Jamie’s track to business!
Jan 20 2008 Sarah Manners, Wales on Sunday
Jamie Baulch raced to 13 medals during an illustrious international athletics career, now the sprinter-turned businessman tells Sarah Manners he’s sporting a new ambition…
HE’S always been a man in a hurry.
Within weeks of his mum taking him to his first meet with Newport Harriers running club as a nippy 11-year-old, Jamie Baulch had won the 100m in his local County Championships.
Fast forward to 1996 and Baulch had taken silver in the 4 x 400m relay in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics – setting a European record in the process.
Thirteen medals later and Baulch retired from international athletics at the ripe old age of 31.
But anyone who thought this human dynamo would fade quietly into the background, living vicariously on his past glories, could not have been more wrong…
At 37 Baulch is busier than ever, trailing energy and excitement in his wake wherever he goes.
Now the Derbyshire-born boy who was adopted by his Welsh parents at three months old has a CV as long as…well, a 400m running track. “Running was something I did – not what I was,” says Baulch, father of Jay, 12, and four-year-old Morgan.
“People say to me ‘You’re the runner – but I say no, I’m not – I’m now Jamie Baulch the businessman’.”
A partner in the fast-expanding PowerGoldberg Sports management agency, Baulch has also just been appointed Director of Performance for Welsh Athletics.
The Welsh Commonwealth Games team has also asked him to be its marketing manager.
And his latest enterprise, which he will formally launch at the end of this month, is the schools fundraising venture, Superschools Wales.
Ask Baulch about sport in schools today and he almost jumps out of his seat, such is his passion for the subject.
“There is absolutely nowhere near enough sport in schools at the moment,” he splutters. “It’s a joke.
[b]“The idiot who said we should not have competitive sport in schools should get shot.
“And I don’t mind you quoting me on that.
“We don’t make maths exams equal, levelling out kids’ marks in case someone gets upset. So why should we do it in sport?
“In life there’s always competition. Everything is competitive.
“That is what human beings are all about.”[/b]
[b]
Superschools has been running for 29 years in England, using athletes including Brian Hooper and Daley Thompson to visit schools, coach youngsters and provide motivation and health and fitness advice.
Now Baulch has the franchise for Wales.[/b]
He says his motivation is a dual one, partly to help nurture the next generation of competitive athletes in Wales.
But more importantly, he says, he’s desperate to stop our children from becoming a nation of Teletubbies.
“Everyone’s a winner,” says Baulch.
“We’ll get Olympians or World Champions to go into schools.
“They’ll have their photos taken with the kids, which the parents can then buy and 60 per cent of the profits will go straight back to the school.
“They also do half a day’s sport with kids, tell them about healthy lifestyles and so on.”
Children are clearly very important to Baulch, who first became a father at the age of 22.
In fact, he credits the life-changing event that was his girlfriend’s pregnancy with son Jay for providing him with the motivation to succeed at the very highest levels of competitive athletics.
“Susannah and I had our first son Jay very young.
“I was wowed by Susannah when we met at Pontypool College when I was 17 and she was 18.
“When I was 22, she was pregnant with Jay and it was very hard because I didn’t have any money behind me at all.
“I was away training in America and Colin Jackson had only just started coaching me.
“He said to me, ‘Oh, she’s not really pregnant. She’s only telling you she’s pregnant because she doesn’t want you to go away for three months.’
“But lo and behold Susannah was pregnant and it was a hard time for both of us.
“It was very stressful and difficult.
“But I used that as a catalyst to get me to the next level.
“Because I knew that if I did not get to the next level in sport I might not be where I am today.
“It was a big driving force. Basically it was s**t or bust. And I had to go on and dig deep and to get it and achieve – or fail.
“And I was not going to fail.”
The following year Baulch won his first Olympic silver medal.
“So from then on my sons had a great Christmas present every year,” he laughs.
“But it could so easily have gone the other way, if I’d got injured or whatever. I was lucky, my body took the pounding.”
Modest about his achievements, Baulch pays tribute to practically everyone he has ever met in his professional life, from the person who bought his tracksuits for him, to his coaches – including the cherished Jock Anderson and Colin Jackson.
But perhaps his most fulsome praise is reserved for Susannah, his partner of 19 years – and his parents Alan and Marilyn, and siblings Sarah, Lucy and David.
“My parents are amazing people.
“I’ve been very grounded as a person. Dad’s an architect, semi-retired, mum was a schoolteacher. I’m from a very loving family.
“Everything is very family oriented.We always have great holidays and Christmases.
“Lots of people I saw in my track and field days – if they won medals, you’d see them change as people.
“It was all about ego. You’d see them carry on like they were better than other people.
“Just because I could run faster than somebody else doesn’t mean that I am better than a man who sells The Big Issue, or Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft.
“At the end of the day we are all people.”
But he says that despite being together for 19 years, he and Susannah still have no plans to marry.
“Susannah’s been very good to me over the years,” says Baulch.
“We’ve had our differences as you can imagine.
“Being with the same person has been tough. But we’ve stuck together though thick and thin.
“And my sons are really good kids. I love my kids. There’s no handbook to be a father or mother, and when you’re 22, like I was when I had Jay, it was difficult.
“But my parents were there for me and I just tried to emulate them.
“They showed me a lot of love. And we are a very close family.
“My kids and my girlfriend are everything.
“Some people say why haven’t we got married, but I’m superstitious. Why do it now?
“I’m really pleased I’ve had my family early on.
“Jay’s like his mum, very creative, into singing and dancing. Morgan is an absolute nutter, very fast, very bouncy.
“He’s diving over the settees in the house, and I’m thinking ‘Whoah’ but I’m told I was like that.
“With everything I’ve done and what I’ve got, I am one very lucky man.”
Now it’s his mission with his sports management company to bring some of the success of brand Baulch, professional and otherwise, to other sportsmen and women in Wales.
“Look at our footballers and rugby stars,” he says.
“They are not one dimensional. These are people.
“Without putting myself down, let’s face it, I ran around a track. In the great scheme of things, is it so important?
“What about a doctor, saving someone’s life? There’s no comparison.
“We aren’t just sports people but professional entertainers.
“We owe it to everyone who is watching us.”