The Big Read

He’s been faced with some of life’s hurdles but Andy Turner is on the home straight to London 2012

By Mike Rowbottom

No doubt the young hurdlers at Notts Athletics Club give their all on every training night. But as they go through their paces at the indoor venue of the Harvey Haddon sports complex tonight there seems to be a special spring in their step. This is hardly surprising given that they are going through their paces under the gaze of one of the club's most distinguished former members, Andy Turner, and the man who coached him at Notts from the ages of 11-19, Alan Bower.

Since he established himself as one of the most promising young athletes in the country under Bower's guidance, Turner has enjoyed a career which has had as many ups and downs as any hurdler could expect.

He made it to the Athens 2004 Olympics in the nick of time after recovering from injury. Further injuries followed, but by 2006 he had recovered to the point where he won the bronze medals in the European Championships and Commonwealth Games 110 metre hurdles.

Antoine de Navacelle works to maintain the Olympic ideals of Pierre de Coubertin

By Mike Rowbottom

Antoine de Navacelle, direct descendant of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, is a man on a mission. More than one, in fact. But the most pressing concern of this cultured, recently retired international banker is to stimulate the minds of the younger generation in much the same manner as his illustrious forebear in promoting the Coubertin Awards student essay competition ahead of the London 2012 Games.

More broadly, as a board member of the International Pierre de Coubertin Committee (CIPC), which was founded in Lausanne in 1975, de Navacelle has sought to ensure that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) retains the values espoused by the man who was father to the modern Olympics – and great uncle to him.

But first question to the genial financier, as a matter of courtesy, concerns his recently broken leg. Due perhaps to the vagaries of the phone line, or more likely the interviewee's sense of fun, the enquiry prompts some uncertainty. Are we talking about his ankle – or his uncle?

Olympic pin badge collecting is an addiction and I'm getting hooked

By Mike Rowbottom

Footfall – which in these parlous days means the sound of shoppers checking out goods before going home to order on the internet – is brisk in the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, as you might expect on a Saturday morning.

But then this is the dead month of January, and it is possible to chart a course through the vast and multi-tiered concourses without having to halt or take the kind of evasive action that was required on the packed day of opening last September, when the siren song of former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger was amplified throughout the vast, thronged mall.

Around 25-30 pairs of marching feet have made their way directly to the London 2012 shop in John Lewis on this particular Saturday for a spectacular event.

There's never a moment's rest for the man leading the global Olympic Movement

By David Owen in Innsbruck

Entering the final phase of what will be a 12-year stint as head of the world's most powerful sports body, Jacques Rogge's workload does not appear to be getting any lighter.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) President will celebrate his 70th birthday on May 2; yet he was a man on a schedule in the outrageously scenic Austrian city of Innsbruck this weekend, when insidethegames was granted an exclusive interview.

Temporarily installed on the 14th floor of a city-centre hotel ringed by magnificent snow-covered mountains, Rogge certainly had a room with a view.

Winning in the generation game

By David Owen

Electricity, like ballet and ancient Greek, has always been a bit of a mystery to me.

I had fondly imagined that if you wanted to stage a sports event in an unconventional location you simply shipped in the infrastructure, attached a standard 13-amp plug (you know, the brown wire is live; the blue one is neutral – the stuff even I know) and trained an extension lead to the nearest electrical socket.

Apparently it is a bit more complicated than that.

King sets her sights on being the queen at London 2012

Timing is a vital part of Olympic success and when it comes to track cycling, even the smallest increments either up or down can have giant effects – as Sarah Storey found out after helping GB win team pursuit gold at the World Cup in Cali, Colombia, when she returned to discover she had been cut from the squad.

"I collected my bags in Manchester and before heading home was told my performance in Cali was not as good as they [the selectors] were looking for and so this is the end of the journey for me with the Great Britain pursuit team," wrote the 34-year-old former Paralympic swimming champion who was seeking to ride in both the Olympics and Paralympics next summer.

Storey's departure from the team pursuit followed that of other stellar performers such as Olympic road race champion Nicole Cooke, Olympic individual pursuit champion Rebecca Romero, whose challenge was undermined by injury in October, and Lizzie Armitstead, a member of the 2009 world champion team pursuit, who chose to pursue her ambitions on the road.

I sense it may be some time before women's sport is on a level-playing field with men's

By Mike Rowbottom

The result of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, to be announced on December 22, is already known. The winner is a man.

The controversy – some might call it the brouhaha – which followed the announcement earlier this month that the shortlist of 10 contenders contained no female sporting figures continues to generate heat. But the gathering which took place this week in the most ancient part of the Palace of Westminster aimed to produce light rather than heat – specifically, guiding light, given that it was composed of some of the most admirable of our female sporting role models.

The photoshoots that took place in Westminster Hall – originally built in 1067 with a "new" roof added during the reign of Richard II – and also on the green outside the Houses of Parliament were organised for a twofold purpose.

Ten short months after the traumatic injury which threatened to ruin her year, Steph Twell is back on the road to success at London 2012

By Mike Rowbottom

Over the years, the SPAR European Cross Country Championships have proved to be of key importance to a succession of British and Irish athletes. It would be nice to think that the latest version, to be run in the Slovenian city of Velenje on Sunday (December 11), will prove similarly relevant to 22-year-old Steph Twell, who will be making her return to international colours just short of 10 months after the traumatic injury which threatened to ruin not just her year but her keen ambition to make a mark in the London 2012 Games.

Until February 13 this year, Twell – then 21 – had experienced a steeply rising curve of achievement. In 2006 she had won the first of three successive junior titles at the European Cross Country Championships, and in 2008 she earned success on the track with a world junior 1500 metres title, also competing at the Beijing Games, where she narrowly failed to reach the 1500m final. She finished the year as the European Athletics Rising Star of the Year.

Her star continued to rise as she won bronze for Scotland at the 2010 Commonwealth Games 1500m in Delhi. But then came a trip to Belgium, where, leading a cross country race in Hannut, she slipped on a muddy descent and fractured her right ankle in three places.