alone from the rest of the competitive pathway.

The athletes gain an insight into the unique traditions and Ceremonies attached to the Olympic Games. The Youth Olympic events will help the athletes to better understand important issues such as leading healthy lifestyles, the dangers of doping, and behaving in a socially responsible manner.

I am sure that the lessons learned and the nurturing that takes place at the EYOWF and other Youth Olympic events will greatly benefit the long term development of these young athletes. The experience will prepare them well for the demands they will face in progressing their careers through to senior international and ultimately Olympic level.

In the UK alone many athletes have graduated from their Youth Olympic experience to become full Olympians and have represented their country with pride and excellence at the Olympic and Olympic Winter Games.



As recently as 2007 the likes of Louis Smith (Beijing 2008 bronze medallist gymnast, pictured), Tom Daley (world champion diver), Tom Lucy (Beijing 2008 silver medallist rower), Aaron Cook (taekwondo World number one) and Ashley Jackson (Hockey World Young Player of the Year) participated in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival before going on to compete in the Beijing 2008 Olympics the following year.

Double Olympic Champion Rebecca Adlington and fellow swimmer and double Olympic medallist David Davies both competed in early editions of the European Youth Olympic Festivals, demonstrating the pathway that exists for athletes who possess the dedication and commitment to match their outstanding natural talent.

I have no doubt these results are replicated across the many nations involved in Youth Olympic competition.

During the course of next week over 1,500 of the most highly talented young winter sport athletes from 44 European nations will compete on the snow and ice of Liberec in the Czech Republic at the tenth edition of the EYOWF.

The week ahead provides Team GB with an excellent opportunity to showcase the best of young British talent, before welcoming the world as the next Olympic host nation.

For the young athletes from the many European nations taking part, the EYOWF presents the opportunity of a lifetime and potentially, an important stepping stone on their Olympic journey.  Encouraging young people to develop their physical fitness to the highest level to which they aspire also encourages them to develop as positive role models within their societies - something every country would wish for their youth. Let the competition begin!

Colin Moynihan is the chairman of the British Olympic Assocation 

I have a confession to make: I have found it almost impossible to work up any interest in the high-pitched battle over the future of London’s Olympic stadium.

This would be forgivable in a member of the general public; for a supposed Olympic specialist though, it probably requires some explanation.

The nub of it is that I think it a pity that any commercially-driven Premier League football club needs to move in there.

Consequently, the identity of the club in question is a matter of complete indifference to me.

What strikes me as of primordial importance, by contrast, is that the athletics facilities where Usain Bolt & Co will weave their magic next year should be left intact for at least the next generation.

Why? I think the answer is self-evident to anyone who has been infused for the briefest moment by the Olympic spirit.

This is how Olympic sprinter Jeanette Kwakye put it when I interviewed her recently:

"You’ve got the Olympic Games.

"You are going to see some super performances in there in 18 months’ time.

"You’ve got kids like my sister.

"She’s 13 or 14.

"She’s going to see that and she’s going to think, ‘Wow! I really want to be able to do something like that’.

"Why couldn’t she have the opportunity to perform in a stadium that was built for that?

"Why are you going to shove her down the road at Crystal Palace where we have that every year anyway?

"Let’s have something special."

Let me put it another way.

For me, the most special moment of the 2004 Athens Olympics was waiting for the women’s marathon runners to arrive at the beautiful white marble stadium built for the first modern Olympiad in 1896.



What if that had been bulldozed on the grounds that it was obsolete and not used much any more?

I think it would have impoverished all of us.

And what about Berlin’s Olympic stadium, built for the notorious 1936 Olympics?

This is a monument in every sense and was still capable of staging football’s World Cup final as recently as 2006.

What if we’d not also maintained that as an athletics facility?

Well, to me, it would be like spitting in Jesse Owens’s face.

And this brings me on to the main point of writing this article.

If "legacy" is to be such an important piece of the Olympic jigsaw, as is plainly sensible, then we need to develop better tools for measuring it.

Very often, what is most valuable is hardest to quantify.

If we therefore discount it, we leave ourselves vulnerable to mistakes every bit as grave as the herd of "white elephants" that changed the Olympic mindset in the first place.

Let me offer a few examples from the event I have studied most closely, those 2004 Athens Games.

Plenty of publicity has been given - rightly - to the difficulties of identifying a viable after-life for several of the venues constructed for those Games.

What the Games organisers are not given enough credit for is the root-and-branch re-engineering of the Greek capital’s logistical arrangements and visitor facilities that the Olympics were key in bringing about.

"You can feasibly live in Corinth and work in Athens. That changes a great deal," as a long-time resident once told me.

"If you live in Corinth, you can…have an olive-grove if you feel like it."

How do you quantify such a benefit, much less decide how much of it to apportion to the Olympics?

With great difficulty - but such factors have to be given due consideration in any worthwhile cost-benefit analysis of the Games.

Again from Athens, I was told that, prior to the Games, there were only about 40 hotel rooms with wheelchair access in the entire city.

Should the Games take the credit for the upgrading of the city’s hotel stock that has transformed this situation?

Some of it, certainly.

And what about for making the Acropolis accessible to people with disabilities - a change that must have brought great joy to thousands upon thousands of people by now?

And the new Acropolis museum? Would that be open if the Games had not passed back through Athens?

Even a mundane traffic regulation - abolishing the right of drivers to disrupt the flow of traffic by turning left on a red light - implemented so as not to interrupt the Olympic lane, had, I was told, such an effect on journey-times that it was left in place.

A comprehensive study of the legacy of Athens 2004 would need to take careful account of all of this.

One of the main reasons, I feel, why so many people are so utterly confused about the whole concept of Olympic legacy is that those who talk about it - including the International Olympic Committee itself - usually have some sort of axe to grind.

For this reason, I think the IOC should consider funding the foundation of an independent Olympic legacy study group to weigh such matters in a dispassionate and systematic manner.

Two things would be essential to the success of such a body: 1) It must be independent, that is to say free to criticise any branch of the Olympic Movement when criticism was due; 2) Though financial expertise would be key, its members must not consist exclusively of economists and accountants.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938

There was a strange discrepancy in the language used by Baroness Margaret Ford as she made today’s announcement - or perhaps that should be confirmation, given the way news had leaked out - that West Ham rather than Spurs were getting the nod from the Olympic Park Legacy Company’s board to take over the Olympic stadium post-2012.

As she took her place at the end of an oddly displaced podium inside the vast, architecturally unsympathetic edifice of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, the redoubtable chair of the OPLC reminded me quite a lot of Professor McGonagall, the character Maggie Smith plays in the Harry Potter films.

Sitting alongside her - for reasons that never became clear given that, as she was quick to mention, there was only a very limited amount of time and leeway for questions following the announcement – were fellow Board members Philip Lewis, Keith Edelman, the former managing director of Arsenal, and the OPLC’s chief executive, Andrew Altman.

The latter contributed a sentence or two. The others departed like unused substitutes. Rather a pointless exercise for men of such knowledge and experience.

But back to Dame Margaret’s strange discrepancy. In describing the process which has stirred so much speculation, politicking and rancour in recent months, she played it very straight.

"We have enjoyed complete freedom to make this recommendation," she insisted, quietly and evenly. "I can say that absolutely
honestly its one of the things the Noard has felt. We are most grateful to the Mayor and the Ministers for complete freedom to act objectively and dispassionately."

And yet the language she employed in confirming that West Ham would be the preferred bidders was anything but dispassionate: "We are confident that this represents the very best legacy for the stadium, it’s cracking for the communities of East London, it’s great for Londoners, it’s very good news for the UK taxpayer.. and it’s also got a very good outcome for sport."

In the lead-up to the recommendation just made, Tottenham’s chairman Daniel Levy - aware of the huge groundswell of resistance among his club’s supporters to the idea of shifting the club into the traditional West Ham territory of Stratford - urged the fans to "remove the emotion" in considering such a move.

"Remove the emotion." Not a bad motto for the Tottenham bid; but football, and sport, can never be separated from emotion. That is why people care about football sport. In that sense, it isn’t business.

So on the one hand, Baroness Ford insisted that the decision to favour West Ham’s plan was a dispassionate one, and that the only formula applied was how well the rival bids met the five specified evaluation objectives.

They were - just to remind you - achieving a "viable long-term solution" which provides "value for money"; capability of creating a legacy; re-opening stadium as soon as possible after the 2012 Games; ensuring it remains a "distinctive physical symbol" supporting the regeneration of the surrounding area; and, lastly, allowing flexible sporting and community use.



Baroness Ford also maintained each of these five requirements was similarly weighted.

But let’s look again at requirement number four - that the stadium should remain a "distinctive physical symbol". What is that, if not emotional?

It is hard to see, too, how Spurs could have ticked this box, given that they planned to knock the Olympic stadium down.

Is there an argument that their new, football-focused stadium would have provided a similar function with regard to the "economic, physical and social regeneration of the surrounding area"? Surely not. Tottenham’s stadium would have been no more nor less than a symbol of their own fiscal wisdom. Sensible, laudable even, in business terms.

But it is idle to maintain that this decision could ever be a simple business choice.

In another outbreak of refreshing, but far from dispassionate language, Baroness Ford admitted that she had "taken the hump from time to time" over the sniping and bickering from many interested parties that had taken place before the announcement, adding: "But I’m a big girl, and this is a public process."

Some of the most strident comments came from Lamine Diack, President of the International Association of Athletics Federations, and a member of the International Olympic Committee, who said that, within the sporting circles he frequented, Britain’s sporting reputation would be "dead" if they, as he saw it, reneged on the commitment given to the IOC in Singapore six years ago when London’s bid for the 2012 Games won the vote.

The man who spearheaded that outstanding campaign, Lord Sebastian Coe, subsequently endorsed that view when he remarked acidly:

"I'm prepared to revisit my words but I don't recall a whole heap about bulldozing down a publicly-funded community facility, replacing it with a football club and inspiring a generation of Tottenham season ticket holders, however many there may be on a waiting list.

"It's serious we deliver what we said we were going to unless we're prepared to trash our reputation."

OK, these words were spoken by a Chelsea supporter. But there is no avoiding the fact that the board’s decision - which is expected to be ratified by the Legacy Company’s founder members, the Mayor of London’s office and the Government - is strategically necessary to assure that Britain’s sporting reputation, already compromised by successive failures to make good on bids for the 2003, 2005 and 2015 World Athletics Championships, is not besmirched to the point of embarrassment.

Well might Coe have described himself as "delighted" with the decision.

In his regular press conference today, Arsenal’s manager Arsene Wenger addressed the problem which West Ham now have to confront, whether they remain in the Premier League or not, namely how to fill a 60,000-seater stadium, and how to ensure the club’s supporters do not have the intensity of their experience dissipated by the intervention of 35 metres of athletics track.
Having joked about the need for "good ballboys who are quick around the pitch", Wenger went on to say:  "It could change it for the fans, and the atmosphere, a little bit. I think they were always trapped a little bit in the fact that England promised to keep it as a track and running field and to keep the word to the Olympic Committee. It was very important to them."

Nobody pretends that West Ham want a track around their field of dreams in and ideal world. Baroness Ford would make no comment today on whether the board meeting, which overran by almost two hours, had been taken up with inserting any penalty clauses into the contract to ensure that the track would not be ripped up sooner rather than later.

But if, as she reported, the recommendation was unanimous, and yet the board meeting was "robust", it was hard to think what else would they have been talking about?

If the decision truly might have gone either way this morning, then Newham Council and West Ham did awfully well to put out a long press release welcoming the outcome exactly 10 minutes after the recommendation had been announced by Baroness Ford’s fair lips.

Soon afterwards the Minister of Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, turned up like the Cheshire cat to brief another media scrum on the fact that just such guarantees about the track had been sought.

A lot of attention, then, has been paid to saving a track. But really, it’s about saving reputation.

In short, an emotional thing.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames

British skiing has been in the deep freeze, you might say, for some years now - not that it was ever really hot stuff, most of the nation's wintry successes coming via the ice age of daredevil bobbers, sequinned skaters or the inimitable dancing feet of T and D.

So it is heartening to learn that there is a teenage skier whose burgeoning talent is warming the cockles for the future.

Nick Moynihan put on his first pair of skis when he was two, the moment he could jump off a chair and land cleanly on both feet.

Now, this weekend he is among 15 youngsters representing Team GB in the European Youth Winter Olympic Festival in  the mountains above Liberec in the Czech Republic.

His family lived in the French resort of Courchevel for three years - his father commuting from London at the weekends - so the piste came naturally to him.

The family? He happens to be the 16-year-old son of Lord Colin Moynihan, Olympic silver medallist rowing cox, former sports minister and now chairman of the British Olympic Association.

So no pressure there then?

"Certainly not from me," insists Lord M. "But plenty of parental support."

Nick certainly has support in abundance, not just from his family but also from his prestigious public school, Tonbridge, jn Kent where the state-of-the-art sports facilities are so outstanding that the Australian track and field team have chosen to base  their pre-Olympic training camp there.

Also, the head is allowing him to spread his A levels over three years instead of the customary two so he can slope off to the slopes as often as possible.

Sport is high on the curriculum at Tonbridge with five hours a week but Nick reckons he spends at least 15 with out of school activities.

He acknowledges: "I am lucky enough to have all these wonderful facilities at Tonbridge and I am pretty much on top of my game when it comes to land training."

He has never been on dry slopes as he is fortunate enough to be able to travel to the mountains of Europe in winter.

Specialising in the salom and giant slalom, he was selected for the British junior Alpine ski team in 2006, spending three years on the squad and doing well in a number of prestigious junior races.

In 2009 he joined for the newly formed GB junior squad - and despite an ankle injury incurred in the final minutes of a football match at Tonbridge, progressed up the FIS points ladder from races in South America, Europe and the USA.

"Soon after I started skiing I joined a small racing group and I loved it from the start," he says." I just loved the feeling of going fast.

"I always worked hard at it and I was always the one who would try and go for another run after everyone else. "

He has won the national children's championship several times and at the British Championships in Meribel he was the overall winner of the Ch2 category.

This is the first year Britain has had a full-time junior programme run by the new governing body, British Ski and Snowboarding and Nick trains with two French coaches at schools in the mountains.

He also spends school holidays in Argentina, the US and Canada and he does the European circuit from January to April.

The good news is that he is not alone. He says there are now quite a good few youngsters coming through; one of them – who is actually Moynihan's closest rival – shares another famous sporting name.

He is Jack Gower, also 16, nephew of former cricket captain, David.

They have been competing in the same events for most of their young skiing lives.

So far Nick seems to be edging their rivalry, which will be renewed in Liberec, where they will be roommates, racing both against each other and together in the team event.

"When you are skiing there is no better feeling than standing at the top looking down with the mountains all around you and then having that rush of adrenaline and wanting to go faster and faster."

Though he seems on the small size for a skier, at 5ft 8in at least he is taller than dad (pictured), once famously labelled, to his own eternal amusement, the 'Miniature for Sport'.

"Size used to be important in skiing but skiers seem to be getting progressively smaller as technology improves," says Nick.

"It is always going to be difficult to keep up with the set-ups in the skiing nations but we are definitely progressing a lot in this country."

In Liberec over 1,500 athletes from 44 European countries will be competing.  All are aged between 15 and 17 and for most this will be their first experience of a multi-sport environment and their first taste of Olympic-style competition.

Naturally, Nick has his eyes on an eventual World Cup placer and then a future Olympics.

"Not Sochi in 2014, that would be a bit too soon, but certainly wherever the 2018 Games are held."

What is he is aiming for in Liberec? "To put together solid runs, do the best I can and be happy and content with what I've done," he says as Moynihan snr beams his approval of his son's unassuming mien. "I am very proud of him.

Dad is said to be a half-decent skier himself.  "But I was beaten by Nick when he was eight, so make your own judgement."

Lord Moynihan has two other kids, George, 15, and India, 13, and both are into sports.

"With my role at the BOA I see sportsmen and women at the very top level and when I turn round and see Nick's total drive and commitment and the way he goes about delivering results, it's very special.

"If someone has a natural talent in sport and wants to develop it get to the top level, they have got to want it within themselves.  It's got to come from within."

Fingers crossed, Britain may just have one young snowman who won't melt.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Dear Mr Bendtner
Thank you for speaking out on behalf of us upstanding athletes, often misrepresented as spoiled, money-grubbing mercenaries.

I see you agree that we are worth our money. In your case £52,000 a week, in mine about 400th of that. But same principle. I too am an elite athlete who represents my country and would like to second your statement that you would "really love to go on a skiing holiday but as long as I have my career, I can’t do that because of the risk of being injured."

It’s high time someone highlighted the plight of the athlete so I would like to congratulate you for bringing this injustice and sacrifice to the attention of the masses.

I too would love to go on a skiing holiday, but as a professional volleyball player, this is also ruled out as an option for me. There are a few other factors that dissuade me from decamping to Cortina for a little holiday, namely time and money.  Whilst the international football schedule may allow you a decent break in the summer to refresh yourself and enjoy your wages, the international volleyball schedule is slightly more packed.  

Let's be honest, there is no sport in the world that can sustain a stadium of 60,000 seats better than football. But as with any event, you can't have a 45-metre distance between an audience and the action.

That's what we'll have if athletics is incorporated into the legacy plans for the Olympic Stadium - a 45-metre distance between the goal mouth and the nearest spectator seat.

Football should have been taken seriously as a sustainable legacy option for the stadium from the very beginning. It happened prior to the Commonwealth Games taking place in 2002 and the result is the highly acclaimed City of Manchester stadium. But, when considering life after 2012, the Olympic community, including LOCOG, only had eyes for a 25,000-seat stadium with athletics at its core.

When no anchor tenant or business partners were forthcoming, this athletics legacy promise for the stadium should have been rethought and alternatives discussed. That debate never happened. Now, West Ham has been left vying to keep a promise to stage an unsustainable sport at the expense of every football supporter's match-day experience.

Athletics isn't a sustainable option for a stadium on its own because both World and European Championships rotate across different countries every four years. National athletics events are well served, both now and for the future by many facilities around the rest of the UK.

If London was to host three major championships over the next 30 years, that would be considered a success. This rate of hosting one major event every ten years is not going to sustain an athletics-focused 60,000-seat stadium.

Even if it was considered worthwhile, major athletics events also need a warm-up track built adjacent to the main stadium. Is there really an appetite from the UK taxpayer to maintain this additional facility for years to come?

White elephants are created when Olympic bid book plans are not allowed to evolve within a changing landscape. London now has world-class event facilities at Wembley, The O2 and at the ICC London Excel. How would an Olympic Stadium, which currently has no hospitality facilities, compete for additional concert and events business in this market? The answer is that it couldn't. Without the sheer might of football and the partnership power of a promoter and facilities manager such as AEG, the Olympic Stadium would face a barren future after 2012.

This does NOT mean however that there is not the opportunity for an Olympic Athletic legacy as a benefit of 2012 along with other Olympic sports. London's bid in Singapore had a real vision not just for athletics but for Olympic sports in general.

UK Athletics, along with UK Sport and Sport England, should invest in a national sporting legacy facility. This could include athletics, education, science and be home to the Olympic Flame as an attraction for visitors to East London.

Take the actual London 2012 athletics track and warm-up track to Crystal Palace and leave not just a physical legacy improvement but also give generations of athletes and local kids the chance to compete where 2012 memories and dreams have played out before a global audience.

The bid which has the spectator experience and a sustainable future for the Olympic Stadium at its heart is, in my view, the only clear-cut choice. But whichever football club gets the nod, it should not distract from asking, "Why wasn't football invited to the 2012 legacy table sooner?"

David Hornby is the former commercial director of Visit London and was a member of the technical team for England's 2018 World Cup bid

I hadn't competed in the Miami OCR regatta for 15 years but it felt very familiar and it was great to get some more good training time on the water in a good climate with fellow Brits Giles Scott and Andrew Mills before racing got under way.

The Regatta began with two days of reasonably strong winds and flat water. Giles started very well with four straight wins, making the best use of his great speed in these conditions.

Both Giles and Andrew were really going well on the downwind legs where their fitness really kicked in and helped them to make the most of the 'free pumping' rule that was in place.

I struggled a little in these conditions but felt that with every race I was developing the technique and getting stronger.

By day four conditions had lightened somewhat and this gave me an opportunity to start pulling back some points.

My case didn't end up being helped by the second yellow flag disqualification I picked up in race six for over-pumping and working the boat too hard (the free pumping rule having been removed as the wind strength was now under 10 knots).

I hadn't had a yellow flag for three years so to get two in as many days was disappointing but in some ways perhaps I needed it to find out where the line was in terms of how far you can and can't push it.

Being penalised in a race, especially when you are disqualified, is always pretty tough psychologically because, as was the case in this instance, I suddenly went from being in a strong position overall to a precarious position.

All you can do is get your head right and respond positively in the next race and so it was nice to go out and win the next race, finishing the day on a better note.

The Medal race was a close affair. I won the race with Andrew Mills third and Giles Scott fifth. Giles fifth was just enough and he did a good job to hang on and win the Regatta overall.



Over the next two months I'm going to be spending a lot of time on and off in Palma before the Princess Sofia Regatta at the end of March, just getting that all important time on the water and improving my sailing fitness even more. Much of the time will also be spent testing equipment.

It was great to have Juan Garay out in Miami. Juan designs my sails and Miami gave us a great opportunity to discuss some changes we can make over the coming months and hopefully find an extra click of pace.

The smallest gains, are always the hardest part to eke out and it is those final few gains we will be working really hard on finding as we head into the most important regattas this summer.

Ben Ainslie is Britain's most successful Olympic sailor of all time, winning three gold medals and a silver

Ben Ainslie is Britain's most successful Olympic sailor - in total he has won three gold medals and one silver

Gary Lineker has called her "the most extraordinary sportswoman I have ever met", and unquestionably she was Britain's most enduring and consistently successful one.

Yet away from the waterways, few may know of Anna Hemmings, despite her possessing the photogenic appeal of a top model and a masters degree in economics.

Had Hemmings been in a mainstream rather than slipstream sport, undoubtedly she would be as much a household name - and maybe even as rich - as the tax exile Paula Radcliffe, whose long-distance feats she easily emulated as the world's premier marathon canoeist.

Hemmings retired last year with an MBE after winning six World Marathon Championship gold medals – equalling the best-ever in the history of the sport - and competing in two Olympic Games eight years apart (Sydney and Beijing) in the K-1 500 metres sprint.

Canoe marathon is a gut-wrenching sport, raced over 26 miles like its road-running counterpart and lasting over two-and-a-half hours. Competitors have to leave the water at four portage points and run for some 1,200 metres carrying their boats, against rivals who can be as treacherous as the water.

Yet Hemmings was once told by doctors she might never race again after being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a debilitating illness which left her exhausted and aching every day, unable to take even basic light exercise.

However, she later learned about reverse therapy, an innovative and successful new treatment, and in February 2005 she was able to resume training again, going on to win a clean sweep of national, European and world titles.

She says of her illness: "It was the most challenging, frustrating thing I have experienced. No one seemed to have the answer. It was very difficult when people kept saying to me, 'Get your act together Anna'.

"Then I started reverse therapy, which recognises that mind and body play a part in illnesses linked to a glandular disorder."

She first broke into the top flight of the sport in 1997 aged 20, when she won her first European Marathon Championship, before going on to win the World Championship, the youngest competitor to do so. She also became the first British female canoeist to win both European and world titles and only the second person to win both the singles and doubles marathon world titles.



Then living by the Thames in Shepperton, she says she tried "every sport under the sun" when she was growing up, from ice skating to judo, but paddled her own canoe since she was eight.

"At 14 I was selected for the junior World Championships and two years later I won the junior marathon World Cup. After that it was canoeing for me, and I dedicated my life to it."

It is one of the curious anomalies of Lottery funding which is required to follow the Government edict of "no compromise" that one of Britain's supreme sportswomen never received a penny outside of her personal sponsorship, and some support from SportsAid, as her marathon speciality was not an Olympic discipline.

Just as well then that that she had always been self-supportive, establishing herself as one of sport's top motivational speakers, lecturing a range of people from global business conglomerates to schoolchildren on how to maximise their potential, believing that every individual has a talent and ability to achieve beyond their imagination.

This has now led to her involvement - with husband Neil Templeton - in a revolutionary project which she says, gets to the very heart of sport. Literally.

If you think sport is just about knocking a ball around or running fast, forget it. Hemmings says it is all about heart.

Or rather HeartMath, which after 20 years of research in California is developing here "by identifying a psycho-physiological state in which the interactions between the heart, brain and nervous systems become synchronised to help athletes get in the zone for optimal performance, eliminating negative and inefficient emotions and managing anxiety and pressure".

To the lay person it may sound like a sort of sports scientology, and here I confess to being something of an old-fashioned sceptic myself when it comes to psychology and sport. I have never been convinced that sport and shrinks necessarily make a winning team. This stems from a  time I covered the Winter Olympics in Albertville back in 1992 when GB driver Mark Tout and his four-man bobbers were in pole position overnight but their psychologist declined to let them have a press conference and instead hustled them away to spend the night locked with him "in the zone." They finished seventh.

But Anna presents a convincing case for HeartMath. "I am not a sports psychologist but I am a trained HeartMath practitioner.

"The reason why it is different is a lot of sports psychology works on the think, feel, principle whereas Heartmath is about changing your physiology. If you can change this you can change the way you think and feel and this affects your behaviour and ultimately your performance."



Hemmings and hubby own a company called Beyond the Barriers and are licensed HeartMath practitioners in the UK.

Apparently it has been well used in the US commercial field by companies like Shell, and with NASA, and American war veterans associations. Only fairly recently has it been applied to sport.

"It was a bit of a well-kept secret," says Hemmings. "But it interested me because sport is my passion, and we are now working with athletes and training sports psychologists and coaches in the technique."

Golf is one sport where it is being successfully applied and the former Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosman  is among those who have been helped by it.  "What HeartMath is really about is his helping you manage your emotions to alleviate a stress and anxiety both in and out of the sports arena."

In the UK the GB canoe kayak team have embarked on a programme, as have the women's diving team. Hemmings is also involved in talks with a couple of football clubs.

She says that in Denmark all sports psychologists been trained in the HeartMath programme, and it is employed by pro ice hockey teams in Sweden and by Canadian swimmers.

Anyone who would like more information can contact Anna Hemmings on [email protected].

If there has been a tougher, fitter, more resolute sportswoman in the land than Hemmings, we have yet to encounter her. But the nearest she came to to national acclaim was a few years ago when she was interviewed on BBC Radio along with a number of other unsung world champions.

The programme went out around midnight, and Hemmings recalls: "They had spent a lot of time talking to the paper, scissors, rock world champion. I thought to myself, 'Bloody hell, I've been slogging my guts out every day for 15 years, giving up virtually everything for my sport, never partying, and here I am being bracketed with some bloke who goes ching, chang cholla!"

While, at 34, Hemmings no longer paddles over 26 miles, she is looking forward to another sort of marathon test. She is in training for the London run, which she will do to raise money for SportsAid. "They helped me when I was competing so it is nice to be able to give something back." A heartfelt gesture, no less.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Watching Andy Murray go down in straight sets to his friend Novak Djokovic in Melbourne, it was impossible to avoid speculating about the Scot's future morale.

What is it like to lose a first, and then a second, and then a third Grand Slam final? Some great players know.

Here, for instance, are the reflections of a man who has just completed a second Grand Slam final without winning, beaten in New York by Pete Sampras, a player whom he had dismissed so decisively in their previous meeting that he had gone into the match feeling almost sorry about what he was going to do to him:

"...a different Pete showed up," he writes. "A Pete who doesn't ever miss...He's reaching everything, hitting everything, bounding back and forth like a gazelle...I'm helpless. I'm angry. I'm telling myself: This is not happening. Yes, this is happening..."

A few hours after the final, having slept briefly, our loser wakes up and imagines for a second that his defeat to Sampras has been no more than a dream. "But no," he goes on. "It's real. It happened. I watch the room grow slowly lighter, and my mind and spirit grow palpably darker."

As his autobiography, Open (Harper Collins, £8.99)  relates, Andre Agassi lost his third consecutive Grand Prix final, against his teenage rival Jim Courier, in France.

"I drop the tenth and decisive game of the fifth set, and congratulate Courier," he writes. "Friends tell me it's the most desolate look they've ever seen on my face. Afterwards I don't scold myself. I coolly explain it to myself this way: You don't have what it takes to get over the line."

Such was the interior monologue of the man who went on in 1999 to become only the fifth male player - after Rod Laver, Fred Perry, Roy Emerson and Donald Budge - to win all four grand slam singles titles.

The first of those triumphs came in his fourth big final, Wimbledon 1992, against Goran Ivanisevic. After the Croat has stormed through the fourth set to draw level, Agassi is at the tipping point.

"I tell myself one thing," he writes. "You want this. You do not want to lose, not this time. The problem in the last three slams was that you didn't want them enough, and therefore you didn't bring it, but this one you want, so this time you need to let Ivanisevic and everyone else in this joint know you want it."

What is it like to lose a first, and then a second, and then a third Grand Slam final? Some very good players know.

Ivanisevic went on to finish runner-up twice more at Wimbledon, to Sampras in 1994 and 1998, before returning in 2001 for his improbable triumph as a wild card entrant.

And so Murray's internal monologue will rage on, with thoughts of Djokovic, and his tormentor in his previous two finals, Roger Federer, arriving unbidden.

If Murray is to earn the prize he so patently desires, then, as with Agassi and Ivanisevic before him, something needs to shift in his head.

The effort to get the mind right is something that holds all elite performers in thrall, and the intensity of that effort is often almost palpable.

Speaking recently to another Scot, judo player Euan Burton, who earlier this month added a bronze medal from the World Masters event in Baku, Azerbaijan, to the two world and three European bronzes he has already won, the familiar striving was patently evident.

Although he had been beaten in his 81kg category semi-final by the home favourite Elnur Mammadli - 2008 Olympic champion in the 73kg division - Burton clearly returned from Baku in a winning frame of mind.

Mammadli sent the crowd into wild celebration as he secured victory by ippon. But Burton, and his coach Billy Cusack, maintain that the Azerbaijani should have lost because he employed an illegal leg grab.

"He did that at the point where he threw me for ippon," Burton said. "He should really have been disqualified, but that wasn't going to happen in front of all those home supporters!"

Having felt like an away team appealing for a penalty at Old Trafford, however, Burton has drawn strong comfort from his recollection of the bout. In short, he's convinced he's the better man.

"Right from the start, I felt very much as if I was in charge," he said. "Basically, I knew I had him. You don't always get that feeling. With some opponents you wonder how you are ever going to find a way.

"But even though I lost, I know how to beat Mammadli next time.

"I notice most medallists are competing in their second or third Games, so I hope the same thing happens for me. I fell out in the quarter-finals in Bejing. I would probably swap all the medals I've won for a gold in London."

Different arenas. Same struggle. Compared to the mental efforts required from elite performers, all the physical wear and tear must feel as nothing.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames

It was supposed to be a quiet Sunday lunchtime pint however the locals, knowing I used to be an athlete, were keen to get my take on the big Tottenham v West Ham match. No, not a football match; the Olympic Stadium and the whole so-called legacy.

They were surprised by my view.

So called legacy? Are you serious? Isn't this a serious debate about a legacy for athletics in the UK?

But is it? In what way exactly does West Ham's proposed saving the track at the Olympic Stadium provide a legacy for athletics that Tottenham's proposed redevelopment of Crystal Palace does not?

Let's face it, after the embarrassing withdrawal from the hosting of the 2005 World Athletics Championships, it is unlikely that event will be visiting London soon. So, after 2012 what use will a 60,000 seat stadium be to athletics? Very little. The annual London Grand Prix might sell that many tickets but that is unlikely and so the harsh truth is that in maintaining the track at Stratford we would be creating a white elephant legacy of the kind Coe, Jowell & Co said we would not do, of the kind they pointed to in Sydney and Barcelona and Athens.

Double Olympian and leading coach John Bicourt is another former athlete who agrees. He has reminded us all that actually, post-Games, the original plan was to reduce the Olympic Stadium capacity to 25,000 to create a dedicated venue for athletics. As Mr Bicourt states; this was a bid promise.

But still, what of legacy?

The whole stadium/legacy debate is little more than a smokescreen to deflect our gazes from the lack of the legacy that was promised as part of the London 2012 bid; that of more people doing sport. Watching an athletics meeting in front of 60,000 empty seats is hardly likely to inspire future generations to take up what is fast becoming a minority sport.

I have written fairly frequently in these pages of the lack of strategy for the development of sport in this country. I have also pointed out on numerous occasions that throwing initiatives at the problem will not create any sustainable legacy for sport. I won't repeat myself, those articles are still available on this blog for anyone interested however I will point out that we will not guarantee the legacy of increased sporting participation via the sort of "cross your fingers and hope" planning seen by both current and previous Governments.



Professor Mike Weed in his excellent blog wrote: "Today BBC London published a poll that found 63 per cent of Londoners believe 'It would damage the legacy if the stadium cannot hold athletics after 2012'. Lord Coe has said that London 2012 is 'morally obligated' to preserve an athletics legacy. But, in the haystack of words that have been written on the stadium legacy options, there are very few needles on the nature of the athletics legacy that the stadium is expected to deliver, and not even a pin on what EVIDENCE exists for such legacies.

"In short, while the quantity of comment has been extensive, the quality of debate has been poor. No-one on either side has detailed WHAT the athletics legacy is intended to be (more participants? more elite athletes? more elite events? all of these?), HOW retaining a track at the stadium will develop such legacies, WHO is intended to benefit and, most importantly, what EVIDENCE exists to suggest that the WHAT, HOW and WHO is viable? Perhaps the postponement of the stadium decision will give advocates on all sides the time to consider their moral obligation to improve the quality of the debate!"

Ill defined then, but smokescreen? Oh yes. For while Sport England are telling us how successful the funding of athletics - fast becoming a minority sport? - has been in driving up participation in that sport, research by others tells an entirely different story.

For starters, Sport England's statistics include everyone who jogs once a week. Yes, seriously, if you jog once a week you are part of the Government's "evidence" that athletics is growing nicely, that the legacy is falling into place.

So concerned are they that the truth is being misrepresented, the Association of British Athletics Clubs (ABAC) commissioned their own research into current levels of participation in track and field athletics. In other words, they asked how many people take part in what the general public understand to be athletics.

The answers, published on the ABAC website as a series of "fact files" will astound those who think the publicly funded pursuit of legacy is thriving.

Sport England tell us that up to 165,000 young people between the ages of 11 and 15 take part in athletics "regularly". Sport England define "regularly" as once per month. ABAC's research reveals that even in the best case scenario and even calling once a month 'regular' participation, the absolute maximum number of 11 to 15 year olds taking part in athletics is 51,000, only 31 per cent of the Sport England figure.

As if that isn't bad enough, the real figures for senior athletics participants are even further apart. Sport England tell us that 1.876 million adults "regularly"take part in athletics, not forgetting they include jogging. ABAC's research was limited to senior athletes between 20 and 34 years old and told us that fewer than 2,000 regularly take part in track and field athletes in that age group!

I can't speak for others but my own feeling is that the athletics legacy being chased by successive Governments will be in no need of a track at ANY venue, let alone one with 25,000 or 60,000 seats. Track and field athletics will be a thing of the past and joggers will be the new athletes. Perhaps the IOC will introduce jogging to the timetable in time for 2012?

I used the word smokescreen and that is exactly what it is. If legacy is to mean anything it must include participation in SPORT, not a redefinition of what sport is to fit the available figures. As I said to the locals at the pub, whether Tottenham or West Ham win their battle is probably irrelevant to athletics as there will be insufficient participants remaining to require very much of any stadium!

Jim Cowan is a former athlete, coach, event organiser and sports development specialist who is the founder of Cowan Global, a company specialising in consultancy, events and education and training. For more details click here

The Commission on the Future of Women's Sport recently produced a report - Trophy Women? 2010 - which posits the theory that sport could improve its governance by appointing more women to senior management positions.

It noted the fact that "only 11 of 46 Sport England-funded national governing bodies have female chief executives", 10 National Governing Bodies, including the FA, have no women on their Board at all.

In in a blog by Tim Woodhouse, head of policy at the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, he said: "The logic is clear, if decision makers are 'pale, male and stale', they are less able to run sport in a way which is appealing to a diverse participation base."

I absolutely, passionately believe in the concept of 'the best person for the job.

If it happens to be a woman, great. If not, then so be it.

When I applied for the job as chief executive of England Hockey, it never occurred to me that my gender would make any difference. I never thought about it. It occurred to me that other people might be better qualified or do a better job than me, but not that being female would make any difference.

Throughout my entire career - at the Lawn Tennis Association and Reading Borough Council before that - I can honestly say that I don't think I was ever treated differently because I'm a female. I'm am not saying it doesn't happen. I know plenty of people it's happened to, and plenty of people in sport, but it has never happened to me.

I really believe in equality and equality of opportunity, but that isn't the case everywhere. A number of governing bodies are operating on a 21st century basis and  appoint the best person for the job, male or female. But I think some others are so completely male-dominated it will take some kind of special action to make them change. They must be aware that the IOC have set a wishful quota that 20 per cent of boards at international and domestic level should be women. I'm happy to say we meet that criteria, and more. We have a board of 14, four of which are women.

However, I wouldn't say I have seen enough evidence to support the statement that female representation at board level necessarily translates into an increase in female participation in the sport. That was a crucial contention in the report and I'm not sure I've seen such a definitive link myself. I look at it this way.  Can I, as a female chief executive, representing a sport which men and women play equally, say I only understand the part of the sport that isn't male? I don't think so.

Do I have more empathy with women's issues because I'm female? I don't think so either.

My job is to service both the men and women's side of the game - the playing population is roughly 50-50 - I'm not sure my gender makes me better or worse at that. As for our management, our chairman, Philip Kimberley, often jokes that because we have 14 national managers  and  only three of them are male, we need to employ more men.



Some people might imagine that women are dissuaded from applying for top sports management positions because of the lifestyle. The hours are certainly long and there are inevitable stresses. But I think I have a good work/life balance. I would much rather work 70 hours a week and love the job than work 35 hours a week and hate it. I believe I've got one of the best jobs in the country. I absolutely love what I do. If I have to work long hours, I have no issue with it whatsoever.

This is a very exciting time for hockey. We have both our international teams - men and women - challenging for medals at every tournament they play and we're very much looking forward to the GB teams playing at London 2012. We have a real chance of medals in both cases and I'd like to think that's because we have a track-record of spreading our resources equally and backing both squads with absolute equality.

We host the biggest indoor hockey tournament in the country at Wembley at the end of the month and while there has been controversy over the fact that the men are playing three matches - two semi finals and a final - while the women play only one, that was absolutely not a matter of discrimination. It was purely and simply, on this one occasion, a commercial decision. We moved the tournament to Wembley to generate more spectators and history shows us that it is the men's game which is more likely to encourage a big crowd.

But we have some brilliant female role models like captain Kate Walsh, Crista Cullen and striker Alex Danson, who scored 16 goals earlier this month, and I am positive the profile of the women's game will soar. The fact we spent £1 million on the Women's Champion's Trophy last summer in Nottingham is an indicator of our commitment to the women's game.

Sally Munday is the chief executive of England Hockey

We are nearing the one year anniversary of an accomplishment that thrilled Great Britain: the gold medal performance of Amy Williams in skeleton at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. As with Shelley Rudman's silver medal at the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter Games, Amy's race to the podium was the culmination of years of training and sacrifice.

Twelve months on, we should all be proud to see that Great Britain's skeleton athletes are continuing to deliver outstanding results on the world stage.

Last weekend in Germany, Shelley became European Champion for the second time, with Amy and Donna Creighton placing third and sixth respectively. Shelley is currently second in the World Cup rankings, having finished in the top two in five out of the six races so far this season. Amy's return to competitive form has been equally remarkable, having moved from a 12th place finish in her first race of the season - in Igls, Austria, on January 14 - to a top five just one week later.

On the men's side, Kristan Bromley is joined by fellow Brits Chris Type and Andy Wood in the top 13 of the current FIBT rankings.

This level of consistency is extraordinary. While I was thrilled to witness Amy's inspirational win in Whistler last year, equally impressive is the talent and depth that the British squad brings to the track each weekend. A year on, they're still at the top of their game.



Despite the absence of an ice track in the UK, Team GB sliders have secured medals at the last three Olympics. Their consistency and success is no accident. In the first place, they have talented and determined athletes. Secondly, they have excellent coaches who guide the athletes with a commitment to continuous improvement. Finally, they have the funding necessary to meet their goals. Put these three parts of the equation together in any Olympic sport and you have the blueprint for success. I congratulate all involved at British Skeleton and wish them well for the World Championships next month.

For summer-sport athletes, this year is critical as they enter the final full season of competition before the Olympic year is upon us. There are many major international championships to look forward to in 2011, including the Track Cycling World Championships (March 23-27, Holland), Swimming and Diving World Championships (July 16-31, China) and the Athletics World Championships (August 27-September 4, Korea). I for one can't wait to see which athletes make their big breakthrough and which sports up their game to reach new levels of performance in 2011.

While the athletes are in action on the world stage, we all have a chance to get a taste of what Olympic sport is all about by participating in the Gold Challenge initiative that was launched in London in November 2010 and in Scotland last week. The scheme provides people of all ages and abilities throughout the UK with the opportunity to experience and enjoy Olympic sports first-hand, while raising £20 million for charity by the end of 2012. The staff here at the BOA have given it their full backing, organising themselves into teams and aiming to complete a minimum of 10 sports each while raising money for a variety of worthy charities. If you're not already involved, I urge you to visit www.goldchallenge.org and become a part of this fantastic project.

Finally, I'd like to wish the "Best of British" to Andy Murray as he aims to win his first Grand Slam at the Australian Open this weekend. Come on Andy, you can do it!

Andy Hunt is the chief executive of the British Olympic Association and Team GB Chef de Mission for London 2012

Funny game football, they say, Except that no one is laughing at the moment.

What with the sexist piggery at Sky, the sordid squabbling over who kicks off at the Olympic Stadium after 2012, the ineptitude of those who run the game, the ever-escalating greed-is-good philosophy of the Premier League and those who play in it, you would think it would be a total turn-off by now.

But perversely, the public continue to turn on.

I have long felt that the game I covered for many years no longer has a soul. It is not that it has lost it. Rather, sold it.

Sport is not just about football, though most football people will tell you that it is. What happens to the Olympic Stadium is an opportunity to show it should not be.

But breath should not be held in the battle between West Ham and Tottenham, though Barry Hearn's Orient may have queered the pitch, so to speak.

What really has brought home to me the fear that morally football may now be beyond redemption is the fact that when Southampton play Manchester United in the FA Cup this Saturday evening the one man who, more than anyone, deserves to be there in a place of honour will be absent.

Thirty-five years ago Lawrie McMenemy helped create the most memorable day in Southampton's history when he led them to that momentous FA Cup final triumph over United at Wembley. Alas, he won't be at St Mary's Stadium to see if this victory can be repeated because he hasn't got a ticket.

This despite his long association with the club as a former manager, director and consultant. When the new regime, headed by the late Swiss industrialist Markus Liebherr, took control 18 months ago McMenemy was told there was no longer a regular place for him as a guest in the directors' box, though he was still welcome as a paying fan, but without his usual place in the car park.

Not only that. The photograph of Southampton's finest hour-and-a-half, with McMenemy holding aloft the FA Cup - their only major trophy - has been removed from the boardroom. In its place now is a montage of the club's victory last season in the mighty Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

McMenemy was told by chairman Nicola Cortese - labelled "draconian" and a "control freak" by the local paper after banning photographers from the ground so the club could sell their own photographs to media outlets - "You have to accept that the game has moved on."

He says he acknowledges this but rightly asks: "Does it mean you must totally ignore what has gone on before?"



McMenemy still watches as many League One matches as he can, parking his car in a nearby garage, walking to the stadium and getting to his seat through a side entrance, as apparently he is no longer considered VIP enough to enter through the foyer.

Sad, isn't it, And how un-Saintly.

But Lawrie McMenemy MBE is a big man with big memories. And if football has moved on, then so has he.

Big Mac, now 74, one-time assistant manager of England and manager of Northern Ireland, who signed and nurtured some of the biggest names in football - Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Alan Ball and Mick Channon among them - these days has his own special mission in life.

As a football manager his career embraced moments of humiliation, like getting the sack at Doncaster, and of elation, like that FA Cup win over United.

But, he says, nothing is etched more in his mind than the week he spent in Dublin eight years ago watching thousands of young people taking part in a sports event that was special in every sense.

This was the Special Olympics, designed to give those who have learning disabilities the opportunity to express themselves lucidly and bravely through sport.

"When I got the call to become associated with the Special Olympics, like most people I assumed it was Paralympics, but when I went to their World Games in Dublin it was a real eye-opener," he told me.

"It really hit me what it was all about. I've always been one for the community. When I was in football I always believed that the game and the clubs should be an integral part of the community.

"It's not a question of being a do-gooder. If someone thinks it will help their cause by sticking my name on it, who am I to say no?

"In Dublin there were 80,000 people at Croke Park. The USA team's ambassador was Muhammad Ali, riding in a golf buggy. U2 were top of the bill with Riverdance at the opening ceremony and then Bono came on with Nelson Mandela.

"It was televised all around the world, except in Britain of course. I mean you can't interfere with Ant and Dec, can you? There were 8,000 athletes from 160 countries, and I am sat there going, whoa, what is this all about?"

Two years later McMenemy took over as chair of the Special Olympics of Great Britain. He has since become President.

"I know that when you are dealing with the disabled, whether it is Down's Syndrome, autistic or whatever, some people are not comfortable with them, but I found that having to live with the big names and the big stars made it easy because you treat people all the same.

"You have to win their trust and laugh with them because, as Jimmy Savile said to me once: 'If you don't have a laugh, you'll have a cry'."

In the summer of 2009 McMenemy presided over the Special Olympics GB Summer Games, the biggest multi-sports team event to be held in the UK before 2012. Some 2,700 competitors took part in 21 sports in venues spread around the city.

"There are 1.2 million people in this country with learning disabilities, so it is good that they can be recognised through sport in this way," he said.



According to the World Health Organisation, up to three per cent of the world's population has an intellectual disability - that equates to 200 million people, representing the largest disability population in the world.

On Monday week football gets a welcome opportunity to show itself in a better light than of late when the Premier League hosts the Special Olympics' first-ever Football Development Strategy.

McMenemy will be there to explain how football clubs and organisations can support the growth of the sport among people with learning disabilities.

While he would not profess to be a Saint himself, McMenemy, of course, was one for much of his football life, which is why he has been saddened at the decline of Southampton.

"You would never have dreamed a club like Southampton nearly went out of business. The problem was, when it became a plc it stopped being run the way it had been for a hundred years by people in the community who ran it for the supporters.

"I like to think that by winning the FA Cup, being second in the league and in the League Cup final, and having a little tickle at Europe, I did my best for a happy, professional outfit. But the way it started to be managed financially [Southampton went into administration and were docked ten points) took it to the knife-edge.

"You are talking about a club which had two managers in 30 years - Ted Bates and myself - to one which had nine managers in three years and three in one season."

When the man who managed the club for 12 years, returned as their director of football and has the Freedom of Southampton, was told that from then on he would have to pay and watch from the terraces, it was no wonder he felt rather hurt. Parsimony is one thing, pettiness another.

Although he will only be watching on TV, McMenemy wishes the team luck against United. "Anything is possible. We proved it at Wembley all those years ago. But more than anything I want to see us back in the Premier League."

As a vice-president of the League Managers' Association McMenemy has been trying to get cup medals awarded retrospectively to managers and coaches.

He tells how, in a League Cup final, he was tugged up to the Royal Box by opposing manager Brian Clough.

"Come on, young man," he said, "we are going to get something out of this."

I think it was the President of UEFA who was awarding the medals. He looked perplexed but they scrabbled around and gave us a box each. When we looked in them later, they were empty.

"I've got a grandson who idolises me, but one of my biggest disappointments is that despite all my years in football and all I've done, I haven't got a medal to show him."

At least in his new role McMenemy has been handing out medals to other people's children and grandchildren who have been striving to overcome their personal handicaps through sport.

And that, for him, makes it rather special.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire

On the face of it, search and recruitment is the ultimate people business.

At its most basic level it is about matching the skills of applicants to the needs of employers.

But recruitment goes far further and deeper than that.

It is not just about match-making but helping people to fulfil their potential and realise their dreams.

It is no exaggeration to say that it can change lives. And that is what makes it such an intensely personal business.

All of which raises questions about the increasing role that technology plays in this people business.

After all, technology is generally considered to be cold and impersonal.

"Computer says no" is a comedy catchphrase which gets laughs because it brilliantly highlights the frustrations that many of us have felt at the impersonal hands of technology.

So is there a disconnect between technology and recruitment in the fast-growing and intensely competitive sports jobs sector?

Absolutely not.

In fact, I believe that effective and appropriate application of technology adds a new and liberating dimension to recruitment for both applicants and employers in a sector which is becoming increasingly global in its outlook.

While the human element remains at the core of effective search and recruitment, the computer has a vital role to play and is at the heart of www.globalsportsjobs.com, a new service which represents the natural evolution of the sector to meet its changing needs and expectations.

Let's consider how the industry is changing.

Sport is playing a more important role in society than at any other time.

On one hand it is a vital part of the entertainment industry, generating billions each year in ticket sales and media rights as well as providing an effective platform for promoting the widest range of corporations, products and services imaginable.

Sport is also gaining in importance on a social level as a means of promoting activity and good health and social cohesion.

Consequently, Governments around the world are investing heavily in community sports programmes.

These are among the trends which have helped create many new opportunities in the world of sport, but the competition for jobs is intense and very often the search for off-field talent is often international, making traditional recruitment methods not only expensive but potentially ineffective.

The use of technology continues to be a game-changer.

At GlobalSportsJobs we are in the process of creating a world's biggest sports careers network online.

It's a massive task but one that is progressing well and attracting the support of some of the biggest employers in sport.

They understand that by accessing this network - or community - they extend their reach, both geographically and numerically, and increase the opportunity of selecting the best possible talent for key roles.

And it is not just a question of extending reach.

Technology also provides opportunities for sophisticated profile matching and online psychometric testing, all of which helps to ensure the process is as efficient and focused as possible before the human element comes into play.

All the evidence is that the effective and appropriate application of technology in sports recruitment will deliver huge cost savings and enhanced efficiency, particularly at the lower- mid range of the market where demand outstrips supply.

None of this means that the human element of the process will ever become redundant.

If anything it will become even more important, particularly in relation to the most senior roles in international sport where top talent is highly sought-after.

As ever, the challenge facing the sector is the ability to meet the needs of employers and candidates in a fast-changing market and the application of technology is key to that.

I am proud to be part of this important evolutionary step.

Will Lloyd is chief executive officer of GlobalSportsJobs