Simon Hart
Simon Hart Olympic watch Simon Hart has covered the Olympics, summer and winter, since the 2000 Sydney Games. He was one of the few journalists who predicted that London would snatch the 2012 Olympics from Paris. He lives with his wife and two teenage children in Blackheath and walks his dog where the 2012 equestrian events will take place in Greenwich Park.
How to make our athletes run faster: cut their Lottery funding
Posted By: Simon Hart at Jun 5, 2009 at
Andy Turner, Britain’s leading 110m hurdler, has become the latest athlete to prove that losing your Lottery funding can do wonders for your performance.
Last autumn he was axed from the list of British athletes eligible for financial support after a season stuck in the slow lane.
His fastest time in 2008 was the distinctly underwhelming 13.41sec he ran in Doha, and even that was achieved with a tailwind right on the legal maximum of +2.0m/s. For the most part, he was running mainly 13.6s and 13.7s - well off the pace of his international rivals.
But being cast out of the Lottery comfort zone appears to have wrought a transformation in his physical condition judging by his early-season form.
Last week he looked a different athlete to last year as he beat a classy field at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games in the Dutch town of Hengelo in a time of 13.30sec - just 0.03sec outside his personal best.
That came hot on the heels of an impressive victory in Belgrade - achieved in 13.29sec, though with a marginally illegal wind of +2.1m/s.
“Things are going very well,” he told me after his race in Hengelo. “The main reason is that I haven’t been injured. I’ve run close to my personal best twice in the last few days so I can’t complain.”
But could it have anything to do with the bitterness he felt at losing his Lottery grant and wanting to send a message to the governing body, UK Athletics?
“Obviously it’s a factor that I want to prove them wrong, but I’m not running angry any more,” he said. “I’m way past all that business.”
Yet the example of some of his British team-mates suggests a spell in the wilderness can be no bad thing.
Like Turner, Andrew Steele lost all his Lottery money in the autumn of 2006 after showing little progress over the previous three years. The following year he came back and improved his fastest 400m by more than a second.
Unlike Turner, Steele had no hesitation in admitting that the loss of income played a big part in his improvement by removing the pressure of having to hit certain targets to justify the funding.
“A different mental attitude certainly helped,” said Steele. “I just felt that not being on the Lottery left me a lot freer. I’m not saying anybody pressured me before but without it I felt I was only doing it for myself.”
Long-jumper Jade Johnson made exactly the same point after she was cut from the funding programme at the end of an injury-plagued 2007 and then returned to form with a personal best at the 2008 European Cup which ensured her qualification for the Beijing Olympics.
“It’s a nice feeling to go out and compete for myself and all those people who have looked out for me during the tough times,” Johnson said.
“I understand why I was taken off Lottery funding as I was out of action all the time. It’s been financially difficult but mentally it’s been a blessing in disguise because now I focus on myself.”
So could it be that the Government were too rash to pump £550 million of public money into Britain’s Olympic effort for 2012? Does the pressure of being on Lottery funding inhibit rather enhance?
There is no doubt that Lottery cash has been responsible for a step-change in Team GB performances. Just compare the 19 gold medals won in Beijing to the single gold won in the pre-Lottery days of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
And yet for those athletes on the fringe of being potential athletes - like Turner, Steele and Johnson - maybe it is a case of less is more.
Darren Campbell, the 4x100m gold medallist in Athens, has always been an outspoken critic of the way Lottery funding turns athletes soft and destroys their focus. He says athletes receiving cash grants are more concerned with their next pay cheque than running fast.
Perhaps he is right. As Turner is showing this season, there’s nothing like a bit of deprivation to concentrate the mind.