Sitting at lunch with Oscar Pistorious yesterday was the starting gun for me on this year's BT Paralympic World Cup.

In Manchester over the next seven days, starting tomorrow (May 25) and continuing through until next Monday (May 31), more than 300 of the world's elite Paralympians will be competing at the event - which is regarded by many as one of the most important stepping stones to the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

It's a fantastic opportunity to see the world's elite in action. Many of the athletes we'll see competing over the next week will be at the start line of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. The competition gets stronger every year and it really reinforces for me the power of Parlaympic sport to inspire, connect and engage people of all ages and backgrounds.

BT Ambassadors Oscar Pistorius and Liz Johnson will be there of course at the heart of the action. The BT Ambassador programme is our way of engaging and inspiring our people and our customers as London 2012 gets closer, and it's a pleasure and a privilege for me to work closely with people like Oscar and Liz along our journey.

The athletes are doing a fantastic job for us - whether competing, speaking at internal or customer events, or supporting our wider PR and marketing programmes.

We wish them and all the athletes the very best of luck as they compete over the next few days.

The start of this year's BT Paralympic World Cup also provides us with the perfect opportunity to announce our increased commitment to Paralympic sport. It's something that BT is very proud of, and I am pleased to say we are now doing even more to help secure a lasting legacy for Paralympic sport in the UK. 

Beyond 2012 BT is committing to continue its support of the British Paralympic Association (BPA) all the way to January 2016. This means we will help support ParalympicsGB athletes as they compete in Sochi in 2014 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. BT will have exclusive partner rights with the BPA and the highest level of sponsorship rights. 

It's a very exciting time, with a little over two years to the start of London 2012.  In our role as official communications services partner, BT is delivering the most connected Games ever, and ensuring everyone can be involved in the Games like never before.  Every image, every sports report, every visit to the London 2012 website and millions of calls, e-mails and texts will be delivered over BT networks.

Suzi Williams is BT Group marketing and brand director. BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and title sponsor of the BT Paralympic World Cup. For more information click here

It is a thrilling moment on the road to the London 2012 Games. The Olympic and Paralympic mascots have been chosen and officially revealed to the world.

At the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), we are celebrating the creation of Mandeville, the Paralympic mascot who is certain to bring the Paralympic Movement to new heights. Like its Olympic friend Wenlock formed from a drop of steel from the Olympic Stadium’s construction, Mandeville offers a youthful touch to the big event in 2012.

I congratulate the London 2012 Organising Committee for the excellent choice of this unique mascot. I am sure that the mascot will be loved by children all over the world.

The form and spirit of Mandeville is already clearly present upon first glance, and what progresses over the next two years will further this around the world. And as more and more people meet our mascot, they will forever be given a lasting impression of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

The name Mandeville is most inspiring, as it is also a reminder of the history of the Paralympic Movement. In 1944, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, at the request of the British Government, opened a spinal injuries centre at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

A new approach introduced sport as a paramount part of the remedial treatment and total rehabilitation of persons with a disability. Rehabilitation sport evolved rather quickly to recreational sport and the next step to competitive sport was only a matter of some years.

On July 28, 1948, the day of the Opening Ceremony of the 1948 Olympic Games in London, Dr. Guttmann organised the first competition for wheelchair athletes which he named the Stoke Mandeville Games. In 1952, Dutch ex-servicemen joined the movement and the International Stoke Mandeville Games were founded.

As Mandeville travels around, children and adults alike will learn about the history of the Paralympic Movement. Furthermore, they will see how Paralympic sport is alive and well and continues to grow, offering opportunities to people with a disability who are interested in sport. We are a growing Movement.

Mandeville is modern, and is adaptable to all environments.

His story is one that can be likened to our athletes, as they too are a modern representation of athletic ability and performance. Their skills on and off the field of play continue to inspire audiences everywhere.

Our history will be represented in the name, spirit and form of Mandeville, the London 2012 Paralympic mascot. And as young people learn about the Paralympic Games and the magnitude of what is possible in life, they too will be inspired to achieve more and challenge themselves beyond all boundaries.

Welcome to the Paralympic Family, Mandeville!

Sir Philip Craven is the President of the International Paralympic Committee. He represented Britain in five consecutive Paralympic Games between 1972 and 1988, competing in athletics, basketball and swimming

Switching to a new sport has definitely been an interesting challenge and, having competed at an elite level in wheelchair basketball for such a long time, it’s exciting to start a new sport with a clean slate.

Whilst I’m still developing as a wheelchair tennis player, I feel like I’ve been able to use the wisdom gained from my previous sporting career to benefit my new one. 

However, there is also a degree of frustration. For ten or so years I could go anywhere in the world and be one of the better players on the basketball court so it’s very hard to then find yourself at a new starting point where you’re the worst player. 

When I first played wheelchair tennis I was beaten by people of all ages, from 12-years-old to 50-years-old.

When I played basketball it took me 10-to-12 years to perfect a really consistent outside shot. For tennis, they say you need to play 40,000 swings before it hits muscle memory – maybe I’m at around twenty-five thousand swings (a rough guess!) so I’m getting there. I have an advantage from my basketball days as I’m naturally very fit and also very strong. 

However, I’ve also found I’ve needed to learn new skills, especially relating to wheelchair movement. Basketball is more staccato in terms of movement, much more short and sharp, whereas tennis is more of a dance and you need to glide across the court. Wheelchair tennis is a bit like a jigsaw and as I make more progress it’s like I’m fitting more and more of the pieces together.

There have been some highlights from my brief time in tennis. I played on a tour in South Africa and there was one game I remember clearly where I reached the quarter-final of an ITF tournament in Johannesburg.  I came from a set down to win. I’d be playing abysmally and then after the first set it began to rain.  I was off that court in a flash and, with the game suspended, I was able to watch my performance and analyse where I was going wrong. I returned the next day and won two straight sets for victory. 

However, there have of course been a few low points. One memory I’m able to laugh about now was when I was playing in a tournament in Utrecht in Holland.  In a moment of sheer frustration I threw my tennis racket at the wire mesh fence that lined one side of the court. Somehow, and I wouldn’t be able to do it again if I tried a million times, I managed to lodge the handle in between one of the wire mesh holes and the racket was just stuck up on the fence.  My advice to anyone is not to throw a tennis racket unless you have a racket sponsor – had that been the case I could have left it there and pulled a new racket out of my bag! 

Unfortunately, I only owned one racket and my coach pointed out (with laughter from the crowd ringing in the background) that if anyone else helped me get it down it would count as a point deduction for racket violation. I was forced to keep shaking the fence until it finally fell down (upon which, to complete the humiliation, it hit me on the head!).

I’m not taking too much notice of any pressure around London 2012. I know I’ll be able to play a part in London 2012 as there are various opportunities presenting themselves in areas outside tennis. However, there is an opportunity for me to put myself forward as one of the people competing for a wheelchair tennis place. I wouldn’t want to do this if I didn’t think I had a real shot at making an impact and pushing for a medal.  



Three players have probably almost guaranteed their place in London 2012 at the Paralympics, so it looks like there will be competition amongst about five of us for the remaining spot. The likelihood is that a play-off tournament will be arranged later this year to help decide who will take that spot, so it’d be really interesting to see how I’d fare in a play-off scenario.

It’s less than a week until the start of the BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, which is a brilliant event and gives people a taste of what it’ll be like at the Paralympics in 2012. It enables some of the best international Paralympic athletes to compete against each other every year in athletics, swimming, seven-a-side football and wheelchair basketball. 

It’s also a great chance for GB athletes to get a sense of what it’s like to compete on home soil in front of home fans. I was lucky enough to play in the inaugural event, where the wheelchair basketball team won gold, and I’ll always remember the noise and support from the crowd. It’s great that, as of last year, BT chose to add their support as the title sponsor of the event, furthering their historical support for disability sport in Britain and helping raise the profile of Paralympic sport. 

In terms of London 2012, the whole country seems to be growing more and more excited.  It would be amazing if it can help more Paralympians become household names. As a country, we have a chance to leave a true legacy and, for me, the most important element of that will be to change attitudes to sport. 

I don’t just mean at the elite level - I’d like to see the legacy take the form of better sporting facilities across the whole country as a result of increasing demand from people wanting to participate in sport after having been inspired by our Olympians and Paralympians. If we have a better environment to encourage sport, then we can have a fitter, happier, healthier society and that’s something that can only be good for Great Britain.

Ade Adepitan, a member of Britain's wheelchair basketball team that won a bronze medal at the Paralympics in Athens in 2004, is a BT Ambassador.  BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and title sponsor of the BT Paralympic World Cup. For more details on the BT Paralympic World Cup click here.

Readers of insidethegames and The Independent on Sunday will not be strangers to the fact that I heartily endorse the appointment of Hugh Robertson as the new Minister for sport and the Olympics.

He will do a great job, but I’ll tell you how he could be doing an even  better one - from inside the Cabinet. What a pity David Cameron did not have the bottle to go where all previous prime ministers have feared to tread and give sport the status it deserves with its own seat around the No 10 table.

Cameron now resides in his shared Downing Street accommodation on an Obama-like ticket of "Change." But we have to ask if sport has been somewhat short-changed. The new PM and his Lib-Dem sidekick Nick Clegg (are there echoes here of Clough and Taylor or the other Taylor and Phil Neal?) have missed a trick by again lumping sport together with media and culture under the roof of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Here was a perfect opportunity to give sport, which Cameron has acknowledged as being important to society, health and the economy, and now with the added governance of the Olympics, its own full time ministry.

True, there is a new Secretary of State who nominally can speak up for sport, as there have been under previous Labour and Conservative administrations. The "overlord" is now Jeremy Hunt, a nice enough chap whose only known contribution to athleticism is a spot of lambada dancing. Cameron should have been bold enough to change the system and give sport what it deserves - a ministry of its own. Instead we have the same old tired setup.

We can only hope that Hunt  is a little more on the ball than one of his equally pleasant predecessors Chris (now Lord) Smith, a culture vulture whose knowledge of sport could be written on  the back of a Royal Opera House ticket. It was under him that the Wembley fiasco first unfolded, for which his Sports Minister underling, Kate Hoey, unfairly took the flak.

Sport, media and culture have never been the happiest of bedfellows and no Secretary of State should be required to wear three hats, or in Hunt’s case four, as he also has the Olympics in his portfolio. But I suspect sport and 2012 will be little more than photo opportunities for him, while Robertson does the real grafting.

I have no doubt that Robertson, who had earlier turned down promotion to more senior posts while in Opposition, and is a staunch Cameron supporter, could have sat comfortably and capably on a Cabinet seat. He’s one of the good guys in politics and has a grasp of what the job is about after five years robustly shadowing two Labour sports ministers, Richard Caborn and Gerry Sutcliffe, and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell. 

Chelsea fan Robertson, 47, was at the FA Cup final alongside his new boss, who elected to cheer for Portsmouth. A  keen club cricketer and hockey player he also stayed up for the early-hours Amir Khan fight and then watched the Twenty20 final. He will need such stamina with tough calls looming on 2012 funding and Olympic legacy.

Sport waits with anticipation - and some trepidation - to see what the new Government has in store. London 2012 has already been told that the Olympic budget may not be ring-fenced - although I doubt that with the importance of London putting on  a show that must impress the world  there will be anything but the odd fiscal tickle.

But sport has no reason to escape the belt-tightening that is about affect the nation as a whole. There will be cuts in several areas, not leas the bureaucracy of Government-backed bodies UK Sport, Sport England and the Youth Sports Trust.

All may face staff reductions, some synergy of accommodation and working arrangements and even salary caps. Any left-leaning imbalance on the composition of these bodies is also likely to be rectified, and we await with intrigue as to how the proposed new "Schools Olympics" will fit in with Gordon  Brown’s favourite baby, the UK School Games, of which ex-Sports Minister Caborn is President.

Robertson is a genuine sports fan who will have empathy with those who play the game - in every sense. He has already been pitched in at the deep end with Triesmangate, which ,as you would expect from a new boy, he has handled with circumspect diplomacy. Yet make no mistake ,the MP for Faversham, in  Kent, is no soft touch. As a former Army officer for ten years he saw active service in Northern Ireland, the Gulf war and in Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo. He will be ready to engage in battles with any uppity governing bodies if necessary.

I doubt that football will have the same cosy rapport it had with the Labour administration under the new coalition. Knighthoods and peerages will not be handed out quite so freely to bosses of the Beautiful Game though should England win the World Cup no doubt it will be "Sir" Fabio with a deserved an honorary dubbing.

There is on other matter which needs to be immediately addressed. You mighty call it: How do you solve a problem like Tessa?  What to do with Ms Jowell, the deposed Olympics Minister? She had established an affable working relationship with Seb Coe despite their different political hues .No doubt she will and will be bitterly disappointed if she no longer has any connection with 2012 after initially twisting the arm of a reluctant Tony Blair to back the London bid and subsequently fighting her corner with a testy Gordon Brown, who always had deep reservations about the value of the Games and nightmares about the cost.

Interestingly London2012's chief executive Paul Deighton says: "It is a pity if all the work Tessa has done, and her enthusiasm, experience and expertise should be lost. It is something we should think about."

I hope they do, for it would be easy enough to create a suitable  ambassadorial role for Jowell. The difficulty is that she could not be the shadow Olympics Minister as well. However, the solution might be to give her a peerage, which surely would raise few objections. After all, the good lords Coe and Moynihan, who both sit as Tories, held London 2012 posts under a Labour administration. And coalition is the name of the political game these days.

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.

Like me, many young lads don’t make it in their first choice of sports, whether that’s through being released from a club or injury. I was playing rugby for Northampton Saints and had also played for the England under-18 squad when I suffered a series of blood clots in my leg.

After spending three months off I came back but shortly after suffered again and that’s when I was told I had to retire from professional rugby, as contact sport was too high risk for me. Just two days after being told that, my manager at the Rugby Players Association recommended I go along and try out my chances at Pitch2Podium. I had nothing to lose and from my results I was soon at a further assessment day with rowing - a sport until last year I had never even considered.

I didn’t have any time to get depressed about what I was losing out on in rugby and soon enough I found rowing really therapeutic and now I’m completely hooked on it. For me, it’s the best thing I ever did and although the training isn’t easy and I’ve still got a long way to go before I get to where I want to be in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, I’m on the right track.

I picked up my first novice title in December and won the recent BUCS event in the single scull - my biggest race yet. I’m training on the Lottery-backed and Siemens-sponsored GB Rowing Team’s "Start Programme", designed for athletes like me aiming to get to the next level in the sport. I moved to Nottingham to study English Literature at Nottingham University, so I’ve been able to train at the Watersports centre at Nottingham Holme Pierrepont, and the GB Rowing coaches and support structure has been fantastic.



This year UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport have been looking for more talented academy lads from rugby and football, through their Pitch2Podium programme. As well as the Talent ID Scientists and those helping put them through their paces, programme ambassador and Olympian Darren Campbell and England Rugby’s Mathew Tait, have popped in for a couple of sessions and talked to the lads about their experiences and helped motivate them to give their best during the tests.

It’s always inspiring to hear from top athletes about their journeys and giving their support to something you’re involved in helps to put the opportunity into perspective - the chance to represent your country and make it onto the podium in 2016.

There were some really impressive athletes this year, hopefully some will go on to impress when they go through the next phase and who knows, a world champions could have been found. The next few months will involve the second phase of the programme, trying out some specific sports and even now the door isn’t shut - Pitch2Podium may target some athletes who are released who have the make-up to fit what some of the sports are looking for.

Being from rugby, it’s great to see more from a rugby background coming along this year. Last year was the first time both rugby and football academies were involved and I think it’s interesting seeing the different attributes the lads seem to be excelling in - I know from my own experience, the power and strength I had from my rugby training really helped me to transfer into rowing. 

I’m almost one year on from my first experience of rowing and I’ve had such an amazing journey so far. I hope other academy football and rugby players don’t give up on sport if their careers don’t quite turn out like they expected. I felt I had much more to give and was still capable of achieving something in sport. Many of those who came along this past couple of months to Pitch2Podium were the same - some facing a crossroads of what to do next, others still hoping to make it.

Whatever direction they go, Pitch2Podium is a second chance worth taking.

With thousands of academy football and rugby athletes being released from clubs each year, the Pitch2Podium talent initiative run by the UK Talent Team (UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport), have just completed another series of assessment days, looking for those raw attributes which could lead to success in another Olympic sport. For more information on Pitch2Podium and other Talent ID initiatives from the UK Talent Team click here.

Well here we go. Taking into account our friendly matches versus Denmark last weekend, this will be the second of potentially 11 consecutive weekends of matches. Add that directly onto the back of a 8-9 month club season with not even a Christmas break, multiply times three years in a row and those "tired" Premiership footballers can’t hold a candle next to us. 

I’m writing from the hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan, and therefore we have made it here in one piece albeit with plenty of hiccups and false starts. We awoke at 6am GMT and, as I sit here, the clock shows 2am Baku time. 

I make that an epic voyage no matter how you look at it. The squad boarded our bus in Sheffield not knowing for sure if Manchester airport would be open due to some volcanic ash wanting to visit Britain again. So with a couple hours to kill in Manchester Airport, we made our way through an impressive number of newspapers, crossword puzzles and coffee/teas. 

One of the best parts of being a part of this team is the banter. We are an eclectic mix of people to be sure. We have five or six dual passport holders who were born in other parts of the world but who proudly fly the flag for Britain. As a group we speak many languages to a varying degrees, including Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish, Portuguese, Greek, and Arabic. We even have some guys who are fluent in Glaswegian, Northern Englishese, and North Americanese!  It usually takes a couple weeks together before we can all understand each other’s English, if only everyone spoke the Queen’s! 

But it took about all of 10 minutes in a bus together before the first England v Scotland and North v South banter broke out, someone (I won’t name names just yet) said something bad about Her Majesty.  I was having none of that. Cue a free coffee at the airport and an apology! Happy Days!  

As we made our way to the gate we came across a few kids who were also flying the flag for Britain in a school competition in Germany. They wanted to take photos with us which we were more than happy to do. I think we scared the kids a bit, but when they are eight-years-old and we have guys that are pushing 6 foot 9, we tend to tower over people. A little reminder of our status followed shortly after, as the mother of one of the kids quietly said to me: "I didn’t even know we had a volleyball team, do you have a website?"  Lovely. For the record it is www.britishvolleyball.org  

We get our first taste of Baku whilst on a minibus taking us to our morning training. As the coach driver weaves in and out of oncoming traffic what strikes is just how much building is taking place here. Some traffic lights look as if they were erected literally yesterday. There are hundreds of very large buildings raising majestically all across Baku, this reflects how this cash rich nation is sprinting towards a previously denied capitalist marketplace.   

Everyone is talking about the General Election, I think quite a few of the group managed to arrange a postal vote in their home constituencies knowing we’d be out of the country on election day. However, sorry Number 10, all focus for us is on a convincing win tomorrow to take back with us to Sheffield for next week’s return leg and with it hopefully passage to the second round of qualification for the European Championships 2011! 

As we drove to the match I was already formulating my blog for the day, I was going to write how surprised I was with the city of Baku, how much it impressed us with the hospitality of the people, the optimism they have for the future evident in the explosion of their ambitious building projects. However, after what I’ve just witnessed on the volleyball court, I must admit I’m a bit lost for words. 

We have come to Azerbaijan seeking a convincing win to justify all of our hard work in the previous three years of this Olympic cycle that we’ve been together, and we blew it. I won”t pretend that there are positives to take away from this match because anyone who knows volleyball would be very hard pressed to find any. We have been soundly beaten in every phase of the match. We have better players, better results in the past, and were full of confidence; when push came to shove we just didn’t turn up. We played scared and credit to Azerbaijan, they took advantage. 

We now have to turn around a 3-0 defeat with a 3-0 victory of our own next weekend in Sheffield, and hope that we can go through via most points scored over the two legs. We carry a 14 point deficit with us, so we’ll need to win 25-20 three times in a row to over turn that points deficit. It is not an impossible task, but there was no need to put ourselves in this position. Perhaps some of our team took Azerbaijan lightly, I can’t say for sure, but we have played much tougher teams in the past and won. 

This defeat is very hard to take and the entire programme will need to work hard in the next few days to turn it around. I’m certain no one will sleep well tonight.

But we made it onto the plane and began the very long journey back to the UK; sadly we are not bringing back with us the result we wanted, but we are confident of putting right our wrongs on Saturday in Sheffield and moving onto the second round of qualification for the European Championships 2011.

Andy Pink, who plays for Bassano in Italy, is Britain's vice-captain. Tickets for Britain's match against Azerbaijan at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield on Saturday (May 15). For tickets call 0114-2235730.

As any leading sportsman or woman will happily tell you, everything happens for a reason. Even if the reason is that life is random.

Watching some of the world’s finest athletes prepare in Doha this week for the big opening event of the athletics season - the first of the IAAF’s new Diamond League meetings - it has been intriguing to see the convoluted lengths to which many of them are going in order to maximise the positive, minimise the negative.

In her characteristically direct way, Britain’s Olympic 400 metres champion Christine Ohuruogu got to the heart of the problem as she looked ahead to a long season which might yet stretch all the way to New Delhi for her.

"The biggest thing an athlete fears is losing," said the athlete who saw her world 400m title go to her closest rival, Sanya Richards of the United States, after injury had disrupted her preparations for last year’s Championships in Berlin.

"I think last year really did screw me up, losing my title. It really didn’t feel right.

"You know, you train really hard all year and when you need it, it just falls apart. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

"I was out for about three weeks - I missed the meetings at Paris and Crystal Palace, and one of my first major training sessions afterwards was at the holding camp for the World Champs, which was really risky.

"I knew it was going to be very tough. I was kind of hoping for a miracle. But I just thought ‘I’d rather come out here and try.’ So at least for next year, or another year, I’d know how to get myself fit if I needed to."

But here was the flip side to the defeat which ended a run of three big winning years for the Londoner at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, 2007 World Championships and 2008 Olympics. Losing was not all bad.

"It was a relief to know that I can lose and the world doesn’t collapse, the ground doesn’t open up and swallow me and I can wake up the next day and still do my job," said Ohuruogu who, with her studious glasses and thoughtful pauses has more and more the air of a PhD student.

"I lost in Berlin, but I could still go back and hold my head up. I pretty much started as I walked away from the track. A lot of the coaches said really positive things about me.

"But that’s just how it is, you know. As my mum says, you can’t win everything."

Of course, if there is relief in defeat, there is sometimes little but relief in victory.

Think of Asafa Powell, with failures at the 2004 Olympics and 2005 World Championships behind him, finally winning a title at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he would practically have had to fall over not to win the 100m.



Think of Tony Jarrett at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, facing a 110m hurdles field that, for once, did not include his nemesis Colin Jackson. He managed to get the gold, but it was not a pretty sight.

For Ohuruogu, mum is right. And as far as Kenya’s dizzyingly talented 21-year-old 800m runner David Rudisha is concerned, on the subject of winning and losing, Dad is right.

Rudisha’s dad, Daniel, won an Olympic silver medal for Kenya in the 400 metres relay at the 1968 Mexico Games. He knows what it is to succeed in sport - and to fall below expectation.

So he was well placed to advise his son when his stellar world junior title win in 2006 was followed by an injury which kept him out of the Beijing Olympics and then failure to reach the final at last year’s World Championships.

"My father told me: ‘If you are beaten today, ask yourself why,'" Rudisha said in a voice so soft you had to strain to hear it. "He said: 'That will keep you going because you give yourself focus, there is tomorrow. You try to fix everything, and then tomorrow you improve.'"

Daniel Rudisha is not the only person to extol the benefits of learning from painful experience. Kenya’s double world champion of 1987 and 1991, Billy Konchellah, who is from the same Maasi tribe as Rudisha and lives no more than six miles from him, liked to mention a Swahili saying, the gist of which was this: "If you can’t accept losing, you will never be a winner."

If it looks like a mantra, and it sounds like a mantra, then it is a mantra. But who’s to say it won’t work?

There is another mantra which insists that all athletes react differently to pressure. But Ohuruogu begs to differ as she looks ahead to a home Olympics where she, and all her fellow British competitors, will, in her words, "feel the heat."

She reflected: "London 2012 is going to be probably the most stressful competition for us. All of us British athletes will have pressure on us to perform - and not just the athletes, but the rowers, and the swimmers... It’s going to be hard."

Ohuruogu foresees a situation where competitors will effectively be giving each other psychological assistance in the run-up to the Games, perhaps within some form of official structure.

"For all kinds of reasons, I think everyone is going to find that they might need help in coping. I hope athletes will be big enough to say they need a bit of help. Because we are all pretty much in the same boat."

The most delicate part of any athlete - it’s not the hamstring; it’s not the Achilles tendon. It’s the mind.

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

I am currently in Azerbaijan seeing the impact of London 2012's International Inspiration programme and have witnessed firsthand the power of sport in changing attitudes, beliefs and even national laws.

Back in 2005, when London won the bid to host the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in 2012, Seb Coe made a passionate speech about inspiring the youth of the world. Those words have certainly come to fruition, with International Inspiration now operating in 12 countries and reaching out to over four million young people and children.

I am visiting Azerbaijan in my role as International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President and was guest of honour at the International Inspiration Legacy Conference - where the programme has been in operation for three years. The Azeri Government has been impressed with the achievements of the programme and going forward, it will continue to operate under their control.

The legacy day started with children and young people showcasing International Inspiration activities in a mini-sports festival before moving on to presentations and working groups discussing the sustainability of a myriad of projects and programmes that have been put in place to ensure they leave a lasting legacy.

Accompanying me on the trip was Elias Musangeya, who has been a key member of the International Inspiration team and really set the scene for me in describing the scale of the initiative. More than 150,000 children and young people have been involved in the project in Azerbaijan since 2007, with projects targeting those from disadvantaged groups in particular. In addition to providing access to sport, programmes have also looked at developing life skills, confidence and encouraging integration.

But it is attitude changes that have impressed me the most. Several years ago, for example, there were not many opportunities for young people with disabilities to access sport and teaching was not particularly inclusive.

In Azerbaijan, International Inspiration has been working in partnership with the National Paralympic Committee to help football and volleyball organisations in providing opportunities for children with disabilities and to teach awareness, sensitivity and social integration. Training has also been provided for teachers and young leaders who now understand how to bring out the best in children, whether having an impairment, being a victim of crime or living in conflict.

International Inspiration has also had an impact at legislative level. Two national policies have been passed since the programme began - the National Strategy on PE and Sport Development and a Law on PE and Sport. International Inspiration has helped the Azeri Government develop their PE strategy and inspired legal changes committing to providing more sporting opportunities for young people - including a focus on girls' participation, child protection and facilitating the mainstreaming of children with special needs.

I was lucky enough to see confident, communicative and happy children during my short visit to Azerbaijan who have been inspired by the energy within sport. International Inspiration has made a big difference to the sporting infrastructure in the country as well as directly targeting those most in need with tailor made solutions. If the work in other countries has been half as impressive, International Inspiration will leave a legacy for London 2012 for many years to come amongst millions of people worldwide.

London 2012 has joined forces with the programme's key delivery partners, UK Sport, UNICEF UK and the British Council, to bring International Inspiration to fruition as London 2012’s international sports legacy programme. 2012 international education programme. Other partners and funders of International Inspiration include the UK Government, the Premier League, The British Olympic Association, the British Paralympic Association and the Youth Sport Trust.

I have known Amir Khan since his early amateur days, and probably have been closer to him than any other boxing writer. I was the only journalist who, with my family, was invited to his private World Championship-winning celebration party in Bolton last year. My two young grandchildren idolise him.

This is not written as a vainglorious piece of name-dropping but to emphasise how shocked I was to read in the "Screws" - our trade name for the News of the World – that he apparently was guilty of the sort of salacious behaviour more usually associated with delinquent footballers or sprauncy game show hosts.

It appeared that our Olympic silver medallist had been taking a leaf out of the text book - or rather texting book - of Tiger Woods and sending explicitly sexy messages to a buxom blonde. 

A|as, they were rather more than that. The messages were described as "lewd and obscene" and were accompanied pictures of his manhood. The lady in question was a topless model he had met in a Hollywood nightclub.

Topless models? Nightclubs? Obscene messaging?

I could not believe this was the Amir I know. But there you go. In modern sport such  raunchiness is par for the course - and not only Tiger’s. It seems that Bolton’s boy-next-door already has been seduced by the glitz of Tinsel Town, where he now resides under the tuition of top trainer Freddie Roach and promotional banner of Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy.

I was disappointed when Khan left Frank Warren, who had initially nurtured, then revived, his career and took him to the WBA lightweight title. But he was entitled to do what he and his advisers thought best. I just hope he has done the right thing, and is not heading down the same hazardous path as one of his ring idols, Naseem Hamed. Another of his icons is Muhammad Ali. Well, he certainly seems to be in the Ali mould as a skirt-chaser.

No-one is suggesting that at 23 and unmarried, Amir should be leading a monastic existence, despite his firm religious beliefs - he and his family could be described as liberal Muslims. But since Amir went to Hollywood he seems to have become brasher and flashier.

It was only last weekend, after a ten days wait in Vancouver, where he had to move his training camp from Los Angeles, that Khan was granted a working visa for his second title defence against Paulie Malignaggi in New York on Saturday. Allied to the fall-out from the "Screws" revelations it is hardly then sort of preparation he would have wanted, and there has to be concern in the Khan camp, and among his sponsors, that Amir’s hitherto clean-cut image has been tarnished, at least temporarily.

Appearing at Madison Square Garden - albeit in the smaller 5,000 seater arena - should be a proud moment for Khan, who claims to be unaffected  by distractions which we must hope do not blight his career or the affection of the British public.

However I cannot quite agree with Barry McGuigan who, in his Daily Mirror column, says Amir was "not doing anything most red-blooded youngsters have not done." Surely it goes somewhat beyond that because Khan is not just any red-blooded youngster and has always said himself that he knows he is a role model for thousands of kids in Britain, not least the Asian community.

Of course is entitled to a private life - and a previously well-hidden sex life about which he talks illuminatingly to the ubiquitous Piers Morgan in the latest issue of GQ magazine. There he says that girl are "lining up" up to meet him in LA, adding: "They always come back so I must be doing something right."

In the same revealing article it seems rather ironic that, when asked what he thought about highly-paid footballers who misbehave he condemns than as being "weak." Ashley Cole and John Terry, he says "have shamed their families."

Of course it is not only footballers and fighters who need to be role models. Any sports personalities these days, especially Olympians, must maintain standards both in public and in private, that are beyond reproach.

Others who admit to being shocked by Khan’s behaviour are his former Olympic coach and father figure Terry Edwards ("Amir’s the last person I thought would do this sort of thing") and his one-time amateur buddy and professional stablemate Kevin Mitchell. "I was saddened to hear this stuff," says the unbeaten Mitchell, who is also engaged in a major fight on Saturday against Aussie hard man Michael Katsidis for the interim WBO lightweight belt at Upton Park.

"If nothing else, what was he doing in a nightclub while preparing for a world title fight? Amir is a lovely fellow and we’ve been good mates but I think all the money and hype has gone to his head. He’s obviously let the Hollywood lifestyle get to him. He’s beginning to believe his own publicity, even talking about fighting Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather next year.

"He’s not in their league. He’s too vulnerable. You can’t put muscles on his chin. If he couldn’t go a round with Breidis Prescott (the Colombian whom Mitchell later brilliantly outpointed) he wouldn’t last two rounds with them. He’s just making himself look foolish and I feel gutted for him."

If he and Khan ever meet the "Dagenham Destroyer" has no doubt about the outcome. "l may be smaller but I hit harder. I’d knock him out because I know how to. Knocking people cold gives me a buzz. In any case I think he’ll get beaten before I can get to him.

"I’ve heard Amir is getting over a million dollars for fighting Malignaggi. Bloody hell, for a million dollars I’d fight ten Mike Tysons."

Boxing will be blowing bubbles this weekend for not only is there the Mitchell-Katsidis scrap at West Ham but Mitchell’s amateur almer mater, West Ham ABC, have three club members in contention for titles in the ABA Championships at York Hall this Friday.

Ironically, the club which produced fistic notables like Billy Walker and Nigel Benn, has a fight if its own. Their training premises at the nearby Black Lion pub in Olympic heartland are under threat and soon they may be seeking new headquarters.

One of the shocks about this year’s ABA’s is the absence of the history-making European bantamweight champion Luke Campbell, from, Hull, who suffered a disputed defeat en route to the finals. Campbell has moved up to featherweight, a division that is particularly talent-rich. But the skilful Campbell still believes he can at least emulate Khan in 2012.

One to keep an eye on at York Hall is 20-year-old Finchley super-heavyweight Anthony Joshua, 6ft.5in and 17 stones, who, like both Khan and Mitchell, can box and bang, always a recipe for a winner. Meantime I hope my friend Amir will realise just how much he is risking with hisi regrettable indiscretions. From now he must mind his Ps and Qs. Not to mention his GQs.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered 11 summer Olympics and scores of world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire. Mitchell v Katsidis is live on Sky Sports HD1 from 8pm Saturday. Tickets available from Ticketmaster on 0844 847 2500. Khan v Malignaggi live on ITV1 from 2.45am Sunday.

It sounds crazy, but I usually train about five hours a day, four to five days a week. I’m usually up and out ready for warm-up by 9:30 and ready to run by 10am. Training consists of everything from lifting weights, to pylos, to cardio, to running, to bike workouts, or any number of things like that.

My training group is an amazing one to be part of, I’m in great hands and always ready and willing to work hard every session. My coach is Al Joyner, who won an Olympic gold medal in triple jump and the husband of Olympic sprinter Flo Jo before she passed away. The coaching staff here knows exactly what needs to be done and how to do it.

The programme I train in is one of the first programmes where Olympic and Paralympic athletes train together. My coach is an Olympian, my teammates are Olympians and I do all the same work outs that they do. I think it’s pretty awesome to be part of something that’s taken so seriously.

It is hard work, but I enjoy every day. I go out to practice and think about all of the people with disabilities who aren’t able to run and remember that it’s such a privilege to be able to do this. There are times when it’s hard to make yourself work out and you need to find the motivation to keep doing it.

Although I’m a typically positive person, like everyone else I need to find things to keep me going.

In my spare time I do a lot of speaking engagements with various groups. It’s something I really enjoy doing, but I’ve especially enjoyed working with some of our injured service military people. 

This week I’ll be helping out with an event called the Warrior Games, which is where every branch of the US military comes together and competes in various events in this competition. We’ll have a couple of days of practice and then they have a real meet. I’m one of the coaches there and it’s really rewarding to see people that you’ve coached succeed.



Looking ahead to the summer, the BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester always kicks off my European season. The athletes competing are the greatest athletes that we have in our sport and it is here that they come together and showcase their talents.

It’s great because it’s one of the only times outside of a World Championships or Paralympics where all of the top competitors come together. It’s always a tune up to see where you are and a great annual meeting with all of the other athletes that you don’t see very often.

The crowd and the kids are always really awesome too; it’s such a fun event to compete in. If the English weather would only cooperate sometimes that would be fantastic, but unfortunately that’s out of my control!

April Holmes, from the United States, is the T44 100 metres Paralympic champion and 100m, 200m and 400m world record holder. For more details on the BT Paralympic World Cup click here.

The London 2012 Paralympic Games just got more exciting! The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is proud to see that the next edition of the Summer Games will have Sainsbury’s exclusively sponsoring the Paralympic Games.

With such a well-known British brand supporting the Paralympic Games, this will set new promotional opportunities for Paralympic sport and the Paralympic Movement. It will also leave a powerful legacy across the United Kingdom that will inspire future Paralympic athletes as well as every community with a Sainsbury’s location.

With over 850 stores to help promote the Paralympic Games every day, communities everywhere will learn about our athletes and the sports that are to take place in London.

The chief executive officer of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, said that Sainsbury’s is committed to promoting a healthy, fitter lifestyle across all ages and abilities. This complements the vision of the Paralympic Movement which is to enable Paralympic athletes to achieve sporting excellence and inspire and excite the world.

What I find thrilling is that in the run up to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, merchandise will be made available across the United Kingdom. This high awareness will undoubtedly add to the anticipation that has already hit the British capital.

I have already witnessed the campaigning taking place for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and this adds an unprecedented level of excitement. It will be a new experience for the Paralympic community, as they watch everything that they have worked for over the course of many years be promoted in a way that follows the Paralympic values of Courage, Determination, Inspiration and Equality.

As part of our mission, the IPC seeks the continuous global promotion and media coverage of the Paralympic Movement, with its vision of inspiration and excitement through sport, and its ideals and activities. We also support and encourage educational, cultural, research and scientific activities that contribute to the development and promotion of the Paralympic Movement.



Following this, Sainsbury’s will also be working with the education team from the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) to develop opportunities related to its successful Active Kids programme as part of LOCOG’s Education scheme, ‘Get Set’, the official London 2012 Education Programme for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Driven through an interactive website, it hosts lots of free resources for 3-19 year olds. Young people can use ‘Get Set’ to find out about the Games and explore the Olympic and Paralympic Values.

As we will experience fantastic Paralympic Summer Sport at its highest level in London, it is a most fitting time to celebrate our partnership with Sainsbury’s, and their commitment to the Paralympic Movement. This Tier One sponsor status for the Paralympic Games confirms their support of our organisation and the athletes who aim to be the best in their respective sport.

Because of the Paralympic Games and this kind of massive promotion, the Paralympic Movement will continue to grow. And because of this support, we will certainly gather a bigger audience and more fans who have not had the chance to experience Paralympic Sport. This promotional opportunity is that chance.

I hope everyone enjoys the excitement and the build-up to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, and I look forward to reading about the growth in the country as it happens, and the positive affect it will have on communities and people with a disability.

Sir Philip Craven is the President of the International Paralympic Committee. He represented Britain in five consecutive Paralympic Games between 1972 and 1988, competing in athletics, basketball and swimming

It’s like the start of a classic road movie. Guys blow into town from different parts of the globe and form a fighting band of underdogs to take on the world. Just so, the GB men’s volleyball team. 

Reunited after spending the winter playing for different clubs in all corners of Europe and the Americas, they fly out to Azerbaijan today to play the first-leg of their European Championship Round One tie, with a place in the group stages at stake. It is a flight - to some extent - into the unknown. How will they gel together after so long in such disparate parts?  In total, 24 players (men and women) returned from 18 different clubs in 17 different leagues in 12 different countries, making them one of the most cosmopolitan outfits on the roster of British sport.

Although Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, is rated by the Lonely Planet travel guide as one of the top ten destinations in the world for nightlife, the GB team will be ignoring those charms and focussing instead on a creditable performance to carry over to into the second leg to be staged in Sheffield at the English Institute of Sport on May 15.

Victory for the GB team would ensure them six more matches in the competition on a home and away basis against Finland, Greece - two of the world’s top ten teams - plus Latvia. That, in turn, would reflect the great advances the young British team are making under the guidance of Dutch coach, Harry Brokking.

If the outcome is unknown, the determination that runs through the team is palpable. Since coming together again, the men's team have discovered that their captain, Ben Pipes, who wintered in Tenerife, had organised a number of essentials to make the operation run more smoothly. He has negotiated lunches at £3.50 a head for the whole squad at a local Sheffield restaurant, plus free milkshakes and discount circulation tights. His popularity might be slightly offset by the fact that he has also done a deal to supply ice baths for the team to speed recovery after matches.

Among those back in time for the Azerbaijan game, was vice-captain Andy Pink - who is going to be running a regular blog of the team’s progress this summer. He returned to Sheffield match fit from a fierce relegation battle with his club, Bassano Volley, in Italy.

Jason Haldane (pictured), who started out on his volleyball career as a Canadian but is now qualified as a GB player, was also playing in Italy until last week. Mark McGivern, Kieran O’Malley and Chris Lamont have returned from Belgium. 

The squad that embarked for Baku did not include Nathan Bennett who is recovering from an injury, Mark Plotyczer who only arrived back from his club season in Greece yesterday and the newly-qualified player, Slawomir Master, who will not be back from Poland until next week.

It did, however, include the young players Dami and Peter Bakare (no relation) who are newcomers to the senior squad. Dami is a dental student at the University of Sheffield, who divides his demanding time between heavy training sessions and building dental bridges for patients in his lunch hour. Peter - with a clip on Youtube to prove it - has one of the biggest standing jumps in British sport, something he is apt to prove with a leap over a teammate’s head. 

Brokking said of the upcoming match this weekend: "We will have to play at our very best to be sure to beat Azerbaijan over this difficult two leg tie, if we can maximise our performance in Baku then we can ensure a terrific match will be in prospect for the home leg when Azerbaijan visit our home court at the EIS-Sheffield on Saturday, on the 15 May, and the Sheffield public can get right behind our guys to help get us through to the 2nd round.

"Getting through this round will ensure that we play six more matches in the competition where we would line up against two of the top 10 teams in the world in Finland and Greece., as well as Latvia. This would be a huge step forward for my young GB team as they battle to establish their credentials as top players. They have all come back in very good shape,  and are showing a great desire and togetherness as they prepare to meet the coming challenges."

Harry also commented on the news that his assistant coach, Englishman Joel Banks, has landed a top job as head coach with Orion in the Dutch Professional League for the next two club seasons. "I am very happy that he is  going to a very good club with a great structure and demonstrates the growing credibility of the GB men’s programme."

For info on tickets and upcoming matches please click here.

Award-winning sports columnist, feature writer and chief interviewer at the Daily Telegraph for 12 years, Sue Mott is now much in demand in her new freelance capacity. A major contributor to television and radio - all terrestrial channels, Sky, ESPN and Radio 5Live - she has covered all the major sporting events including World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon, Commonwealth Games, Athletic World Championships, FA Cup Finals and several Test series.

Media contact www.davidwelchmanagement.com

Almost buried beneath the plethora of words allocated to the goals, gripes and groin strains from the overheated footy front last weekend was news of  arguably the greatest British sporting achievement of the year so far. Sensational is not too strong an adjective to describe the success of the nation’s gymnasts in the European Artistic Championships in Birmingham.

The GB team amassed an unprecedented  total of 15 medals  (senior boys: team silver, individual gold, silver and bronze; junior boys: team gold, four individual golds, a silver and two bronze; senior girls: team silver, two individual golds). 

So what has happened to make Britain potential world beaters, now  ahead of the once-prolific Russians and Romanians? Could it be that gymnastics is the new cycling?

The redoubtable Beth Tweddle, the best gymnast Britain has ever produced, who came away with two individual golds and a team silver, puts it  down to "a new belief, particularly among the younger gymnasts,  hard work, the right coaching  and lottery funding all coming together at once."

The 25-year-old Tweddle has become the sport’s talisman - or should we say say talisperson? - having made her international debut in 2001 and winning Commonwealth, European and world titles.

She has now topped the European podium five times and  has been world champion in the uneven bars in 2006 and on the floor last October at London's O2 : "A lot of people have asked me 'why do you keep going?' “ she says. "The motivation is still there and I have one dream - to win a medal in 2012. Any colour will do. I am very hopeful about our chances in the Olympics because there is now a great strength in depth, particularly among the women. And we have a great team behind us."

The same can be said for the men’s team where Daniel Keating won  gold on then pommel horse where his friend Louis Smith, whose bronze in Beijing was Britain’s first Olympic medal for a century, took silver. Together with four individual golds and team gold for the junior boys  (watch out for the brilliant teenage all-rounder Sam Oldham in 2012) this was easily the most successful  performance yet by a nation literally coming on in leaps and bounds. 

"Suddenly, in the last four years, we've developed men's and women's teams that have taken Europe by storm," says Trevor Low, who chairs the British men's technical committee. "But it has been a long, slow process, in particular building up the clubs and coaches. What was missing was the infrastructure, the tradition, the strength in our clubs and facilities. But now we've got some of finest facilities in Europe.

"Many of the team were amazed at the facilities they' saw in Birmingham and around the training halls. They ask how we did it. Well, it's what we've been doing for the last 20 years: building the resources to make this all possible."

It is almost 40 years since the Russian elfin Olga Korbut enticed the world to switch on to gymnastics, and despite the limited television exposure it has received in this country, outside the Olympics it has retained its allure, though the borderline between sport and showbiz is frequently obliterated, especially when floor exercises are performed to music.

Such is the theatrical potential of the sport that Simon Cowell is now giving an approving nod to souped-up gymnastic acts in ‘Britain’s Got Talent.’ Indeed it has – on the floor, the bars the beams and the pommel and vaulting horse.

In the Olympics, while the titans of track, pool and boxing ring may grab the headlines, gymnastics draws the crowds –and the TV viewers.

In recent years the sport has undergone something of a revolution. The days of gaunt-faced, anorexic pixies are no more. The crowds packing Birmingham’s NIA were witnessing the new shape of gymnastics today, and it is decidedly more Sporty Spice than Posh Spice.



Amanda Kirby, the most successful club coach in the country - Tweddle (pictured) is among her City of Liverpool pupils - explains that now there is more emphasis on strength and athleticism. "The sport hasn't really changed, neither have the skills required. But the training workload has. The time when young gymnasts were all skin and bone has passed. Now you need all-round fitness and a bit more muscle."

Also the emphasis has shifted away from pre-pubescent youngsters who were over the hill at 16 to more mature and experienced performers like Tweddle. Kirby, who has coached her since 1997, says of her: "The great thing about Beth is her mental strength, She is not exceptionally talented physically but she works tremendously hard. Her determination and dedication are phenomenal."

Dedication is certainly the name of her game. The line between perfection and pain is as delicately balanced as a pair of feet on the beam, and she has had to bounce back after a number of injuries.

A useful sprinter and long jumper before gymnastics totally took over her sporting life, her talent for athletics has helped her to become a better gymnast because she can more easily absorb the vigorous training schedules devised by her coach. "Gymnastics is a much tougher sport than it seems," says Tweddle. "It may all look very pretty but it is about hard graft. The strength and the different skills you have to apply are as demanding as any other sport, probably more than most."

She will defend her floor title at the World Championships in Holland in October after successfully defending floor and uneven bars European titles in Birmingham. Victory there surely will put her in pole position to be Sportswoman of the Year - if she isn’t already.

British gymnastics is now swinging on a star. And remember, 2012 will be a Leap Year.

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.

Yesterday's low-key ribbon-cutting ceremony at the splendid new United States Olympic Committee (USOC) headquarters in downtown Colorado Springs is still a quantum leap from the opening of the first USOC Olympic House in the summer of 1978 on the grounds of the unoccupied ENT Air Force Base in mid-town, a 34-acre complex filled with run-down buildings and presented to the USOC for lease at one dollar a year.

But yesterday's modest news media event was hardly more significant than the August 1, 1978, first day at the old building at Boulder and Union and its place in the history of the USOC and the Olympic Movement.

We had just concluded the USOC’s inaugural National Sports Festival on July 30, a  national multi-sport event for some 3,000 American athletes in 25 sports who came to the city from across the nation to be part of a fledgling event created to showcase our Olympic hopefuls and give our elite and rising athletes something to do in the summer.

But on that Sunday, August 1, Olympic House officially opened without a ribbon-cutting on a hot day with Executive Director F. Don Miller, President Robert J. Kane, Director of Special Events Baaron Pittenger and a handful of reporters still hanging around from the Sports Festival - Neil Amdur of the New York Times, Kenneth Reich of the Los Angeles Times, Joe Concannon of the Boston Globe and Mike Kelly of the Omaha World-Herald, among others.

Pittenger had arrived in Colorado Springs in January, charged with the task of staging the first Sports Festival and readying the building that would become Olympic House for the arrival of Miller and his small staff in the summer. The building had once housed the office of the Commanding General at ENT and his staff, and it underwent a massive overhaul under the direction of Pittenger, who had been hired by the USOC from his position in the athletic department at Harvard in 1977.

He skillfully got both projects done, but not without headaches. "I almost forgot to have a phone system put in at Olympic House," said Pittenger yesterday morning. "We were just six weeks from opening before I remembered that, and I was working with our designer, Marshall Morin, on stuff like the wallpaper and colours in Olympic House, which originally were a lot of black and gold, and working with the city and our volunteer organizsng committee to put on the Sports Festival. I won’t ever forget that summer."

Only ten people made up that first USOC staff, all packing up and moving from 57 Park Avenue in New York City to head West and create a new beginning for an organisation thrust into the limelight in 1978 by Congress and the Amateur Sports Act, and charged with control of the Olympic Movement in the United States in the aftermath of a decade of problems and showdowns between the old AAU and the NCAA over athlete rights and who was in charge.

Miller’s small cast that first day at Olympic House included his secretary, Marty Duncan, Pittenger, chief financial officer Bill Bachert, office manager Jim McHugh, attorney Doug Dunlop, marketing chief Arthur I. Kuman, operations director Jerry Lace and his assistant, Larry McCollum, and press chief and tireless historian C. Robert Paul, Jr.

Duncan, Bachert and McHugh were there only for a short time, not wanting to make the move to Colorado Springs on a permanent basis, and they returned to the more comfortable, predictable noise of Manhattan within a few months. Miller and Pittenger brought me on board in late December, hiring me away from my role as Sports Information Director at the University of Colorado, after I had helped Pittenger by volunteering to run press operations and publicity for the Sports Festival.

I had turned them down on an earlier offer about the job because CU had just hired Chuck Fairbanks away from the New England Patriots as its new football coach, the man who had led Oklahoma to a pair of national titles, and I wanted to be part of that Boulder gridiron renaissance, or so I thought.

When I changed my mind and joined the USOC, I was not sure I had made the right decision, but two years into Fairbanks' reign at CU, I realised I had basically missed the Titanic at the dock. I intended to stay about five years, but it turned into a quarter-of-a-century.

Miller, a decorated Army officer, liked to have his staff quiet and in the background, but I guess he liked me and I broke that mould. But the day before Olympic House opened, July 30, a secret meeting in Miller’s office at Olympic House, almost now forgotten, created history, and had it not taken place, yesterday morning’s nice ribbon-cutting downtown might never have happened.

Miller, Kane and USOC treasurer William E. Simon hosted Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and John C. Argue, head of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organising Committee (LAOOC) to seek resolution to keep the Games in Los Angeles after the citizens of Los Angeles were back-pedaling on a commitment of funding, leaving the event in jeopardy.

The IOC had given the LAOOC and the USOC until August 31 to come up with a guarantee, or else the Games were going elsewhere. While the Sports Festival wound down on its final day, the Olympic leaders hatched a bold plan in which a group of prominent LA business leaders and the USOC would create a private entity to assure the Games' finances.


 
The USOC guaranteed $25 million (£16 million), which it did not have, the LA moguls pitched in another $25 million (£16 million) to indemnify the city against a shortfall, and the USOC gave the IOC a $300,000 (£197,000) deposit in good faith, allowing the Lausanne officials to wink and keep the Games in Los Angeles. Since only Tehran had bid for the Games against Los Angeles, it’s anyone’s guess now where they would have moved the Games if Los Angeles, like Denver in 1973, had given them back
 
In February, 1979, the IOC made it official and LA used a USOC loan to hire Peter Ueberroth. The Games were a huge success, earned a nice $225 million ($148 million) surplus, gave the USOC back almost $111 million (£73 million)  for its gamble, and probably saved the Olympic Games for the future.

It was fitting that USOC President Emeritus Bill Hybl took part in yesterday's ceremony, because it was in the winter of 1977 that Hybl, then the Vice President of the El Pomar Foundation,  presented Miller with a check for $1,000,000 (£659,000) on behalf of the legendary Thayer Tutt to seal the deal and the USOC’s relocation from New York to Colorado Springs when nobody else really wanted the organisation, by today’s standards a relative mom-and-pop outfit.

It has been Hybl and El Pomar, again, that have played a major role in making sure the new building downtown became reality, along with a long term commitment for the USOC to keep calling our city it’s hometown. There are likely no pictures in the new digs downtown of Miller, Kane, Simon, Pittenger and Hybl, but there should be. These men, and others not as well-known, saved the USOC and helped preserve the Olympic Games when they were in danger of extinction.

The 225 USOC employees who have moved downtown have never heard this story, and most won’t notice. But it’s important, and it’s the genesis of USOC history in Colorado Springs. CEO Scott Blackmun and his staffers will no doubt witness moments of historic significance in their new offices over the years, but they should understand, that but for the bold actions of a few, they might now have very different lives, as would the more than 300,000 athletes who have come and gone from Colorado Springs and the Olympic facilities, chasing their dreams.

Mike Moran was the chief communications officer of the USOC for nearly 25 years before retiring in 2003. In 2002 he was awarded with the USOC's highest award, the General Douglas MacArthur Award. He worked on New York's unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Olympics and is now director of communications for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.