Specialising in the javelin Steve Backley was a firm fixture in the athletics team of Great Britain for fifteen years winning medals at three different Olympic Games and four consecutive European Championship golds and three consecutive Commonwealth golds.
2004 was his final year of competition for Backley at the Olympic Games in Greece he did attend the games in Beijing but this time from the other side of the fence as he worked for the media. I caught up with him to talk about the Helly Hansen Adventure Series that he is backing and life after athletics.
You are backing the Helly Hansen Adventure Series 2008/09 what is it all about?
Well it’s an adventure challenge there are three separate sports discipline the first being power running, which is about 10k, the second is a mountain bike challenge of about 25k and the third is canoeing, flat water canoeing of 1.5k. It’s a challenge teams of three to enter and you will all have to finish all three challenges and it’s about getting that third person over the line and the distances have been set up so that it is a challenge, it’s not a push over you will have to train for it, and it’s going to be about getting that third person over the line because you have to finish as a team.
I’m looking at doing the last one in march and I’m going to have to train for it (laughs) it’s not the sort of thing that you just enter but I’m really looking for ward to it there are three events left 7th December, 1st February and the 29th March is the final event on Lake Windermere.
And why are you supporting this event?
It’s something that I’m kind of, I retired from javelin throwing in 2004, and it’s something that I have sort of taken on as a lifestyle challenge from the fitness training side, I did a lot of strength and power training for a lot of years and I can’t do that anymore, I had a hip replacement two years ago, and I just wanted to do something to keep me fit so I know jump on a treadmill and do a 5k run or I get on a bike. But doing something that combines the sort of activities that I’m involved with, and being in a lovely location with the support of a great brand, are all the reasons really.
Well that sort of leads me into my next question you are obviously known for throwing the javelin for Great Britain for many years what are you up to mow that you have retired?
I’ve spent the last four years putting fingers in pies, I have too many pies and not enough fingers at the moment, my main thing is I do a lot of motivational speaking I travel around the country talking about the Olympics to corporates about the games and lessons that I learnt that can parallel across to business life and everyday life. I’m big into the whole idea of preparation whether it be from a business perspective or a personal perspective or a sporting perspective into how people to deliver the best possible performance and again that ties into the Helly Hansen challenge.
And how did you get into athletics, I suppose javelin isn’t the most popular choice?
No but them I guess that football blows any other sport away anyway if you do anything other than football or rugby then it’s a minority sport, or by default the way it’s going in this country. But athletics for me is the fundament of human movement run, jump, throw they are the rawest sporting disciplines and I was brought up, as an athlete, as a runner, I wanted to be a middle distance runner, and I watched guys compete in the 1976 Olympics, I was only seven, and I wanted to be an Olympian. Then I became a javelin thrower by the time I was fourteen and that was more of a result of being around athletics and starting to do my javelin.
And are there any aspects of that life that you now miss since you have retired?
I think the bit that I miss the most is having a clear and consistent target and a clear and consistent goal in your life every year there is a challenge to compete in the European, World or Olympic games and you have to set your stall out to do the best that you possibly can and it’s very clear and very black and white as to whether you have had a good year or not, and life isn’t necessarily like that there are a lot of grey areas to success.
And that again is what I go round helping people with setting targets and goals for yourself and then trying to achieve something that is just out of your reach and in the process of doing that expanding your abilities and your repertoire.
What did you think of the Beijing Olympics and in particular the performance of team GB?
I thought it was stunning I was around and I thought that it was absolutely brilliant we performed above and beyond expectations and the games themselves were delivered far better than anyone had ever imagined. It was my fifth games but it was the first time that I had been too on the media side, I was working for the BBC, and it was just stunning I had almost been oblivious to how big the Olympics was and I couldn’t believe how exciting the games were and how excited people were around the stadium everything about it was just perfect.
What was it like sitting on the other side of the fence?
It was great actually, I was a little bit apprehensive to see what that would be like, it’s actually more enjoyable because you don’t get to see much of it when you are competing you don’t get to see other athletes people like Usain Bolt run 9.69 I saw all of it, I saw every session of athletics from start to finish I saw everything, and got to commentate on it and that was just sensational. I have done as well as I could have done and I did myself proud and am now happy to have retired but to go back and see other people aspiring and winning and losing and having to deal with failure and success is a very interesting thing when you have had an insight.
Just the one gold for us in the athletics was it a below par performance or are we being a bit hard on them?
I think it is a little bit harsh we got four medals, which is the same as we got in 2004, but bearing in mind it’s better than what we did in 1996 so it wasn’t a bad performance I think the problem was the other sports did so well and therefore athletics was expected to deliver at a similar standard.
But the reality is is that athletics is truly a global sport over two hundred countries compete in athletics and that is not the case in the other sports you can’t just put a performance plan and fund a performance plan, like they have in other sports, and expect the GB team to climb up the world rankings that doesn’t happen in athletics because it is saturated and the bar is so high.
It was always going to be tough and we shouldn’t be too expectant of the athletes because of that and if we can improve on it subtly and win five or six medals in 2012 then it’s a significant improvement.
Back to your career you had a fierce rivalry with Jan Zelezny what was your relationship like when you weren’t competing?
Well I knew Jan through competing and then I knew him through training with him and he was a similar sort of guy he wasn’t one that changed character. And Jan was very accommodating he invited me to his training camp in 1997 and I trained with him for about eight years, through to the end of my career, and that, in itself, gives an insight into his mentality he wasn’t that he was a closed shop and you couldn’t go near him he was accommodating and that was a real honour to be invited into an Eastern European training camp because that was pretty unprecedented at the time.
He was a quiet guy with simple means he was very happy just to go fishing train, fish, eat, sleep he wasn’t the sort of person that craved this lavish lifestyle it was very interesting from that point of view and, certainly for me, he is one of the greatest athletes that has ever lived and that made it tougher for me as well as more enjoyable, and the fact that I won four Europeans back to back to stop him from taking a European title was a great little counter punch to his success on the Olympic side of things.
Obviously the Olympics are coming to London what are you hoping for in 2012?
I’m hoping that we deliver a very solid games and that we get all the basics right, that’s the first thing we need to do, then on top of that what we need to do is have some really good attention to details because I think that it’s the subtle little details that people remember and they are the things that make you different to other Olympics and if we can do a combination of those two, the basics incredibly sound and efficient with a little bit of sparkle, then we will be successful.
Then the third thing to add to that is the legacy side I hope that it inspires at least one generation of sporting youth to develop the whole Olympic dream and get involved in Olympic sports and participate and dream and go on to further success in 2016 and 2020.
Finally what is next for you?
I’m busy doing lots of different things but my commitment now is pretty much for my family, I have two young girls, and my commitment is to them I have a business on the go that I want to be successful for their future. I also want to be involved with 2012 from the media point of view in my current role and the whole media side of 2012 is something that I am really looking forward to and just sort of enjoy life after athletics sit back, well not sit back because I never sit back, my quest is to purely enjoy post Olympic life.
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