Greetings from 'the coldest city in Poland'!

Upon my immediate arrival into Warsaw's Chopin Airport in the late August warmth, I was let in on a little secret: Suwalki - the city where I would be living for the next eight months - had hit the balmy heights of -29C last winter.

Let me repeat that: -29C. That wasn't included in the contract I signed! I'll admit my first thought was, "What have I got myself into now?"

Funnily enough, that question would be asked of me many times in the first few weeks in Poland by journalists eager to find out what the "first British volleyball player in Polish League history" was doing in Suwalki? Good question!

To get to Suwalki, arrive in Warsaw and go east. For four to five hours. Suwalki is nestled in the north east corner of Poland, very near to Lithuania and Belarus. Suwalki itself is a charming mix of beautiful lakes and hills, slightly depressing communist architecture standing alongside more modern buildings in fantastically wild colours.

The Poles are a very proud, friendly people who enjoy all the latest gadgets, but I do not get the feeling that they are rushing to buy anything American or British like some of the other 'newer' countries of Europe. They do enjoy football from our shores, however, as they claim their league in Poland is horrific.

I can confirm that it's not the best football I've ever seen. Then again it's hard to compete with the boys down at Stamford Bridge!

One of the possible reasons for the decline of Polish football is the rise of volleyball. This is probably the first country I've played in professionally where I can confidently say that volleyball is the national sport, with a little competition from strong man competitions and a weird penchant for competitive arm wrestling.

The coverage of volleyball compares to that of the Premiership in England. The top division in Poland now attracts some of the world's best players and is widely regarded as one of the top three or four best leagues in the world. It was with this knowledge (and little else!) that I accepted an offer to play for a team in the Polish second division who would be pushing for promotion this season.

Poland is my seventh different country in seven seasons. I always laugh when I read those idiotic pieces about how a footballer has to live close to his mum's house. The life of a British volleyball player is a constant battle with new people, places, faces and languages.

I fancy myself to be a bit of an amateur linguist and, having spent a lot of time in the half-Polish city of Chicago in my youth, I felt I was prepared for Polish. Let me cut a long story short - this is going to take a little while.

Their alphabet has something like four Zs. Granted, on the first day I was taught all the 'adult' words by my new team-mates, but to speak Polish itself will be a challenge. I had better get studying, as my first coach doesn't speak a word of English, neither do half the players on the team.

Within the first week I was in Poland I did about 25 interviews. Why I chose to come to Poland? How do I like Polish women? (no comment!) and what words in Polish do I know? (um...). The guys on the team took great pleasure in winding me up about it, or at least I think that's what they were doing!

I was being rolled out as some sort of Victorian side show, but once I played a few pre-season matches with the team and the supporters saw that I'm not just here for the money (ha!), most of the press attention has relaxed.

There have been many bizarre encounters for me around town. I walk into a shop and the person behind the desk says "Hello Andrew Pink". So it's been slightly odd but it's not a big city (70,000) so I guess that's to be expected.

Women love athletes here and the volleyball players are THE superstars. The guys from the Polish national team would struggle to walk down the street I reckon.

The club, Slepsk Suwalki, have made a rapid rise up the Polish volleyball pyramid having been formed only in 2004. After five league matches we are undefeated and have only dropped one point in a 3-2 victory. We have also progressed to the fifth round of the Polish cup competition. The danger is pushing too hard for the first division too fast and then bankrupting the club, which in volleyball happens a lot more frequently than you'd think.

Whichever way you look, money is such an issue in sport. Personally, I'm certainly not doing it for the money, but for the lure of the Olympic dream. Many Olympic athletes earn very little money from their sport and will end their career with nothing in the bank and no assets.

They're lucky if they have some sort of education to fall back on. It's all very well and good when you are young but the lack of professional sporting opportunities for volleyball in the UK will have a major say in what happens after London.

I'll be 29 then and how much longer can I really sacrifice the future security of a potential family to make a pittance to play this sport? It really is disgusting what those footballers make. One week of Mr Rooney's salary is probably more than most will earn in a career in volleyball.

But that's a discussion for another time. For now I'll be stocking up on warm clothes in preparation for the harsh winter which is closing in faster and faster every day. It's a good thing Poland is a tea drinking country (Twinings has just moved its entire operation to Poland) otherwise I'd freeze out here, so spare a thought for me when you're complaining about how cold London is!


Andy Pink, who plays for Slepsk Suwalki in Poland, is Britain's vice-captain

British Volleyball is represented by davidwelchmanagement.com

The decision to pull TEAM ORIGIN out of entering and competing for the Americas Cup was obviously extremely disappointing. For some of us it has been three years of work, getting the team to a position where we had a strong core group to move forward, with enough talent and experience to have a realistic shot at winning.

Personally, the biggest disappointment is losing the opportunity to work with such a strong group of people and despite the relative failure it has been a huge learning experience. The Cup is still a huge ambition of mine and the lessons learnt from this period will definitely be of use in future campaigns.

It was a bold move by BMW Oracle to move the America's Cup into the realm of multihulls with wing sails. I believe a large part of this decision was to do with the ongoing commercialisation in the sport. This is something that sailing, like other sports, is going through and while I fully accept the need to make our sport more spectator friendly and commercially viable, there is also a danger of taking away the essence of the true sporting challenge.

There is a very fine balance between the two and I honestly hope the 34th America's Cup manages to develop great racing which encapsulates the media and sailing audience. It will be a new era for the cup, so it's vital that the teams involved are properly supported to give the event the credibility that it badly needs.

Obviously, not challenging for the America's Cup has made my life a lot simpler with regard to my goal of racing in the 2012 Olympics. Before we knew what the plans for the next cup were, I had tentatively talked about Finn training in Southern Europe during this winter with the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta in late January probably my next event. However, the unexpected change means I'm now heading to Australia next week to train and compete at the Perth International Regatta in November as well as at Sail Melbourne in December.

It's great to be back Finn training. I have always really enjoyed going back into the Olympic environment and trying to be successful in 2012 is very much my focus now. With my coach David Howlett and Mark Andrews we've had a few days' Finn training at Weymouth and Portland, which has been great.

We've been trying out new bits of kit and just getting used to the boat again as I've not been in a Finn since the Sail for Gold Regatta in early August. There is genuinely always something a bit special about sailing at Weymouth, knowing that every time you get out on the water you are picking up as much information as you can about the conditions and what is going on around you.



Weymouth's always a difficult place to sail so the more time you can spend there the better. Saying that, it is getting pretty cold now and I need to get out on the water as much as possible, so being able to spend a couple of months in the breeze in Australia is going to be the best way for me to get my hiking legs and sailing fitness back up to where it needs to be for the Finn.

My British teammates Ed Wright and Giles Scott have both sailed really well this season, with Ed winning the world title and Giles winning Skandia Sail for Gold. These two guys in particular are going to be really tough to beat but competition of that level gives you an extra focus.

I have some hard yards ahead of me to get to the required levels of sailing and fitness but there is something satisfying about pushing yourself harder with an end goal in sight. I'm fortunate to have a great coach in David Howlett and some fantastic sponsors like J P Morgan Asset Management behind me - support like that makes a huge difference.

It was nice to go out to the World Match Racing Tour event in Bermuda and retain our Argo Gold Cup. The team was Iain Percy, Christian Kamp, James Stagg and myself. The regatta started just days after the TEAM ORIGIN announcement, which was pretty tough as we were all still pretty disappointed. I was really pleased with how we dealt with the frustration and although we didn't sail brilliantly in the early rounds we saved our best sailing for the final.

That victory also means we can still win this year's World Match Racing Tour. The final event is in Malaysia at the start of December and we will go there sitting third in the standings. We have an outside chance of coming out on top and will be pushing hard for a good result at our final event under the TEAM ORIGIN colours.

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

Main picture: Mark Lloyd

Marion Jones is a talented and charismatic person who is on a mission with a positive message for young people and adults.

However, I believe it's important to more closely examine her Take A Break programne and recently published book On The Right Track and put them into proper perspective.

The Take A Break website says it's "a programme that Marion Jones has created to enable her to give back and coach all people to live a better life and avoid mistakes that cause too big a price".

The reality is that her programne was more likely born as a result of 800 hours of community service being ordered by the court as punishment for lying to federal agents. US District Court Judge Kenneth Karas has openly criticised her for deceiving fans about her use of banned substances, calling the denial of use by many athletes "a worldwide lie" at her sentencing hearing.

She claimed to the court that she believed it was "flaxseed oil" she was taking at the time.

"I am troubled by that statement," Karas told Jones. "That's a very difficult thing to believe, that a top-notch athlete, knowing that a razor-thin margin makes the difference, would not be keenly aware and very careful about what he or she put in her body, and the effects."

At the core of Marion's programme is the message that it's important to "do the right thing". However, she continues to publicly claim that she "unknowingly" used drugs and this is simply not the case. I've openly acknowledged that I personally educated her about the use of growth hormone and watched her inject the drug right in front of me.



In response to me being truthful about my direct knowledge of her drug use, she filed a $25 million dollar defamation lawsuit against me.

In my opinion, this abuse of the federal judicial system was nothing more than an attempt to further promote her lies. The case was dismissed and I've continued to tell the truth about her drug use.

I am hopeful that Marion's message will help some people to avoid the kinds of mistakes she has made in the past.

I've also made serious mistakes in my life, so I know how damaging bad choices can be to a person's family and friends.

If she will come completely clean about her past use of drugs, I believe it will significantly increase the value of her message.

Marion should follow her own advice and do the right thing because the world deserves to know the truth.

Victor Conte is the founder and owner of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, the California company behind the biggest drugs scandal in sports history. This article was first published in the New York Daily News

One of my recent blogs which looked at the likely cut in the public funding to sport following the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) drew some interesting comments.

Many of these comments caught me a little off guard as they centred on a school of thought which, I will be honest, had never occurred to me; sport should not be funded from the public purse at all. Interestingly, this thought came from people involved in sport not a gang of anti-sporting couch potatoes!

I don’t intend to discuss whether sport should or should not be publically funded in this blog. Instead what I would like to do is suggest to those involved in sport but not supporting public funding of sport that they are confusing public funding of sport with Government funding of sport and to further suggest that without public funding, sport as we know it in the UK would very rapidly disappear.

Sport at its most basic level relies heavily on public funding. Imagine Sunday morning football without the local park football would suffer greatly without public funding authority making space available, marking out and looking after pitches up and down the country. Imagine taking the family for a swim without access to a publically funded, local authority swimming pool.

From athletics tracks to general use sports halls, grass roots sport in this country simply could not happen without funding provided by local authorities to build, manage, maintain and staff facilities. I would go as far as to suggest that without public funding of sport we would have very little meaningful sport at all in this country. And before anyone tries to distance elite sport from grass roots sport, less sport at the bottom end will inevitably lead to a lessening of people coming through to the elite end.

To me, the important question that arises from the comments mentioned above is not whether we fund sport but how we fund sport?

The previous Government, its Quangos and many employees of Quango funded bodies have, for the last decade, banded around the word "sustainable" in association with funding to the point it has almost lost all meaning. Funding was channelled towards using sport as a tool to achieve political objectives with a seemingly endless stream of initiatives coming and going; every single one of them apparently ‘"sustainable".

However, it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that despite the millions "invested" by Government in sport of the last few years, the nation’s biggest investor in sport remains the local authorities who are also the nation’s biggest provider of sporting facilities.



Yet, unlike many European countries, there is no statutory requirement for local authorities to provide any support for sport whether funding, facility, sports development or any other. And in the light of cuts following the CSR, the logical place for many local authorities to make savings will be by cutting those services with no statutory requirement for their provision.

Which brings me to the title for this article; "The public funding of sport and a legacy from 2012".

If we are to safeguard the future of sport in this country, if we are to do it in a way that is about sport for sport’s sake not sport as political tool, if we are to do it in a way that is truly sustainable and if we are to leave a genuine lasting legacy from the hosting of the 2012 Olympic Games the Government need do only one thing - pass legislation making the provision of sporting facilities, the support of clubs with community roots and backing for the development of sport a statutory requirement of local authorities.

Such an action might not pump new money into sport but it would undoubtedly safeguard its future at grass roots level.

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

Hello from the Gold Coast of Australia! The GB Beach Volleyball women’s squad is based in Brisbane for an eight-week block of pre-season training before Christmas, with a short break in the middle to finish off the World Tour Season in Sanya, China and Phuket, Thailand. 

We began our journey at Terminal 3, Heathrow, where my partner, Zara Dampney and I did an interview with the BBC. We then flew 13 hours from London to Bangkok, where the plane refuelled, then on to Sydney where the airport was heaving with Bank Holiday traffic and we duly missed our onward connection to Brisbane. 

The result of this was an eight-hour delay in the Sydney domestic terminal - not exactly a hub of excitement. We finally arrived at our apartments on the Gold Coast, 37 hours after leaving London, to rain - lots of it. And we get accused of playing a glamorous sport!

Our apartments are in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, which is a 20-minute walk from Surfers Paradise and the regular view from our window initially was - torrential rain. This wasn’t the Australia I’d imagined.

However, we’re not here to holiday. Our training week is split into three days in Brisbane at Sand Storm, (Australia’s Beach Volleyball Olympic Champion Nat Cook’s training facility), as well as using the Queensland Academy of Sport’s (QAS) gym. The other two days are spent on our local beach outside the Surf Club. 

A typical week consists of nine sand sessions, three weights sessions, three cardio sessions and four body control sessions.  Body control is a series of exercises to help us transfer correct body movement patterns onto the sand, i.e. jumping over poles, throwing medicine balls, and using bungee ropes. We have spent a lot of time falling over to make sure our centre of mass and body weight is in the right place.  

During our first week our bodies were in a lot of pain. The consistent appearance of single leg exercises in our gym programme only added to that pain!  We didn’t walk normally all week and stairs, both and up down, were avoided at all costs.  The saving grace during that first week was the pool recovery sessions, the massage stick and a tennis ball.  



In preparation for our final two events this year on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour to China and Thailand we have been training extremely hard. These last two events will hopefully give us an opportunity to end the season on a high after not quite achieving all of the goals we had set ourselves. We also have our eyes set on the World Championships, which are being held in Rome in the early part of the 2011 season, and good results in these last two tournaments will really help us qualify.

You may ask why we are already in our preseason training before the competitive season is over? As a programme we felt we needed to grab all the time we could to be ready for Olympic Qualification, which starts with the first event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in April next year.  

As a sport, volleyball and beach volleyball have been in the firing line recently, with funding cuts made in both disciplines. When these funding cuts were announced we were grateful we had the trust and support of the British Volleyball Federation to continue on our journey, both as individual teams and as a programme. 

It was a blow to have the men’s side of the Beach Programme cut, as we were quite a small group and having their support while on tour had a great impact. The cuts of the men’s beach and women’s indoor programmes just fuels our frustration that volleyball is still seen as a minority sport, and how that view affects the different programmes preparations for London 2012 Olympics.   

Shauna Mullin was born in South Africa and moved to Edinburgh, playing indoor volleyball for Team Edinburgh and Scotland. She took up beach volleyball three years ago and now trains with the GB squad in Bath. She got her first GB Beach cap in Korea in 2006.

British Volleyball is represented by davidwelchmanagement.com

The backlash against the not so humble Olympic firework should not come as a  great surprise. The Olympic Movement’s own green credentials are there for all to see in their  Charter.

"To encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues, to promote sustainable development in sport and require that Olympic Games are held accordingly," it says.

Yet in Beijing some 600 people were involved in setting off some 11,462 fireworks and that was in a display that lasted all of 20 seconds to get the Opening Ceremony underway.A few moments later "Footprints of history" were in the words of the organisers "29 colossal burning footprints ...one per second  all the way along Beijing’s central axis to the Olympic stadium".

This was to celebrate the invention of gunpowder, one of the four great inventions in ancient China. A further three-and-a-half minutes of fireworks followed the lighting of the cauldron itself. Add to that the number of fireworks used at the closing, and in the many rehearsals, the Olympic  contribution to the smog above the city must have been considerable.

In recent  Games  the  cavalcade of giant fireworks above the stadium has become a signature opening as the countdown reaches its crescendo and the Opening Ceremony is under way. It was not always so.

Olympic fireworks were scarce for the best part of a century, for the very good reason that by and large ceremonies before 1992 were held during the day. True,there were searchlights  above Berlin’s Olympic Stadium as the Games closed  in 1936, and as  the Roman crowd spontaneously set light to their programmes as they ended in  1960 as a way of saying Arrivederci to the departing Olympians. 

The first truly colossal firework display came in 1984 in a city not unknown for its smog, Los Angeles. By this time the Closing Ceremony had switched to the evening.

Seoul 1988 was the last daytime Ceremony for a summer Olympics (Only the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in  Nagano has since been opened in daylight). It was held under clear blue skies and in bright sunshine. It also featured a  release of doves before the lighting of the cauldron. Evidently unaware of  Olympic ritual, some of the birds came to rest of the edge of the bowl. A few minutes later, the flame burst into life with deadly  consequences for the birds, to the outrage of wildlife welfare groups.

In subsequent Games, symbolic representations of the doves were used. In Atlanta performers carried kites to represent the birds and later, even the spectator kits included cut outs for the spectators to wave. Dancers symbolised the movements of the doves in Beijing. Officially the reason for all these variations  was because birds could not fly at night, but also,whisper it quietly, to avoid another cauldron disaster.

It was not  the first time that Olympic ceremony had been altered for environmental reasons. When Ron Clarke lit the flame at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, he suffered burns to his arm because the flame included magnesium to make it flare .Since then, organisers have been at pains to point out the environmental virtues of their flames.

Guy Fawkes night apart, fireworks have long been a part of sporting celebration in Britain. Back in 1892,when Lord Kinnaird opened  Everton’s Goodison Park ,a display of pyrotechnics burst above the new stadium in celebration. More recently organisers of big rugby and football matches seem to feel no occasion is  grand enough without the addition of the smoke,flares and fireworks.

But even if Danny Boyle and co have a hankering for some outsize roman candles, sparklers and the like, they might recall when the 1986 Commonwealth Games were held in the "Trainspotting" city of Edinburgh and against a light grey sky in early evening, the fireworks looked simply messy. 

Long summer nights in London would cause similar difficulties for  fireworks. Whereas it was virtually dark when things got underway in both Athens and Beijing,at 8pm in London in July, the sun might still be shining.

When the smoke clears the wider issue remains. Have the Olympic ceremonies become just too big? Not for nothing have they been described as the first gold medal of the Games.Ever since Moscow’s tour de force in 1980 and the Los Angeles Hollywood spectacular which followed four years later, each city has tried to be bigger and better than the last.

The budget for the 2006 Asian Games in Doha was so big that the organisers steadfastly refused to reveal the final figure involved and there was a similar story in Beijing. London’s organisers know that they won’t be able to emulate Doha or Beijing, they do know that with or without fireworks, the first headlines of London 2012 will be created  by their  Opening Ceremony.

Philip Barker, a freelance journalist, has been on the editorial team of the Journal of Olympic History and is credited with having transformed the publication into one of the most respected historical publications on the history of the Olympic Games. He is also an expert on Olympic Music, a field which is not generally well known.

Some years ago, when Manchester were bidding for the Olympics, their then bid leader Bob Scott (now Sir Bob) castigated the British press for what he claimed was a lack of enthusiasm, suggesting that we didn't want Manchester to win because it would deny us an overseas trip to somewhere rather more exotic.

His argument might have been worthier had he not been stepping off a plane from Acapulco at the time.

Ah yes, Acapulco, that sultry tropical paradise down Mexico way famed for cliff diving and hosting luxurious bunfights for international sports bodies, not least the International Olympic Committee.

That's where members of the Executive Board bedded down for a few nights thisweek discussing, among other things, whether to add ski half pipe, a mixed biathlon relay and women's ski jumping to the Olympic winter sports programme. Obviously, some like it hot when chewing over things that happen in a cold climate.

Funny, isn't it, how sports organisations gravitate towards these five-star laps of luxury rather than an industrial city on the Ruhr or impoverished African township that could do with a lift when it comes to holding their conventions and congresses. Well, jolly good luck to them, I suppose, with the emphasis on jolly.

As an example, no doubt the good burghers of Bolton must be wondering whether the prestigious and spacious establishment at the Reebok Stadium, ideal for such gatherings, doesn't attract the IOC, FIFA, the IAAF and the like. Surely it isn't because Bolton doesn't have quite the same cachet as Barcelona or Buenos Aires.

Mind you, in 2012 there is an opportunity for the IOC to demonstrate that they aren't adverse to showing their support for the East End rather than the west end when they hold their traditional pre-Games meeting. I hear there is a rather good Premier Inn close to Wapping.

On the subject of up-market joints, it was good to be back at London's Savoy Hotel this week for the annual Boxing Writers Dinner. The hotel has been closed for a couple of years while extensive refurbishments have taken place costing some £220 million - apparently the biggest sum in UK hotel history and the sort of figure that would build a reasonably-sized sports stadium.

The boxing bash, as always, was the best of the sports do's - a time when old ring enmities are forgotten and members of the fight fraternity embrace like long-lost brothers even though a few years back they were belting bits off each other.

However, despite the expensive tarting-up, it seemed astonishing that the Savoy provided no wheelchair access to the magnificent room where the dinner was held. A politically incorrect oversight.

Even more politically incorrect, surely, is the continued absence of women from the function. Rightly or wrongly (wrongly in my view) the club does not allow female guests. As a former chairman I voted for the inclusion of women when the issue was last raised two years ago but it was lost on a split decision. So we are embarrassingly left with what appears to be the last bastion of male chauvinism in sport.

It is time the matter was re-visited. Women's boxing is now an accepted part of the fistic landscape and it was a shame that GB's World Championships silver medallists Savannah Marshall and Nicola Adams could not be there alongside Liverpool's Commonwealth Games champion and Euro silver medallist Tommy Stalker, who won the award for amateur boxer of the year.

I have long argued with some of my contemporaries, including my good friend and club stalwart Colin Hart of The Sun, against barring women from the dinner in this day and age. They claim it would spoil the "atmosphere" by which I presume they mean it would inhibit the ribaldry from the speakers.


But most ladies I encounter connected with the fight game can bandy four-letter expletives with the best of them. Try picking a verbal argument with ex-pro slugger Jane Couch (pictured) and you'll see what I mean.

The Minister of Sport Hugh Robertson was one of my guests at the Savoy yet when the redoubtable Kate Hoey was Minister I was not allowed to invite her - even though she is a keen fight fan. Another previous Sports Minister, Tony Banks, always refused to go because it was men-only.

And here's an interesting possible scenario. Supposing a woman boxer wins a gold medal in 2012, and no male boxer does. As things stand she could not be voted the year's best amateur - well, perhaps she could but she would not be allowed to attend and collect the award. Ridiculous.

Come on fellahs. Seconds out - and ladies in.

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.

Firstly, an apology. A little late, maybe, but nevertheless. I apologise to anyone whom I might have offended when I ran through Garston Park in a state of complete undress.

Now this happened many years ago - might have been 1978 even - and I very much doubt if its effects were deleterious. I very much doubt in fact whether anyone actually saw me and my prancing fellow fools as we concluded a long Saturday night at the Black Horse, White Horse and Coach and Horses - it was that kind of area - with what then seemed the supremely appropriate flourish of a mass streak.

I think I can still faintly remember the sensation of turf under bare foot, and the occasional whoops we emitted to underline the fact that this was all a jaunt.

Anyway, the point is, this jape we schoolfellows hatched all those years ago would never have seen the light of day - or in this case, the streetlight of day - without the group dynamic. As an individual exercise, it would have appeared embarrassing and ridiculous.

I feel the continuing trend for naked calendars, and in particular naked sporting calendars, operates on the same principle.

The iconic reference for such unlikely egging-on is of course that of the Rylstone & District Women’s Institute, whose members, after much internal debate, produced a calendar featuring themselves discreetly posing nude while engaged in everyday activities such as baking and knitting.

The publication of the 2000 Alternative WI Calendar raised a massive media to-do, and eventually more than £2 million for Leukaemia Research, with the whole process being immortalised by the likes of Helen Mirren and Julie Walters in the film Calendar Girls.

That "go on - why not? - let’s!" spirit has since animated hundreds if not thousands of similar projects.

Like the old advertising line - “naughty but nice” - these pictorial confections strive to hold an uneasy balance between salaciousness and seriousness.

So you can find, for instance, the aesthetic black-and-white installations featured in Edinburgh University Boat Club’s calendar, which are clearly nude but hardly naughty at all.

As in the various oeuvres of the Calendar Girls, the art in so many of these enterprises lies partly in placement. A rowing blade here, a rugby ball there, maintain the balance between the naughty and nice, allowing the enterprise to remain in the larkey category which seems most appropriate given that most such projects seek to raise funds for charity.

Naughty has the edge over nice, however, in other more adventurous installations. Such as the Men of Strokes calendar - featuring DC Strokes, the self-styled biggest gay rowing club in the United States.

And this year’s photographic offering from the Stade Francaise rugby club, Dieux du Stade (Gods of the Stadium), openly displays, er, club members.

Perhaps the perfect graphic means of incorporating the naughty and the nice in the area of self publicity in recent years has been body painting.

A year before she won the Olympic heptathlon title at the 2000 Sydney Games, Denise Lewis appeared in a magazine photoshoot in patriotic red white and blue. But if you looked more closely - and I suspect one or two people might have done so - she wasn’t wearing much, if anything, other than artfully applied paint.

That was rather a bold statement from Lewis, who began her career as a game girl from West Bromwich and ended it as a sultry, sulky creature who clearly belonged somewhere far more exotic.

At that point she was a world silver medallist, twice, and an Olympic bronze medallist, but she did not finally crack it until the following summer. The gamble worked for Lewis, however, shifting her image in a bold and commercially advantageous direction.

Since then, the old "I’m clothed – no I’m not. I’m (nearly) nude! – But I’m body-painted!” routine has been used by numerous sporting protagonists, and, three years ago, by some chums of Kate Middleton’s named The Sisterhood who pretended to be sporting figures, aided by genuine sporting "props" such as Terry Venables, Iwan Thomas and Andrew Castle.

Charity, of course, was the sole beneficiary.

So what are we to make of the very latest sporting calendar, featuring the noble features of our leading eventer, Oliver Townend?

This photographic confection for 2011 features Michael Blann studies of the Burghley and Badminton winner in a series of thoughtful - and as far as one can judge, buttoned-up - poses, sometimes with a noble steed at his side, in and around his yard near Ellesmere in Shropshire. It’s a new departure in the world of British equestrianism.

"I always appreciate the support I receive on the circuit," says Townend, "and we thought a calendar would be a good way of giving the fans a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes at my yard."



Not the best description, I would have thought, unless Townend is given to staring moodily out of windows with a horse craning over his ear.

But one thing is certain - there’s no nudity, and no body paint involved.

Perhaps one of the comments from Townend’s reputed 7,500 Facebook followers offers the best measure of how this calendar will be received: "Thanks Mr Olly, for looking so good."

Yep. Different method. Same effect.

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

My training is getting better every week.

I spent my first full week back at Lilleshall with the medical team putting me through intensive testing. They have also drafted a new rehabilitation programme that will push me on to the next level of my recovery.

I've been learning a couple of new skills and perfecting some old ones while protecting my knees from heavy impacts - I feel my pommel is almost as good as it has ever been.

It was exciting to work alongside the World Championships team as they finalised their routines and perfected some new skills in their final week before departing for the Rotterdam World Championships.

Huge congratulations must go to Luke Folwell, my close friend and training partner at Huntingdon, as he has just become the most successful Commonwealth Games gymnast ever, claiming a total of five medals in Dehli to go with the one he got in Melbourne.

Luke won gold in the coveted All-Around competition and gold on the vault, as well as silver medals in the team event, P-Bars and rings. What a huge moment and a well deserved result after 19 years of commitment and hard work.

Daniel Keatings, who is powered by Opus Energy, made history last October when he became the first British gymnast to win a medal in the all-round event at the World Gymnastics Championships

It's exciting to see British athletes continuing to produce breakthrough performances on the world stage, particularly when it is achieved in a sport in which we have not traditionally enjoyed widespread Olympic medal success.

The hat-trick of medals won by Britain's gymnasts - in the shape of Beth Tweddle, Louis Smith and Dan Purvis - on Saturday at the World Championships in Rotterdam is a tribute to everyone involved at British Gymnastics, and bodes well for London 2012.

I was particularly delighted to see Beth claim the third world title of her career. At the age of 25 she is a relative veteran in the youthful world of gymnastics. But she continues to produce outstanding performances and is a great role model and mentor to the younger gymnasts aiming to follow in her footsteps.

The fact that both the men's and women's teams qualified for the finals - both finishing in seventh position - is a demonstration of the strength in depth that has been developed in British gymnastics.

Earlier this month Britain's equestrian riders also produced ground-breaking results at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky, USA - with a team gold medal after a 16-year gap for the eventing team, alongside a first individual World Championship medal for William Fox-Pitt and the first British team dressage world medal.

The dressage competition saw Laura Bechtolsheimer achieve another first for Britain - two individual silver medals with a personal best in the Freestyle and a British record in the Grand Prix Special.

The tremendous success enjoyed by these British athletes has not happened overnight.

Both sports serve as great examples of what can be achieved when a well managed National Governing Body, with a solid high-performance plan, skilled coaches and talented, determined athletes, all come together.

Next up is the World Rowing Championships, which begin in New Zealand on Sunday (October 31) and will feature a 61-strong team of British rowers in action.

Britain has consistently been a dominant force in world rowing since Steve Redgrave was a fresh-faced youngster. The sport has contributed gold medals to the Team GB tally in every Olympic Games since LA 1984 - outstanding consistency.

I have no doubt British Rowing will continue to be a world-leading outfit and in two years' time will be well placed to thrill the home crowds at Eton Dorney with more Olympic success.

Of course, many of our Olympic sports had their attention focused on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi over the past month.

It was exciting to see so many young athletes from across the UK producing fine performances - especially in the swimming and diving pools where competition was particularly strong.

According to my maths, if the four home nations results were combined, the UK recorded 198 medals, including 51 gold - that's more medals than any other country and a huge number of athletes from our shores who can now relate to the proud feeling of standing on the podium at a major multi-sport competition.

Most importantly from our point of view, many athletes will have gained their first experience of a multi-sport environment and living in an athletes' village, which will help ready them for future Olympic Games.

I'm delighted that Team England's Chef de Mission Craig Hunter will now join us at the BOA and act as one of my five deputy Chef de Missions for Team GB at London 2012. I'm convinced his knowledge and experience will be a great asset to our team.

Craig will be in charge of our Preparation Camps strategy and in the weeks leading up to London 2012 will oversee Team GB's Preparation Headquarters at Loughborough University.

It's exciting times at the BOA. The organisation is changing, adapting and improving at a Usain Bolt-like speed.

Today there are 641 days until the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

As Carol Vorderman would tell you - continuing the maths theme - 641 is a prime number, and here at the BOA we are priming the organisation to successfully deliver the largest delegation to an Olympic Games in more than a century.

It's great to know that British athletes are in prime condition too.

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

Another weekend approaches. All eyes in this turbulent 2018-22 World Cup bidding war will soon be turning again towards the Sunday Times.

After Wednesday's dramatic media conference, complete with an appearance by the FIFA President himself, it seems to me this could now go one of three ways.

Scenario Number One: the well-resourced London newspaper unleashes its second volley; more FIFA Executive Committee members are embarrassed/forced to try and defend themselves; FIFA is made to look really very silly indeed and the whole bidding process descends into farce, probably necessitating an Extraordinary FIFA Congress.

While I wouldn't altogether rule this out, I just think Joseph Blatter is too shrewd to allow this to happen, not least because it could torpedo his - until this week very considerable - chances of being elected to another term as FIFA President.

Scenario Number Two: the newspaper has used all the material at its disposal; beyond congratulating itself on the impact it has had on the race, it publishes no new allegations; Ethics Committee Chairman Claudio Sulser, probably the only lawyer on the planet to have scored 13 goals for the Swiss national football team, and his colleagues can proceed with their investigation; eventually they publish their rulings and a wholly, or very substantially, intact ExCo is free to vote, as scheduled on December 2, on where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups should be played.

This seems almost too good to be true for FIFA, particularly as we now know that a second line of inquiry has been opened in the investigation, into "alleged agreements between member associations and their Bid Committees" in relation to the bidding process.

My hunch is that the newspaper may very well not yet have shared all it has unearthed with its readers.

But I return again to Wednesday's media conference: surely a tactician as adroit as Blatter would have ensured things were handled very differently - and that the media were kept firmly at arm's length - if he surmised there was a grave danger of further highly damaging allegations.

Which brings me to Scenario Number Three - for my money, perhaps the most plausible.

The newspaper does have more information, but whether for legal or other reasons, thinks better of publishing it; somehow in the brouhaha at the start of the week, Blatter and his colleagues get wind of what this information might be; this gives them leverage to reassert control over the bidding process in the final fraught weeks of the contest, ensuring their FIFA colleagues are not tempted to step out of line; the votes take place as planned, with or without the two bidders whose respective fates' are already, in effect, in FIFA's hands via the investigation into "alleged agreements"; Blatter announces the winners to the world with a satisfied smile and declares his approach to dealing with the crisis vindicated, perhaps with another highly quotable reference to society's "devils".

And so, not for the first time, the irrepressible Blatter may emerge triumphant from what at first appeared a distinctly unpromising situation.

It could be that my years of watching him reverse out of tight corners have led me to overestimate him.

But I wouldn't be staking my house on it.

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who 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

Dan Tree was a distracted figure in the staff room of Park House School and Sports College in Newbury.

Part of the reason was the impending first XI football match against local rivals St Bartholomew's - but most of the reason was the fear that six years of his efforts to improve and increase the sporting experience of hundreds of youngsters in the area have been critically undermined by the Government's spending cuts.

As well as being a PE teacher, Tree works on behalf of the Youth Sport Trust two days a week to develop one of the 450 School Sport Partnerships it has established since being set up as an independent charity in 1994.

These sporting networks, each with a specialist sports school or college at their centre, now include every state school in England. The statistics would appear to speak for themselves.

In the late 90s, many schools did not offer any hours at all for PE. By 2004, 23 per cent of state schools offered at least two hours per week, the previous Government's minimum target. This year that figure has risen to more than 90 per cent. Within the last three years, a million more pupils have been introduced to competitive sport.

Since 1995, the Government's annual investment in school sport has risen from zero to £160 million ($251 million). Now, the decision by Education Secretary Michael Gove to remove ring-fenced funding from School Sport Partnerships - which he describes as "neither affordable nor likely to be the best way to help schools achieve their potential in improving competitive sport" - will effectively reduce sport funding to zero again.

It's a prospect that dismays Tree - and no doubt those who perform the same function as he does all over the country.

"I co-ordinate sporting opportunities in the Newbury area for five primary schools, a special school and our school," he said. "Having two days a week off my teaching timetable enables me to establish more sporting opportunities and contacts for the children. I can set up competitions. I can bring specialist coaches into schools. I can establish links between the schools and local clubs.

"I'm now worried that all I've worked for over the past six years is going to be whittled down to nothing.

"The legacy of London 2012 cannot be achieved if you are downgrading the value of sport by doing this. This will affect what has been one of the most successful aspects of school life recently. A lot of money has been put into it, but it has also been showing results.

"I see it at ground level. There is no doubt that more of the children in this area are now involving themselves in sport and sporting competition, with all the broader benefits that brings.

"My head teacher values highly the work I am doing, and I'm sure he will try to accommodate it in the future. But he can't pluck money out of thin air so nothing is certain."

Tree's dismay is shared by Steve Grainger (pictured centre), the Youth Sport Trust's chief executive, who was one of the founding members along with John Beckwith and Olympic swimming gold medallist Duncan Goodhew.



"We know public funding is tight," he said. "But to cut down the level of funding from £160 million to zero, 21 months before the 2012 London Olympics, is astonishing.

"Using the Games to transform sporting opportunities for young people was one of the key messages Lord Coe used when London secured the Games in 2005.

"Now I think the International Olympic Committee should be asking questions about how that pledge is to be delivered if we are not going to be fulfilling the promise that was made.

"Of course, we started our work before the 2012 Games were awarded. But one of main ideas behind the Olympic bid was to use the inspiration of a home Games to drive up sporting participation by the nation's youth.

"I can imagine a hugely successful Games being staged in 2012, with great facilities, lots of home medallists and great TV coverage. Then, come September, our children are going to be returning to school, inspired by London 2012 to play sport, or to take up new sports they have just seen.

"So what is going to happen to the child who wants to take up handball because he loved it at the Olympics? There will be no one there able to help him.

"It's like Coca Cola mounting a big campaign for a new product, but not having any cans available for sale."

Grainger believes the effects of the cuts may be mitigated in some schools, but that they will adversely affect children in problematic urban locations.

"In some areas of the country where there is a strong community involvement you may see competitions and schemes carrying on," he said. "But that will not be the case in some of the tougher areas, where there isn't that social cohesion. It is the young people in these areas that are likely to suffer the most from these cuts.

"Most PE teachers now are doing as much if not more than they were during the '70s and '80s. It's those who teach other subjects who aren't involved in sports any more.

"When I was at school at a comprehensive in the north-east my athletics teacher was a maths teacher, my rugby teacher was a French teacher and my cricket teacher was a history teacher.

"But teachers nowadays have got far more time pressure on them delivering to set guidelines.

"And after the educational reforms in the late 80s, where teachers were tied in to set hours, the culture has changed. The old arrangement is not going to come back."

While the politicians make their calculations – both economical and political - one of those charged with delivering on the promises made by other politicians is, patently, distressed.

"I am not concerned for myself," Tree said. "My concern is the impact this is going to have on young people. I am absolutely gutted for them."

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

Whatever happened to show jumping?

Remember those halcyon days when the Horse of the Year Show and Hickstead were almost as big on the box as the X Factor? When Harvey Smith V-signed his way into public adoration and Colonel Harry Llewellyn's Olympic gold medal steed Foxhunter was the Red Rum of the show ring?

That was before the sport sold its soul to sponsorship, naming horses after washing machines and hi-fis, causing the BBC to lose interest.

It was a time when equestrianism was not so much the sport of kings but of a horse-mad princess named Anne. But, as HRH did in the Montreal Olympics, it took a tumble. Only now picking itself up and searching for a fresh image.

What it needs, say its followers, is a new kid in the saddle to ride for glory in 2012, someone with a bit of charisma who can appeal to a younger generation. It may well have found him in a 20-year-old six-footer from County Durham who is far removed from the rakish Rupert Campbell-Black, Jilly Cooper's aristocratic horseman in Riders.

Dan Neilsen, son of a potash miner, would be equally at home in a boxing manager's stable as the one in Essex where he spends his time mucking out, feeding and riding a string of horses while galloping towards his Olympic goal as currently Britain's best young showjumper.

His journey from the boxing ring to the show ring, which he did initially to his dad's John's displeasure, is a bizarre tale with a touch of the Billy Elliots about it.

He explains: "My mum, Christine, had a horse when she was young - Pony Club stuff, and then some competitions.

"My dad is Scottish and is football crazy. He had played semi-professional in Scotland.

"I was brought up with my brothers and sisters in Cleveland and I suppose I inherited my mother's love of horses. I had a pony called Lofty in the back yard and went to Pony Club at weekends.

"I also played a lot of football, in fact anything sport to do with a ball. But I became more interested in horses and sold my quad bike so I could get another pony.

"This caused a bit of friction at home. Mum was pleased of course but dad wanted me to stick to football, which he obviously thought was more manly - a bit like the Billy Elliot scenario I suppose."

So, to prove to his dad, and some sceptical classmates, he was no cissy, Neilsen joined a local boxing club.

"I had always liked boxing, watching it on TV. In the beginning all I wanted to do was just train and get a bit more streetwise because some people looked on me as a bit of a softy.

"I used to mess around with some of the other lads and the trainer told us we should start taking it seriously.

"Is one of you fairies going to fight or just keep poncing around?" he said.

So I gave it a go and within a month or two I really got the bug for it, and eventually boxed for the county.

"But as I grew older I was more drawn to show jumping, usually riding novice ponies. I became ranked third or fourth in Britain but the one which really grabbed my interest and took it away from football and boxing was called Micklow Madness. He was very difficult at the beginning, he didn't want to jump water or even go into the ring but we won the under 15s and team gold.

"I used to take my punch bag and skipping rope to horse shows and have a go on them for an hour or so between events. They actually worked quite well together because in both sports you have to be quite disciplined. They are both full-on sports."

He was 16 when he was offered a job at the stables run by Jason and Katrina Moore at Stanton Massey in Essex - by coincidence it was formerly owned by Frank Bruno.

"Frank's old gym and punchbag are still here so I use them to work out."

There he helps tend several horses while furthering a career which has seen him win a team bronze and individual silver at European under 18 level, riding against 100 of Europe's best youngsters. His most recent success was winning the Speed Horse event at the Horse of the Year show soon after taking the Young Riders championship in Birmingham on his favourite mount, eight-year-old Chauvinist.

"That really showed he, as a horse, and me as a rider were capable of mixing it with the big names in the sport."

He adds: "I think showjumping is getting a bit better exposure now that Sky have picked it up. There's a little less formality about the way it is presented, which is good.

"It always used to have the image of being rather snobbish but I'm quite a normal kind of guy and there are others like me. That's the image we are now trying to get across. It's a fun sport, really addictive.

"For me there's nothing else like it. I mean, in football, you are just kicking a bit of leather around, but in equestrianism you are controlling a live animal and when you win there's no better feeling."

Now both his mother and father are ardent followers of his progress.

"Dad has really come round and now acts as my video man at the main shows and sometimes drives the horse box.

"When I took up boxing my mum worried because she said, 'You'll get hurt'. But I've probably done more damage to myself riding than I ever did in the boxing ring.

"You take your tumbles - it is a dangerous sport, but touch wood, although I've had some falls I have been lucky enough to escape any broken bones. The worst thing I did was to tear a tendon in my inductor, which kept me out for six weeks."

At the moment he says he is seeking 'more horsepower' to move up the ranking in international events and seal a place in the 2012 squad.

"It's also important to try and attract a sponsor and owner who wants to be involved. I need the opportunity to ride that bit better calibre horse with an owner who wants to get behind me and buy me the horse.

"We have some very good young horses here who are going in the right direction, particularly Chauvinist who will be 10 in 2012 - a good age but you can have a lot of belief and a lot of hope in a particular horse, but sometimes that horse may lack the little bit of scope. To have the ability to be able to pick and know the horse that you want makes all the difference between being tenth in Britain or number one."

When the bell goes for the last round in showjumping it is often as crucial a session as boxing.

"In team events I am usually the last one out and often they tell me 'Dan, you've got to jump clear, if you don't we don't win'. It's in my character to say, 'OK, let's go, let's do it.'"

He says to be involved in 2012 would be "massive".

"Even just to be there would be fantastic. Every day I look for the next thing, especially good horses, owners and sponsors, which will make me that much better."

He's certainly someone who could help put showjumping back in sport's shop window.

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

UK runners dominated middle distance events 25 years ago.

Sadly, at the Commonwealth Games, in 13 of 14 events for men and women from 400 metres through the marathon, UK athletes scored zero.

Zero medals of any sort. The one lonely medal was a bronze in the women's 1500.

UK athletes could not have done much worse. How can this be? Has the rest of the world gotten insanely better?

Well, yes, the rest of the world has improved. But not Britain. British records for 800m, 1000m, 1500m, mile, 2000m and marathon are all 25 years old. The British records for the 3000m and 5000m are 28 years old. For the last quarter century, British running has literally stood still.

What's the problem? Have Brits become lazy? Are athletes 'spoiled'? What about the millions of pounds spent on coaches, administrators, trainers and scientists to improve performance over the past quarter century? Did that money just disappear in someone's pockets?

None of this is true. British runners work even harder than those of 25 years ago. In fact, they may work too hard. One runner cited fatigue as his reason for not attending the Commonwealth Games.

Our analysis shows the obvious and glaring difference between current runners and past record holders.

Current runners are much stiffer than their record-holding predecessors. We measured the stride angle (which determines stride length) of current middle-distance runners and found that they are 21-26 degrees smaller than Coe and Cram - which means that they cover 42-58% less ground with each stride. You can see these athletes and our analysis at http://www.somaxsports.com/UKrunners

Little wonder those quarter-century old records still stand. Little wonder that current UK runners scored zero in 13 out of 14 events at Delhi.

In addition to athletics, swimming is the other premier event at the Olympics. How did UK swimmers fare at Delhi?

Of 42 events for men and women, Britain won nine gold medals, or 21 per cent of the events they entered. Australia, by comparison, won 21 events, a much more impressive 50 per cent of events entered.

Well, you say, that's not too bad. At least it's not as bad as athletics.

Well and good, but this ignores the fact that the Americans, Japanese, Hungarians, Swedes and other countries that win gold in swimming were not there.

It also ignores the fact that the UK has a population of 61.4 million, while Australia has about a third of that with only 21.4 million souls.

British swimming records are, thankfully, more current, with most of the records set in the past two years. This explains why their medal count at Delhi was much better than the runners. But still, they won less than half the golds of a country with a third of the population.

So what is the problem with UK swimming?

Watching the British team at the World Championships, we noticed that their stroke count was higher than their faster competitors. In other words, like their athletics counterparts, they are covering less distance with each stroke than the swimmers who are beating them.

When you cover less ground or water than your competitors, you are simply less efficient than they are. To win today, you have to be more efficient than your competitors - just as you have to be more efficient to win in Formula One and business. You can't rely on strength and endurance alone.

Why do they cover less water with each stroke? Recently, one elite UK swimmer sent us a video of his underwater stroke and photos of his flexibility. We were appalled. His stroke was so inefficient, his flexibility so poor, that we were amazed at the times he could produce. He must have been swimming on British guts alone.

Increasing the stride angle and stroke length of UK runners and swimmers would guarantee more appearances at the top of the victory stand in 2012. But UK Performance has expressed no interest in doing this.

Brits are losing races - and precious time to improve - simply because they are less efficient and flexible than their competitors, and no one in British sport seems the least bit interested in changing that.

Bob Prichard is the President of Somax Sports Corporation. He is the author of "The Efficient Golfer" - he first golf book to show readers how to use their home camcorder to videotape, measure, analyse and improve their swing mechanics -and he developed and patented the Somax Power Hip Trainer, the first aerobic exercise machine to increase the strength and speed of hip rotation for golf, tennis, football and swimming