Reece Prescod reveals how he became one of Team GB's sprinting stars
The 100m athlete is one of Britain's best medal hopes at the European Championships – but his journey to stardom wasn't without its hurdles
Reece Prescod set himself three targets for 2018. First, he wanted to establish himself as a genuine global competitor, to “start racing properly on the Diamond League circuit”. Second, he wanted to run the 100m in a sub-10-second time for the first time in his short career. Third, he wanted to win the European title. The stars to watch at The European Championships 2018 Why Team GB could win big in athletics at the European Championships RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website And how is he doing? “So far, so good,” said Prescod, who has been tipped to beat Linford Christie’s national record of 9.87sec as his career progresses. Prescod, 22, was not even born when Christie ran his best time at the 1993 World Championships. The 6ft 4in Londoner is Britain’s best 100 metres prospect in years. If he caused a stir by winning the GB Trials last year he did the same at a global level in May when he won the Shanghai Diamond League race, with world champion Justin Gatlin in his wake. That race, in the rain, helped him to achieve his main aim for the year, and his next outing in Eugene, Oregon, gave him a further boost. In finishing third he ran 9.88 seconds, though the wind was too strong for it to count in the record books. He also retained his British title. Asked which race gave him most satisfaction, Prescod said, “Probably the British trials, retaining my title. But then again maybe the first time when I won it and it was a bit of a surprise (2017). Those were my big two races, the surprise and the back-up.” He says his “pivotal moment” came in 2016 when he thought he was going to be a 200m runner but, in only his second try at 100m, ran 10.06sec. “I thought, ‘Wow! That’s a world class time,’ and from then on I was a 100m runner.” His best chance of an international title comes in Berlin on Tuesday 7th August, in the European Championships. Prescod was born in Walthamstow, studied in Loughton at “a very sporty school” and tried many other disciplines – football, basketball, swimming, golf and his dad’s favourite, tennis – but he knew from the age of 14 that sprinting was the one for him. He kept at it, and earned a Nike sponsorship deal, despite a long run of injuries during his growth years that might have stymied a lesser athlete. He says the setbacks made him mentally stronger. “People progress in different ways,” he said. “It’s not linear. “I’ve run about 70 races, some of the others have run three times as many, but it just makes me think I have a lot more to give.” Watch the European Championships men's 100m final on Tuesday 7th August at 8:50pm on BBC1 Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter
Who is Reece Prescod? Meet Team GB's newest athletics star aiming for gold at the European Championships 2018
The 100m sprinter is set to be one of Team GB's best new hopes in Berlin during the European Athletics Championships
Team GB sprinter Reece Prescod set himself three targets for 2018. First, he wanted to establish himself as a genuine global competitor, to “start racing properly on the Diamond League circuit”. Second, he wanted to run the 100m in a sub-10-second time for the first time in his short career. Third, he wanted to win the European Championships title. How to watch the European Championships live on TV Sport on TV 2018 calendar Premier League 2018/19 full fixture guide and live TV matches And how is he doing? “So far, so good,” said Prescod, who has been tipped to beat Linford Christie’s national record of 9.87 seconds as his career progresses. Prescod, 22, was not even born when Christie ran his best time at the 1993 World Championships. Prescod, a 6ft 4in Londoner, is Britain’s best 100 metres prospect in years. If he caused a stir in Britain by winning the GB Trials last year he did the same at a global level in May when he won the Shanghai Diamond League race, with world champion Justin Gatlin in his wake. That race, in the rain, helped him to achieve his main aim for the year, and his next outing in Eugene, Oregon, gave him a further boost. In finishing third he ran 9.88 seconds, though the wind was too strong for it to count in the record books. He also retained his British title. Asked which race gave him most satisfaction, Prescod said, “Probably the British trials, retaining my title. But then again maybe the first time when I won it and it was a bit of a surprise (2017). Those were my big two races, the surprise and the back-up.” He says his “pivotal moment” came in 2016 when he thought he was going to be a 200m runner but, in only his second try at 100m, ran 10.06 seconds. “I thought, ‘Wow! That’s a world class time,’ and from then on I was a 100m runner.” His best chance of an international title comes in Berlin on Tuesday 7th August, in the European Championships. Prescod was born in Walthamstow, studied in Loughton at “a very sporty school” and tried many other sports – football, basketball, swimming, golf and his dad’s favourite, tennis - but he knew from the age of 14 that sprinting was the one for him. He kept at it, and earned a Nike sponsorship, despite a long run of injuries during his growth years that might have stymied a lesser athlete. He says the setbacks made him mentally stronger. “People progress in different ways,” he said. “It’s not linear. “I’ve run about 70 races, some of the others have run three times as many, but it just makes me think I have a lot more to give.” Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter
Six Nations 2017: Lawrence Dallaglio on England’s new rugby superstar Maro Itoje
The rise and rise of a remarkable talent
It was Valentines Day 2016 when England last played Italy and Maro Itoje came off the bench after 54 minutes of England’s easy victory to win his first senior cap. What has happened between then and now is so remarkable that no England player has ever matched it, and probably never will. Itoje was in the starting line-up for England’s next game against Ireland and, when fit, has played every time since. He has never been on the losing side and will be going for 10 out of 10 against Italy on Sunday. In November this remarkable talent was named the best young player in the world by World Rugby. At 22 he has many more stellar seasons ahead of him. But there is more. Before he made his senior debut Itoje had played at four age-group levels and captained England’s Under-20s to the 2015 Junior World Championship, where he was named player of the tournament. While doing all this Itoje, son of Nigerian immigrant parents, studied on a scholarship at Harrow and is now taking a degree in politics at London’s SOAS (formerly School of Oriental and African Studies). “It helps me keep my mind off rugby,” he says. “It gives you a chance to lead a balanced life.” When Mark Pougatch presents ITV’s rugby coverage he is surrounded by legends of rugby, World Cup winners such as Sean Fitzpatrick of New Zealand, Michael Lynagh of Australia, and Jonny Wilkinson and Lawrence Dallaglio of England. “What Maro Itoje did last year was phenomenal,” says Pougatch. “We had all these big names in the studio and it was remarkable to hear them all say the same thing. ‘Oh my god, he’s as good as everybody says he is.’ “I can’t recall there ever being so much expectation about an England player before.” At least Dallaglio knew what was coming. In his glory years for England he played alongside Richard Hill, who was Itoje’s mentor at Saracens. “I had heard a fair bit about him from Richard Hill before he started playing in the first XV,” says Dallaglio. “He has been on England’s radar for a long time. “Under the guidance of Mark McCall at Saracens and Eddie Jones with England he puts in consistently world-class performances. They have both worked a lot on his leadership role, and he will be a leader, as will Owen Farrell. “It’s important to have players like that – the more leaders you have, captains in all but name, the better you’re going to be as a team. View oEmbed on the source website “At the Under-20 World Cup Itoje was the really standout player, and he was exposed to international rugby early – but not too early. He was quite rightly named the Breakthrough Player of the Year. “Often it takes time to acclimatise at Test match level, maybe 10-12 games, but he moved in seamlessly and you could see straight away that he feels at home. “It’s as if he’s much older than his years – he has shown himself to be one of the best in the world. That’s great news for England, and if he carries on improving, avoids the many distractions off the field, he can become one of the greats. He is exceptional.” England have other world-class players, says Dallaglio – largely thanks to the remarkably successful new coach. “What Eddie Jones has done is to bring in a refreshing honesty about the state of English rugby. For far too long England have massively underachieved. “He said at the start that England don’t have any world-class players and that made an immediate impact, it generated players’ thoughts about themselves. “The first thing potential world-class players need is to understand where they are right now, to have their own reevaluation of what world-class actually means, to understand that you have to set your own minimum standards and never, ever drop below them. “As a result we are having world-class players emerge. He has shifted the dial. He knew England had the potential and they have done better than anyone expected, even Eddie himself.” Farrell, who has been in superb form, is a clubmate of Itoje at Saracens, who also provide England – when fit – with Mako and Billy Vunipola, and George Kruis. “Historically, England’s best sides have been driven by a core of players from one club, and that is what is happening with Saracens,” says Dallaglio. “They are right at the top of world rugby. They are spearheaded by Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje. They will get better and better. The potential is huge.” ITV's live Six Nations coverage continues with Ireland v France from 4.15pm on Saturday and England v Italy from 2pm on Sunday.
Stuart Lancaster and Eddie Jones on whether England can win the Six Nations
The former England coach and incumbent talk sharing ideas, and the closing gap between the north and south
On the eve of last year’s Six Nations, England’s new coach Eddie Jones received an extraordinary phone call. The man he had replaced, Stuart Lancaster, was ringing with words of advice. Despite being at the lowest point of his professional career after being sacked following a disastrous 2015 World Cup, Lancaster still had something to give to England’s cause. “I contacted the RFU and said I thought it would be a good idea for me to meet Eddie,” he tells Radio Times. “It was fairly soon after he took over, before the Six Nations last year. I went through what I had learnt as coach of England and tried to pass on as much information as I could that would help him make informed decisions going forward.” After the pasting he’d taken in the media, and the personal hurt, it took a big man to do that. But Lancaster will not even take the credit for it. “At the same time Eddie was thinking of calling me, so we both thought it would be a good idea.” Jones has clearly made good use of his “debrief”, along with the skills and experience he picked up in his years in charge of Australia, Japan and various club sides. Because from that moment on, England under Eddie Jones have won 14 matches on the trot. One more in this season’s Six Nations opener at home to France on Saturday will set an all-time record for England of 15 straight wins, and put them in sight of New Zealand’s record of 18. Jones has a knack for making the right decisions, such as making Dylan Hartley, exiled by Lancaster because of his disciplinary history, the captain. And the versatile forward Maro Itoje, uncapped by Lancaster, was named Breakthrough Player of the Year at the World Rugby awards after stellar performances for England and his club, Saracens. “He has brought his own personality and style to the team and they have benefited,” Lancaster says. “I’m not surprised England have been successful, but a huge amount of credit should go to Eddie and his coaching team. It’s very, very positive for these players. “We won a lot of games in the lead-up to the World Cup, 16 out of 20 in the Six Nations. This group of players, I always thought their time was going to be between the 2015 and 2019 World Cups. Together they’ll end up with 700, 800, 900 caps by the next World Cup. “The gap between the southern hemisphere and northern hemisphere teams is closing and there are definitely players capable of performing well against New Zealanders. They will get an opportunity for the Lions this summer as I expect quite a lot of England players to go.” First, though, is the Six Nations, for which Jones’s resurgent England are odds-on favourites. The odds of them completing another grand slam are shorter than the odds for Ireland, the second favourites, to win the championship. If England have never had it so good – at least not since they won the World Cup for the only time in 2003, when Jones coached the beaten Australians – Jones is not getting carried away. “Our progress is satisfactory,” Jones tells Radio Time. “We’re moving towards the World Cup in 2019, and it’s a bit of a trip. Sometimes you catch the bus, sometimes you miss the bus, and at the moment we’re catching the bus. We’ve got a good solid core of hard-working, dedicated, enthusiastic players, a good staff. I haven’t run into any areas that I don’t enjoy at the moment.” The most impressive performance for Jones was the third win in a 3–0 thumping of Australia Down Under. “We’d already won the series and the players were massively physically fatigued. I thought that game would be a bridge too far. The mental effort to win that game was enormous, and really showed how much pride the players have in the English shirt. It was an absolutely outstanding performance.” One of Australia’s top rugby columnists wrote, “an Australian out-thinking, out-manoeuvring, basically out-Australianing an Australian team, is infuriating”. Every game is a step towards Jones’s big goal of “trying to put together a team that will beat New Zealand”, winners of the past two World Cups. Lancaster believes the gap between the dominant southern teams and Europe is closing. “The way I always look at it is, do we have players who are world class, in the top three in their position? And England definitely have,” he says. “You don’t win many games without having players of that quality. The young England players who I coached in 2015 now have 30, 40, 50 caps’ worth of experience. Talent and experience – England now have both in equal measure.” He highlights Owen Farrell, George Ford, Maro Itoje, and Mako Vunipola as key players over the past year: “They have really stood up. Despite the run of wins and the star players, Lancaster does not expect to see a grand slam showdown between Ireland and England, as many predict, in the last round of games. “Some of the other teams were going through a period of transition last year, but they’ve been through that and look at the improvement Scotland have made, and Ireland, who beat New Zealand and Australia in the autumn. “I don’t think it will come down to a grand slam decider between England and Ireland – there will be ups and downs for all the teams. “And I don’t think anyone on the coaching teams will be looking beyond the first game. England have a tricky game against France, who have improved massively under Guy Novès. Ireland have to go to Scotland, which will be difficult, and Italy beat South Africa in the autumn internationals so I don’t think that’s an easy game for Wales either.” After leaving the England job in early 2016, Lancaster worked briefly in rugby union, rugby league, Aussie rules and American football, before returning as senior coach at Leinster, where he has been a great success. There is even talk of Lancaster taking charge of the ailing Leicester Tigers next season. If he does, what chance the man sacked to make way for him will call him up to talk about the future? For the full Six Nations fixture list, click here
Guardiola is going back to Barça – to win
The Barcelona player turned Manchester City manager will have quite the homecoming at tonight’s match
There will be just under 100,000 people in the Nou Camp stadium on Wednesday for Barcelona’s Champions League tie against Manchester City. And Pep Guardiola – a Barcelona legend as player, coach and Catalan separatist – will get a hero’s welcome, even though he will be managing the Premier League visitors. There were some in the dressing room who were secretly glad to see Guardiola go when he quit as manager of Barcelona in 2012. But the fans will forever revere a man born within 50 miles of the city who left home as a 13-year-old to live at Barça’s La Masia training centre. The son of a bricklayer, Guardiola played 11 seasons for Barcelona, four as captain, and later returned as coach to create the team regarded as the finest ever to have played the game. Supporters were worried when he was promoted from manager of the B team in 2008, because they thought Jose Mourinho should get the job. But Guardiola was confident from the start, telling fans from the centre circle, “Fasten your seatbelts – you’re going to have fun!” They did. Guardiola’s luminaries, led by Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta, won a heap of trophies, including the Champions League in 2009 and 2011, beating Manchester United in the final both times. Sir Alex Ferguson said they were “the best team I have faced”. City are still a work in progress and they need to improve on their dismal record of four straight defeats by Barça in the Champions League. In the fourth of those games, in 2015, City’s outstanding player was goalkeeper Joe Hart. The first thing Guardiola did when he arrived in Manchester this summer was to ditch Hart, England’s first-choice goalkeeper, and bring in Claudio Bravo – from Barcelona. It showed that Guardiola is ruthless. “No matter how he might appear, he is very hard with players. And he can be very prickly,” said a Manchester City insider. “To say he is controlling is an understatement – you can see that from the way he has banned phones and wi-fi at the training ground. He wants players to talk to each other more, to build a stronger team spirit, and he will make sure it happens. “He works the players relentlessly. At Barcelona he himself said he had been drained by four years in charge.” He was exhausted and took a year off, living in New York, but returned to football to lead Bayern Munich to three straight Bundesliga titles. And now he has a fresh challenge at City. In two short months he has revitalised Raheem Sterling, his goalkeeper switch looks a good move, and he enjoyed ten straight wins before the end of September. City supporters believe they have a real chance on Wednesday, which was not always the case against Barcelona. And Barcelona have had their worst league start in a decade, dropping eight points in seven games. There is every chance Pep will enjoy his homecoming. Barcelona v Manchester City is on BT Sport 2 tonight at 7 (k/o 7:45pm)
Rio Olympics 2016: Adam Peaty's mum reveals how she raised a world record holder
He’s the golden boy of British swimming – but his mum says he’s still scared to go in the sea without shoes
When Rio 2016 Olympic star Adam Peaty was a child, he hated being in the water. It was so bad that when his mother, Caroline, sent him for swimming lessons, she couldn’t bear to be there. “He was petrified – he didn’t even like having a bath or a shower,” says Caroline at the family home in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. “He was like Mark, his father. He’s not at all keen on water either. From the time he could stand, Adam would never sit down in the bath. "When he was four I started taking him to swimming lessons because his two brothers and his sister had done them and I wanted all my children to be able to swim. But it was breaking my heart to see him scream, so I asked a friend to take him. “Luckily Adam liked it. From then on he took lessons on a regular basis. Mind you, he still doesn’t like the sea, and if he goes in he likes to have shoes on, and wear a knee-length swimsuit. He can’t stand seaweed.” Don't miss a moment with your complete Olympics TV guide – on sale now There won’t be any seaweed to worry about in the Olympic pool in Rio, where Adam Peaty is the best hope for gold in a talented British swimming team. He’s arguably Britain’s biggest favourite in any sport. Peaty, 21, first came to prominence at the 2014 Commonwealth Games when he beat his great rival Cameron van der Burgh, the Olympic champion from South Africa. View oEmbed on the source website He has kept improving since then. Peaty holds three world records, and is the reigning Commonwealth, European and World champion at 100m breaststroke. He was named the male world swimmer of the year last year – and he wants Van der Burgh’s Olympic title. Adam Peaty, Chris Walker-Hebborn and Siobhan-Marie O'Connor at the 16th FINA World Championships Swimming gold medals do not come along very often for British men. Since the 1908 Games in London there have been three, all breaststrokers: David Wilkie over 200m in 1976, then Duncan Goodhew in 1980 and Adrian Moorhouse in 1988, both at Peaty’s favoured distance of 100m. Moorhouse is now a successful businessman but he will be in Rio to commentate on the swimming. “I think I’m looking forward to it as much as Adam is,” he says. “He’s the best swimmer in the world – he’s just got to get it out in the final. “His technique is not dramatically different to mine, but he’s doing it better than anybody ever has done. He’s very powerful and he’s taken it to another level. He’s had a great couple of years and he seems to have a good support network, and to be managing himself very well.” When he was named in the team, Peaty said, “It’s been a long time since 1988 but I like the pressure. It leaves me nowhere to hide. I’m definitely the strongest I’ve ever been. I want to make Britain proud.” He also wants a tattoo of the Olympic rings and has vowed to get one after the Games. Back when he started, Peaty and his parents had no idea how good he was. “He was always very competitive – he’s different from his brothers and sister in that respect,” says Caroline. “Right from his time at Dove Valley, the local club, everybody who was faster, they were the target.” When Peaty was signed up by City of Derby, one of Britain’s top swimming clubs, at the age of 14, his mother had no idea what she was in for. “It was really hard going, I’d have given up many a time,” says Caroline. “I’d get up at four in the morning, drive him 40 minutes to Derby, sit and wait two hours while he was training, or go to Tesco, then drive him back again and do a full day’s work as a nursery manager. Then we’d do it again in the evening. British Gas Swimming Championships 2015 “I’ve always hated driving, my husband doesn’t drive, and I was so tired all the time. But Adam’s willpower was stronger than mine and he’d say, ‘Come on Mum, no staying in bed.’ “This went on for three-and-a-half years, until he passed his driving test. Towards the end some of the neighbours would help out and take him to give me a break every few weeks. We have a very tight community on our road.” For longer journeys, Adam’s coach Melanie Marshall was the driver. Marshall was a top swimmer – she won six medals for England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games – until she retired straight after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. “I needed a job and I walked straight into the head coach role at Derby,” says Marshall. “They took a chance on me, I took a chance on them, along came Adam and here we are. “Without the support of his parents, Adam wouldn’t be going to Rio. All those journeys to Derby and back, day after day, were a huge stress for the family. They didn’t realise how talented he was – they thought I was some crazy coach telling them to take him swimming at 4am. His family has been a huge part of his success.” They still are, and Adam acknowledges as much. He lives at home and has laid down a rule of “no talking about swimming”, which suits everybody. He walks his dog, Monty, when he can – otherwise Mark does it – plays computer games, watches television, and spends time with his girlfriend, Anna Zair. Moorhouse says the family’s support could make all the difference, especially as it helps with “mental recharging”, which is crucial for top competitors. “It was the same for me, I lived at home. My parents sound similar to Adam’s; they weren’t from a swimming background and that can help. The conversation over dinner would be about something different. That gives you a daily mental break, which you need. If your parents are too involved you won’t get that. “That support system around Adam is critical. Look at Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps – they kept coming back to a close-knit family.” 20th Commonwealth Games Peaty has also needed a diet suitable for an Olympic athlete with barely an ounce of fat on his body. “I’ve coached him since 2009,” says Marshall, “and the first time I saw him swim breaststroke fast, I thought, ‘This lad’s got something.’ When he started he was like that threewheeler that Del Boy used to drive in Only Fools and Horses. Then he became a saloon car, then a souped-up saloon, and now he’s a Ferrari. “The engineering is different for all those vehicles, and as he’s got older he’s needed different fuel. His nutritional plan is an evolution. Training sets he couldn’t manage before, he’s eating them for breakfast. He’s a man now, not a boy. He’s a Formula One car.” The double Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington, also from the East Midlands, is a mentor for Peaty. “It’s scary to think about how fast he could go,” she says. “He has the best finish of anyone in the world, and he doesn’t let the pressure get to him. And he has a heart of gold, and a great sense of humour. He hasn’t changed at all – he’s the poster boy of swimming, one of the greatest of all time, but he’s still the same guy he was three or four years ago.” The only time he will “be a bit moody around the house”, says Caroline, is when he is tapering – reducing the intensity of training in the weeks leading up to a major competition. He loves cars and, thanks to his many successes and sponsorships, owns a Mercedes and an MG sports car. He is fiercely patriotic and, says Caroline “always talked about being in the RAF or the Army when he was younger”. Adlington became an overnight star when she won gold in Beijing in 2008, and Peaty could do the same. If all goes to plan he could be Britain’s first gold medallist in Rio. “British swimming needs another gold medallist,” says Moorhouse. “Adam can lift the sport’s profile.” Caroline, Mark and Anna will fly to Rio to support Adam, which will be quite an experience for Caroline. “I’ve never flown before, never been further than France. I’ve always taken my leave around Adam’s races in this country and I love to watch him, but this is going to be a shock.” But better, surely, than driving to Derby and back in the wee small hours. Adam Peaty begins his bid for Olympic glory on Saturday 6th August in the Men's 100m Breaststroke
Could history be made at the Grand National?
Trevor Hemmings is aiming to win his fourth Grand National as an owner – he tells Radio Times the secret behind his success...
What do Gregory Peck, Sir Alex Ferguson and the Queen Mother have in common? They all tried and failed, along with thousands of others, to win the world’s most famous horse race as an owner. By comparison Trevor Hemmings seems positively greedy. He will set a record of four wins if his horse Many Clouds, favourite to repeat last year’s success, wins the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday. The spotlight in the aftermath of the race usually falls on the winning horse, jockey or trainer. Leighton Aspell would complete a Grand National hat-trick should he ride Many Clouds to glory, but if it happens top billing this time might go instead to Hemmings, one of the most popular figures in racing. Hemmings, 80, is much more than an owner and breeder of racehorses. He is a businessman, philanthropist, friend of the royals, and owner of Preston North End Football Club. He started his first business with £12 and is now one of the wealthiest men in Britain. “There’s no reason why Many Clouds won’t win again,” says Hemmings at his home on the Isle of Man, where his horses enjoy a long and relaxing retirement when their racing days are over. “He’s a very, very good horse.” He showed it by jumping superbly in his final prep race at Kelso, winning so impressively that he became outright favourite for the National at 8–1. Hemmings might set a record for celebrations, too, if Many Clouds wins. “Every time I’ve won the National I’ve had a special celebration in Kanturk in north Cork, that’s where my Irish stud is, the horses’ nursery. Then another near Chorley in Lancashire, that’s the infants and junior school where the horses develop. And one here in the Isle of Man. If there’s anybody left to invite I’ll have one in London too. I don’t mind a party.” There’s even a drink made for the occasion: Many Clouds is the name of a brown ale brewed in the horse’s honour near Lambourn, in Berkshire, where Many Clouds is trained by Oliver Sherwood. Hemmings has been a horse man all his life. “I like to see them growing up,” he said. “I’m not one for buying a £500,000 racehorse because it might win me a race next week. Look at Ballabriggs [his 2011 National winner]… I had him all the way from a little fella. What’s nicer than that?” Having been evacuated from London as a young boy in the Second World War, Hemmings settled in Leyland, Lancashire, where he saw a daily reminder of the First World War. Horses that had made it safely home from the battlefield lived out their days, two decades later, in a field near his home. He decided to go into business when he was still a teenager, working on the railways and studying at night school. “I started out in building and got my first business going with £12,” he says. “I built up the company then sold it on. I kept doing that and the companies kept getting better, and bigger. Maybe it was a bit easier to open doors back then, but I made sure to open them. And I worked all hours.” He took on a contract to build holiday homes for Pontins; years later, he bought the company. Its founder, Fred Pontin, was himself a Grand National-winning owner, and through him Hemmings furthered his interest in racing. He met Ginger McCain and Noel le Mare, trainer and owner of Red Rum, and told himself that one day he, too, would win the Grand National. While Hemmings’s beloved horses enjoy a quiet retirement, he keeps himself busy. “I’m up at six every day, I still have plenty to do,” he says. He owns a company that runs 500 pubs, has a dozen hotels, a large property portfolio, and working estates in Ireland, England and the Isle of Man. Then there are the horses – 37 in action this season, with 16 different trainers, plus all those coming through or retired, and several shires and Suffolk Punches in the Isle of Man. And, of course, there’s the football club and the charity work, much of it conducted through Princess Anne’s trust for carers. (Hemmings provided Zara Phillips with the horse on which she won an Olympic silver medal in 2012.) He set up a support centre in Preston for victims of sexual assault, and was awarded the Royal Victorian Order for his work in helping the Princess Royal’s charity. He says racing is an expensive hobby but doesn’t stop to calculate how much it costs him. “I give ten times more to charities in a year than I spend on horses, so my perspective is good.” He also likes to see others win at the bookmakers’ expense. When Hedgehunter became his first National winner in 2005, bookies in the Isle of Man took a big hit. “Ballabriggs did it again to them in 2011, and last year Many Clouds was 25–1 – that really took them to task. Over in Ireland, where Many Clouds grew up, the betting shop ran out of cash. That’s what I like – share it out, that’s what it’s all about.” The staff of Preston North End have enjoyed some nice wins, too. Phil Brown, the manager at the time, had never been so happy after an away draw at Portsmouth five years ago – not because of the result, but because of his bet on Ballabriggs. Hemmings has been involved with Preston as a director, on and off, since 1970, and became the owner in 2010. Every year he invites the club staff to his private box at Aintree. What if Preston were playing on Grand National day? “I’d follow the football on the radio, and attend the National,” he said. “I didn’t start as a horse owner until 1984, a while after I was first involved with football, but I’ve been closer to racing, more involved day by day. “And I’ve always loved jump racing. I have had my best days in racing at Aintree, although now and again we have sadnesses as well as the upsides. The main hope every time is that horse and rider come back safe. But I don’t think racing deserves all the protests about safety. Sometimes I think people who protest don’t fully understand what they are protesting about. “My favourite moment would be any of my Grand National wins. If you see me after, it’s as though I own everything in sight, everybody saying well done, shaking your hand. I love it. I’ll be there again at Aintree to have a good go.” Coverage of The Grand National begins on Saturday from 2pm on Channel 4 and from 5pm on Radio 5 Live
Meet Eddie Jones, the Australian plotting to save English rugby
New England coach Eddie Jones begins Six Nations 2016 against Scotland in Murrayfield. What's the plan?
It took an Australian to tell it like it is. “The Six Nations is a dour affair and is built on the foundation of not allowing the opposition to score points,” said Eddie Jones, in an interview last year. “On the flipside, the Rugby Championship [New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina] is all about scoring more points than the opposition. “Compare and contrast Italy and Argentina. Italy have been part of the Six Nations for 16 years and their rugby has basically regressed. Argentina have featured in the Championship for four years and their game – in particular their ability and execution on attack – has grown exponentially.” Two days after that interview, Jones was appointed head coach of England, the first foreigner to take that role. The Australian is forthright, sharp-tongued and, he says, sure to be unpopular with the team. He started by culling nine World Cup players, who have nearly 300 caps between them, and drafting in seven uncapped newcomers to his initial Six Nations squad. Three of them are included in Jones’s 23-man squad for the game in Scotland on 6 February, the opening weekend of the 2016 Six Nations Championship. Those changes are not surprising, given that during the World Cup, in which he led Japan to a famous victory over South Africa, Jones said England were struggling because of “confused selection and strategy” and a lack of identity. Their use of Sam Burgess, recruited from rugby league, was “silly”. “No matter what happens on the rugby field, the press conferences will be entertaining.” So said Lawrence Dallaglio, the former England captain, after Jones announced the squad for his first tournament as coach of England. It is not a view anybody would have expressed about the first foreigners to coach England’s football and cricket teams, Sven-Goran Eriksson of Sweden, and Duncan Fletcher of Zimbabwe. “The sport needs character and personality,” says Sir Clive Woodward, friend and former rival of Jones – they were the coaches of England and Australia in the 2003 World Cup final. “This could be a very exciting period for England.” One of the country’s leading rugby correspondents (speaking anonymously for fear of an early confrontation) says, “He will definitely say something that will get him into trouble, and not just once. We’re really looking forward to working with him. It’s not going to be boring.” Dallaglio, who expects Jones to have “a very fruitful time in England”, is right to highlight Jones’s public persona as a positive. While it should be the results that do all the talking, that is rarely how it works. The public want more. “Duncan Fletcher never understood why our media weren’t flag-waving supporters,” says Vic Marks, the former England bowler, who is a familiar voice to followers of Test Match Special. “He thought they had a negative, cynical attitude and he simply opted out of dealing with them. There’s an obvious contrast there with Eddie Jones.” Eriksson was abused in print before, during and after his five-year stint as manager, during which England rose from 17th to fifth in the world rankings but failed in big tournaments. He was wary of the press and when he left in 2006, the headline in The Sun was, “Goodbye, tosser”. If somebody called Jones a “tosser” you could expect a reaction. The Australian rugby writer Greg Growden, who has had his run-ins with Jones, describes him as “the ultimate scrapper who loves confrontation and the intellectual challenges that coaching provides. He is a workaholic, single-minded, disciplined, dictatorial, and often tricky to handle.” Jones would work up to 14 hours a day when he coached in club rugby and put in even longer shifts when he became an international coach for Australia (2001–05) and Japan (2012–15). He also worked as an assistant coach for South Africa when they won the 2007 World Cup, and has been involved in English rugby before. Jones played a few games for Leicester at the end of his career in the early 90s, and was director of rugby at Saracens before he moved to Japan. “There is no international rugby coach who better understands the value and impact of the media... the sense of theatre of a press conference,” says Growden, who is a rugby correspondent for ESPN. “He is fascinated by the media, and knows how to use it.” Jones, 56, has a multicultural and multi-dimensional background compared to Eriksson and Fletcher. His wife and mother are Japanese, he has worked in four continents and never stayed anywhere longer than four years, the length of his current contract. He was born in Tasmania, taught himself Japanese, started his working life as a teacher, helped to set up the first international school in Vietnam, has suffered a stroke, was recently appointed a director of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, loves cricket, and is a big fan of Pep Guardiola, the Bayern Munich coach who may be heading to one of England’s top clubs. Jones says he is both “a devil and an angel”. His career low was resigning from Queensland Reds in 2007, when they finished bottom of the league. His high points were leading Australia to the World Cup final in 2003, helping South Africa to win it in 2007, a few months after leaving the Reds, and overseeing Japan’s remarkable win against the Springboks last year, the biggest surprise in international rugby history. The magnitude of that win prompted Goldman Sachs to give him a directorship so they could “benefit from his unrivalled leadership and his ability to bring together a multi-cultural team”. Masanori Mochida, president of Goldman Sachs in Japan, said Jones had “achieved the impossible”. Japan won fans worldwide for their exciting style of play in the World Cup, which Jones called “ruck and run rugby, the new rock ’n’ roll”. At the outset of his England role he is interested in results, not style. “There are two things you need to win a game of rugby: talent and cohesion – and there is plenty of talent in England. I have a long-term plan, but for now all I have to do is select the right players, get them to understand the style of play and beat Scotland.” Peter FitzSimons, who played for the Wallabies in the 1980s and 90s before becoming one of Australia’s most popular media commentators, says, “Eddie is broadly well liked and respected but is also what we call in the Australian argot ‘a cranky b*****d’ and maybe the most intense of the breed that ever lived. “The stories of just how obsessive he is – to work his assistant coaches into the ground, to ensure they work the team into the ground, to get every last detail right – are numerous. “He was a great player for Randwick in the 1980s, and extremely unlucky not to have been a Wallaby hooker. What he lacked in size, he made up for in activity. He was like a feral sheepdog with just a touch of rabies. Every time you looked up, there was Eddie, barking at his own side to herd them into exactly the right position, or snarling at you. Then, once the game was over, his eyeballs would stop rolling, and he would be a good bloke once more. “He is much the same as a coach: insanely focused, and entirely unforgiving of those who can’t match his level of obsessiveness. The attrition rate on assistant coaches who can’t keep up tends to be high, just as players who don’t measure up to his standards are quickly measured up for the international rugby graveyard. But, at base, still a good bloke. Just a bit odd. I suspect he will go well for England.” Jones says he’d mellowed. “When I was younger, I was terrible at tolerating people who didn’t have the same enthusiasm and drive to win. I’m a bit better now. As you get older you learn which fights to fight. I couldn’t do this job in my 40s. You get wiser as you get older.” He also had a health scare, spending more than a month in intensive care in October 2013, after suffering a stroke. “I had to change the way I was operating, I was pushing too hard,” he said afterwards. “It made me realise what I wanted to do – coach and look after my family. I don’t drink now, I eat healthy food, regulate my sleep pattern and don’t have saunas.” Jones is still learning. “I talk to a lot of people,” he says. “I try to meet people who are smarter than me.” One of those, he says, was Pep Guardiola. He contacted Bayern Munich in 2014 and visited in November of that year. “It was absolutely fascinating. I watched Pep taking a training session and it made me embarrassed by my coaching. He was so bloody brilliant. He has some of the best players in the world and he just worked them so hard. It was minus three degrees and they came off the field dripping with sweat, they had worked that hard.” With England having dropped to eighth, their lowest ever point in the world rankings, Jones’s squad can expect more of the same. “Perhaps it needs an Australian to remind us what English rugby is all about,” says Woodward.
Mo Farah on Sports Personality of the Year, Christmas at home and his new son
“Could it get better? Never say never... Even now I’ve done the “triple double” I’m still hungry for more. I can’t wait until Rio”
If 2012 was the all-time high for Mo Farah, 2015 has run it close. And there could be more to come because the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year has yet to be decided and then there is the small matter of the New Year Honours. It could be Sir Mo in 2016, when Farah goes for more glory at the Rio Olympic Games. In the World Championships in Beijing in the summer, Farah won a third straight long-distance double – 5,000m and 10,000m – to add to those at the London Olympics and the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. “We had our first boy this year, too, which was also an amazing achievement,” he says at the home in Portland, Oregon, he shares with wife Tania, baby Hussein, three-year-old twins Aisha and Amani, and Rhianna, nine. With a growing brood, Christmas will hardly be a time for peaceful contemplation of another successful year on the track. “The house is usually full of noise, but at Christmas it’s super- loud,” laughs Farah. “The kids get so excited, and obviously it’s our first one with Hussein – and now I’m not the only man in the house!” Will he take the day off? “Tania will cook, and she’s great in the kitchen, but I’ll still do some training and get a run in. Be somewhere in the region of ten to 15 miles – it’s a nice change as I have the roads and the track to myself.” Such dedication has been the key to Farah’s success. No runner has been Sports Personality since Kelly Holmes in 2004, back when Farah was still struggling to make an impact in top-level athletics. “I had just started working with my coach Alan Storey and was still training at St Mary’s University [in Twickenham]. The year before I visited my mum and brother in Somaliland and realised how much I missed them. “I was still taking part in competitions, but it wasn’t until I started living with other professional athletes the following year that I understood the dedication it takes to reach the very top, and I really stepped up my game. “I used to watch Sports Personality of the Year with friends. Kelly’s 1,500m gold was electric, hanging back until the end and bursting through to the front [at the Athens Olympics, where she also won at 800m]. I also remember Arsène Wenger getting coach of the year after Arsenal went the whole season unbeaten. They were the invincibles!” Farah is such a big fan of the club he wanted to give Hussein the middle name “Arsenal” – but his wife was having none of it. While life on the track has only got better, Farah had to deal with a controversy this year when his coach, the Brazilian Alberto Salazar, was implicated in a TV documentary about doping. Salazar was cleared by UK Athletics to work with British athletes, while Farah came out as one of many athletes who want all doping test results to be made public. For the moment, though, he is concentrating on his running and looking ahead to Rio. “My training is going really well. There are so many great runners. It’s tough, but I wouldn’t be running 120 miles a week if I didn’t love what I do. Winning gold in my home town of London in 2012, with the crowd behind me all the way, was the best moment of my career. I still can’t quite believe it. “Could it get better? Never say never... Even now I’ve done the “triple double” I’m still hungry for more. I can’t wait until Rio.” Sports Personality of the Year is on Sunday 20th December at 6:50pm
Davis Cup captain Leon Smith: how Great Britain can win the World Cup of tennis
The elite coach and Britain's Davis Cup captain explains how he turned around Britain's fortunes – and convinced Andy Murray he was worth listening to
It is the World Cup of tennis, Britain’s most important tie since the Lawn Tennis Association was founded in 1888. Tickets sold out within minutes, millions will watch on television and a nation will hold its breath. Can Britain beat Belgium in Ghent to win the Davis Cup for the first time since 1936? This unexpected chance for tennis to attract new fans, and players, is largely down to the efforts of a very talented Scot. If Andy Murray is the name on your lips, think again. His name is Leon Smith. Glasgow-born Smith likens his role as Davis Cup captain to that of a football team manager. He is the Jose Mourinho or Arsène Wenger of tennis, though without the tantrums or dramas. Like those two he never played at the top level, or at much of any level. He was a born coach, and he has revolutionised the way Britain plays. Davis Cup final: How to watch Day one (singles): BBC2 from 12:15pm, Eurosport 2 from 11:45am Day two (doubles): BBC1 from 2:05pm, Eurosport 2 from 1:45pm Day three (singles): BBC2 from 11:50am, Eurosport 2 from 11:45am He admires Alex Ferguson and Dave Brailsford, who brought so much success, respectively, to Manchester United and Britain’s top cyclists. Smith has a data analyst who assesses opponents both before and during matches, from the dressing room, tracking every shot and advising on tactics. Leon Smith with Andy Murray in 2006 “It’s especially useful with big servers, even more so on the big points,” says Smith, whose support team outnumbers the players and includes two physios, a nutritionist, a doubles coach and a doctor. “This approach didn’t happen before,” says Smith, who worked in elite junior coaching for the LTA before taking the Davis Cup role in 2010. “I was a complete rookie when I started, very much aware I hadn’t played on tour and wasn’t in a position to bark orders at the players. So the analysis helped. They like to see you’ve done your homework. “It was a big surprise when I got the job. We were in such a lowly place, in a relegation place in group two. We could only get better.” They did. Under Smith, Britain returned to the top level, beating the US in successive years and are now favourites to beat Belgium in the final. Smith even found a way to win without Andy Murray, who sat out a couple of ties in 2012 and 2013, the years he won Olympic gold, the US Open and Wimbledon. Andy and Jamie Murray Lesser-ranked players such as Dan Evans and James Ward had to step up. They did, and beat Slovakia, “who had a top-100 ranked player,” says Smith. “Then we had an even better win, minus Andy, against Russia.” Britain came from 2–0 down to win 3–2: a comeback Britain hadn’t achieved since beating Germany in 1930. “That was a big deal for us, but it was for Andy, too. I wanted to show we were passionate and professional, and those games did that.” Smith, 39, has known Andy Murray since he first saw him hitting balls aged four or five, and coached him throughout his teenage years. “The skills Andy has now were there then. His tactical nous was amazing. He would find ways of winning when he wasn’t playing well, breaking his opponent’s rhythm, forcing mistakes. Even off the court he was special. You could show him a draw sheet for a tournament and he’d go through every player saying, ‘This is how to beat this one, how to beat that one.’ His memory and attention to detail were phenomenal.” It sounds as though Murray would make a good Davis Cup captain himself when his playing days are over. “Absolutely,” says Smith. “I’ve never known anyone so supportive of his teammates. He would be a dream Davis Cup captain. Phenomenal.”
Clive Woodward: The Rugby World Cup trophy should return home to the northern hemisphere
The World Cup-winning coach looks back at England's record in the competition as they make another bid for glory
Back when Clive Woodward played for England in the early 1980s, rugby union was very much an amateur game, and it was dominated by the teams from “down south”. “I generally thought that we could never beat New Zealand, Australia and South Africa; we weren’t supposed to beat them,” says Woodward, who ran an IT leasing business before coaching became a viable career option, one that would later enable him to prefix his name with “Sir”. “In coaching sessions when I was a player we were told this is what New Zealand do, this is what South Africa do. You were almost just copying them, and it really annoyed me, from a playing point of view, a business point of view. We were the most amateur country in world rugby, and the great underachievers in the sport.” The northern softies from the British Isles, many of them drawn from public schools, never stood a chance against the granite-jawed giants who wore the silver fern, the wallaby or the springbok on their jersey. The fact that the man named New Zealand’s player of the century in 1999, Colin Meads, was nicknamed Pinetree shows what England and the rest were up against. Throughout history, the All Blacks have won more than 400 of the 500 or so test matches they’ve played. When rugby turned professional in 1995, says Woodward, “the gloves were off ”. But the southern teams still landed all the punches at the 1995 World Cup, won by South Africa, and in 1999, when Australia lifted the Webb Ellis Cup. View oEmbed on the source website Looking back at England’s defeat by South Africa in the quarter-finals in Paris in 1999, Martin Johnson, then the team’s captain, echoed Woodward’s view. “That thing about the southern hemisphere being better than us really rankled,” he said. “You always felt a little bit second best. You want to be the best, not being beaten by these guys and being looked down on all the time.” So Woodward decided to do something about it. He thought he would be sacked after 1999, but he was kept on and became ever more determined to build a winning team. “When I became England coach [in 1997] I made it absolutely clear that I wasn’t going to copy what the southern hemisphere did – ever. We have the players, we have the expertise. I wanted England to be not just the most professional team in rugby, but the most professional team in world sport. I had a vision of people in the NFL, basketball and soccer asking ‘What’s the England rugby team doing?’ “I think it worked. People were asking. When we arrived in Australia for the 2003 World Cup we were favourites. It was an amazing team with an amazing captain.” Woodward led the way as Johnson, and a great team of players, alongside another great team of specialist coaches and advisers, took England to their greatest triumph. The story of that unforgettable victory is told in a new documentary film, Building Jerusalem (above), which features interviews with Woodward, Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson, the man whose drop kick sank Australia in the final. But that was then. The reality is that no European team has won it since 2003. The eighth rugby World Cup kicks off at Twickenham on Friday night, when England play Fiji. Six of the seven previous World Cups have gone south, two each to South Africa, Australia and this year’s favourites with the bookmakers, New Zealand. Woodward has long since been replaced as coach, and looking back, was the Jerusalem he built just a blip? Are the Six Nations teams still looking up to their rivals from Down Under, heading for another beating? Relaxing in an office in central London, Woodward says, “Good question, but no, I like to think not. The northern countries have taken great strides forward. The stats don’t look good, 6–1 to the southern sides, but it could have been a lot closer if the last two finals had been refereed properly.” He is referring to the controversial decision not to award England’s Mark Cueto a try against South Africa in the 2007 final – “a big call” – and any number of questionable decisions that went in favour of New Zealand when they defeated France 8–7 four years ago, on their own turf. “If I had been the coach of France in that World Cup I would still be apoplectic to this day,” says Woodward. “If that final had been refereed properly, France would have won. “The fact is, England and France were there in those finals. The northern and southern teams are pretty much levelled off now, and New Zealand, Australia and South Africa all know it. They are not crashing favourites to win it this time and it’s going to be a very, very open World Cup, which is why I am so excited about it.” View oEmbed on the source website Highlights from England's victory in the 2003 World Cup In New Zealand, Woodward points out, the whole rugby structure is geared to producing winning All Blacks teams. They will not select any player who earns his living in Europe and neither, until recently, would Australia. But that may change in the coming years. “The wealth is here, in the club game in France and England, and that makes it difficult for their teams and their system. Their entire system is geared around their players all arriving for a World Cup in great shape. If New Zealand lose ten players who come over here to play, their system won’t work. There could be a rapid changing of the guard.” And home advantage will be massive in this World Cup, just as it was for the All Blacks last time. “It’s not only the support in the stadium, the atmosphere, it’s the familiarity of the surroundings and above all the refereeing,” says Woodward, who spent a year working in football, at Southampton, and had six years as head of elite performance at the British Olympic Association. “Referees in rugby union make a lot more of a difference than they do in football and other sports. You have the roar of the crowd, a high tackle comes in, the touch judges and the ref are all affected, you see yellow cards, red cards. The home crowd, being at the hosts’ home stadium, does influence the decision-making. It’s just how it is, and it will help England. “And England have beaten all these teams at Twickenham. Stuart Lancaster [the coach] has done an amazing job since he came in. Someone’s got to beat England at Twickenham if they’re going to win it and I can’t easily see who that’s going to be.” There’s also the matter of New Zealand’s World Cup record away from their homeland,which is not good. Both their victories were at Eden Park, Auckland, whereas Australia achieved both their wins in Britain. Though England are in the so-called “group of death” with Australia and Wales, Woodward believes the hosts and the Aussies will make it through. Woodward thinks Wales have the best coach in Warren Gatland, but there may not be enough depth in their squad; he feels the same lack of depth could cost Ireland, who may be beaten in their group by France. “I really want England to win, of course I do, but if they don’t I hope it goes to another northern hemisphere team. There can be upsets.” If the home advantage works in their favour, there is one thing England must be wary of. “It’s this,” says Woodward, holding up his mobile phone. “It’s the new enemy. We didn’t have to worry about it in 2003, but I really saw it at London 2012.” Clive Woodward at the 2003 Rugby World Cup What he means is: there must be no distractions. “I’ve had the conversation with Stuart Lancaster,” he says. “Don’t let the players be distracted. It could be the media, their family, sponsors, ticket requests, anything. One stupid tweet, one ill-judged video out on social media – if you allow one player to be distracted it can affect the whole team and it can all come tumbling down.” If everything goes to plan, England have a great chance of winning, Woodward believes. He’s positively bubbling about the next six weeks of action. “You can wear your colours with pride. The games are massive – England v Wales [26 September] is going to be huge. This is the big one, with everybody trying their absolute best. The World Cup will be a spectacle, something special. It’ll be great.” And maybe, this time, the Pinetree’s boys will be cut down to size. Building Jerusalem, the story of the 2003 World Cup, is out on DVD now The Rugby World Cup begins on ITV and Radio 5 Live tonight (Friday 18th September) at 6.45pm
Mo Farah is on course for a place in the record books – and a knighthood
The two-time Olympic champion is aiming for a World Athletics championships double when he contests the 5,000m final this weekend
Put the date in your diary: 12.30pm on Saturday 29 August. That is when Mohamed Farah will attempt to win the 5,000m world title for a third straight time, a feat no other runner has ever achieved. If, about 13 minutes later, he crosses the line first in Beijing he can surely expect to end the year not only as a triple world champion but as BBC Sports Personality of the Year and, if the Prime Minister’s support counts for anything, “Sir Mo”. There was some disquiet in 2012 when Farah, described by Lord Coe as “Britain’s greatest athlete”, was awarded a CBE rather than a knighthood after winning Olympic gold at 10,000m and 5,000m. Since then David Cameron has spoken in favour of Farah becoming “Sir Mo”. Victory in China, after winning the 10,000m on the opening day, would surely secure it. Farah, who lost out to Sir Bradley Wiggins as BBC Sports Personality in that golden year of 2012, remains hugely popular in Britain. He has run – and won – in all parts of the country on the track, on the road and in the mud. He has set records at several distances indoors and out, and one that will surely never be broken is for the highest decibel level at an athletics meeting, when he won the second of his gold medals in London’s Olympic Stadium. That Olympic double made Farah Britain’s greatest distance runner. Not since the days of Brendan Foster, Dave Bedford and Dave Moorcroft in the 1970s and 1980s had a British man challenged consistently for global medals in the longest track races. “He has millions of fans, and he has inspired thousands of people to think, ‘If he can do it, I’ll have a go.’ It’s wonderful to see,” says Moorcroft, whose 5,000m national record stood for 28 years before Farah broke it in 2010. View oEmbed on the source website Moorcroft, who was chief executive of UK Athletics for nine years, has known and followed Farah since he first saw him run in a schools cross-country race in Bedfordshire nearly 20 years ago. “If anybody deserves a knighthood, Mo does. His collection of doubles [10,000m and 5,000m at the same championships] is staggering, and I think he will do it again in Beijing. He doesn’t just outrun his opponents, he out-thinks them. He has an aura, a presence; that’s what sets him apart. I think he’ll beat them all again. “Of course it will be tough, and the recent controversy he has been caught up in hasn’t helped, but he loves a challenge and I see a man who wants to go out there and beat the best.” The controversy Moorcroft mentions came in June when Farah’s coach, Alberto Salazar, was accused of being involved in doping, though Farah was not implicated. He has defended and supported his coach, with whom he still works, but has said he would split if allegations were proved. Last month he agreed to allow some of his blood test data to be revealed. Farah is 32 but could run on for a while yet, with the Rio Olympics his main target next summer and the World Championships in 2017 being held at the scene of his greatest triumph, the London Olympic Stadium. It’s not his age that matters, because plenty of people have shown you can keep running into your mid-30s,” says Moorcroft. “There are two things to consider: injuries and motivation. If there comes a point when he wakes up in the morning and is not 100 per cent up for it, it’s time to stop. But there is no sign of that at the moment and you can see he loves every minute of competing.” Farah’s closest rival in the 5,000m is likely to be Ethiopian teen Yomif Kejelcha, who was the first runner this year to go under 13 minutes in the 5,000m. But Farah held off Kejelcha when they went head-to-head in Lausanne in July, and is expected to do it again in Beijing. Mo Farah will race in the 5,000m at the Athletics World Championship tomorrow (Saturday 29 August) at 12.30pm, with the race viewable on BBC2 and British Eurosport
Meet the new Usain Bolt (good news – he's British!)
Zharnel Hughes is Team GB's best sprinting hope for the World Athletics Championships 2015 in Beijing. He even gave Bolt a run for his money during Jamaican training camps – how much faster does he think he can go?
All the talk about Usain Bolt this year has been of an athlete in decline, a superstar who has lost his mojo. On current form the 100m and 200m world record holder is no longer the fastest man in the world. But Bolt did show signs in his 100m victory at the Anniversary Games in London in July that he’s on his way back to his best. He could yet retain both his titles at the World Championships in Beijing, which start on Saturday, the day after his 29th birthday. His millions of fans will hope he does, along with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) – and not just because the favourite to beat Bolt at both distances is the American Justin Gatlin, who has twice been banned for drugs violations. Bolt at his best has star quality. A few weeks ago Sebastian Coe, elected as the IAAF’s new president on 19 August, put into perspective just how important Bolt is: “He has captured the imagination like no sporting figure since Muhammad Ali in the 1970s.” But whatever happens in Beijing, athletics needs new stars. Gatlin, more pariah than hero, is 33 and won’t be around much longer. Among the fastest of the young pretenders is a 200m sprinter who is flying, both on and off the track. Zharnel Hughes Zharnel Hughes, aged 20, has put in a string of impressive performances, including a second place behind Bolt in the Diamond League in New York, victories in Lausanne and London, and a 200m national title. Remarkably, that title wasn’t won in Jamaica, where he lives and trains, or Anguilla, where he was born and raised, but at July’s British Championships. Anguilla, sitting between the British Virgin Islands and Antigua in the Caribbean, is a British overseas territory, just like Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. It competes at the Commonwealth Games, though no Anguillan has ever won a medal, but isn’t recognised at the Olympics. As Anguillans hold British passports, the “new Usain Bolt”, as Hughes is known, was able to apply to compete for Britain and Northern Ireland. Read more: World Athletics Championships 2015: daily schedule and TV guide Hughes is a confident and expressive young man whose charisma, should he make it to the top, will be invaluable to his chosen sport. “My teachers, peers and family have always encouraged me to do the best I can, and I want to inspire young people, set an example and influence them to do positive things,” he said in a speech at his old school in Anguilla. “I’m just trying to have a happy life. I keep everything simple – I love being the person that I am.” Hughes is confident of winning a World Championship medal. “My main aim is to get to the final, then we’ll see what happens,” he tells Radio Times from his hotel room in Beijing, which he shares with Delano Williams, another Caribbean Briton based in Jamaica. “But I am in good shape, I’m feeling good and I believe I can win a medal. So does my coach.” He first tried athletics at primary school in Anguilla, aged ten, and as he grew and grew, so did his performances. He stands 6ft 3in, two inches shorter than Bolt, but taller than most of his rivals. A couple of weeks before Bolt won three sprint golds at the London 2012 Olympics, Hughes won a scholarship to the IAAF High Performance Training Centre in Jamaica, where he has the same chief coach as Bolt and Yohan Blake. Hughes speaks of his gruelling daily schedule – training from 5am to 7am, then going to the gym, with another two hours’ training in the evening: “Oh my days, training is tough for me. Now I’m doing longer repetitions and faster times than before. It’s unbelievably tough.” In the past, he says, there were times when “I lay on the track feeling like giving up and coming back home, but watching Bolt and Blake persevering to finish the programme motivates me to do the same. They are my idols and have contributed to my growth over the time I have been training in Jamaica.” While he is rightly proud of his achievements on the track – as is his doting mother Zarnalyn – he feels just the same about flying in his free time when he’s away from it. “I want to be a pilot when I’ve finished athletics,” he says. “I went up in a plane in Jamaica, with a pilot, and I took over and landed the plane. It was a great, great feeling, a dream come true for me. I haven’t started pilot school, but I definitely, definitely want to fly.” Hughes has had plenty of advice from Bolt and Blake, with whom he’s very friendly. Although Bolt is his idol, he says, “Maybe I can do something phenomenal one day and beat him. At some point I will have to say, well, he was my idol, but now he’s my rival. I want to make a name for myself out there.” View oEmbed on the source website Besides being “ecstatic and grateful” to wear the GB vest, Hughes is also very pleased to get the tracksuit. “He thinks the design and colours are really cool. He fell in love with it when he competed against Britain for Anguilla in the Commonwealth Youth Games a few years ago,” says the author Richard Moore, who has spent plenty of time with Hughes and saw some of his best performances as a teenager in Jamaica while researching his recently published book, The Bolt Supremacy: Inside Jamaica’s Sprint Factory. “At times he comes across as a wide-eyed teenager, but he’s actually very mature, an engaging character with a lot of charisma,” says Moore. “He showed me a recording of one of his best runs on his phone and talked me through it, pretty much stride by stride – what he was happy with, what he needed to improve. It was very impressive. Athletics desperately needs somebody like him. In terms of talking confidently in public, he’s way ahead of where Bolt was at that age.” “I have always wanted to run against these guys,” says Hughes. “The target is the Olympics, but right now I am focusing on the World Championships.”
Ryder Cup 2014: Will the Irish win it for Europe?
McIlroy, McGinley and McDowell are our greatest hope in the Ryder Cup, says golfer Darren Clarke
As the Ryder Cup comes to Gleneagles, nine days after the referendum, the focus will be very heavily on Scotland. It is only the second time in ten decades of the world’s most popular transatlantic sporting contest that Scotland, known globally as “the home of golf”, has hosted the Cup. There is a local hero to cheer, too, after the late selection of Stephen Gallacher, whose home is less than an hour away from Gleneagles. So far, so Scottish. But look deeper and this European Ryder Cup team is far more about Ireland than Scotland. The star attraction is Rory McIlroy, fresh from winning back-to-back Majors and undisputedly the world’s best golfer now and, probably, for many years to come. McIlroy, who after his Ryder Cup debut in 2010 described it as “the best golf tournament in the world,” will be playing alongside his great friend and fellow Ulsterman Graeme McDowell. And, for the first time since the Cup started in 1927, an Irishman, Paul McGinley, is captain. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I’ve never had so many ticket requests,” says Christy O’Connor Jr, the popular Irish golfer who hit one of the most famous shots in Ryder Cup history when Europe retained the Cup at the Belfry in 1989. “Men, women, children – everybody wants to be there. There will be thousands of Irish fans at Gleneagles, and when you’re on that first tee they make a deafening roar. They lift you up.” Among McGinley’s vice-captains is Padraig Harrington, who started a trend when he won the 2007 Open Championship. That was the first Irish win in 60 years in any of the sport’s four Majors – the Masters, the US Open, the Open and the USPGA. It has been followed by eight more since then, a sensational achievement for an island whose population is far less than that of New York. Harrington, McDowell, McIlroy and Darren Clarke are the men who won them. All four have contributed hugely to Europe’s successes in the Ryder Cup, as have several more Irish players. Since the fixture changed in 1979, from the USA v GB and Ireland, to the USA v Europe, there have been stellar Irish performances – often in crucial matches – from Eamonn Darcy, Ronan Rafferty, Christy O’Connor Jr, David Feherty, Philip Walton, McGinley himself, and those four Major winners. O’Connor’s famous shot was a two-iron from 235 yards. It flew over the water at the Belfry’s 18th hole in 1989 and finished four feet from the hole, knocking the stuffing out of his opponent Fred Couples, who was world number one at the time. It was such a memorable moment that when his clubs and other equipment were auctioned for charity, they raised hundreds of thousands of pounds. “All I have left is a cover for my driver,” says O’Connor, who has been as a supporter to all but one of the Ryder Cups since 1989, and who will be cheering at this year’s contest in Gleneagles. There were Irish stalwarts in the postwar years of American dominance, too, most notably O’Connor’s uncle, also named Christy. Thomas Bjorn, a Ryder Cup stalwart, says simply, “The Irish seem to win Ryder Cups.” “Irish golf has always had plenty of role models and no shortage of very good golfers, but it just seems to have grown at a greater pace in recent times,” says Clarke, who will be part of the Sky Sports commentary team. We’ve always enjoyed match play and we’ve always enjoyed a good scrap on the golf course so those are fairly good qualities to take into the Ryder Cup. I’d never say one country has contributed more than any other, but I will say that Ireland has never let Europe down and hopefully that will continue for a very long time. “Padraig did a magnificent job in taking the game in Ireland to a much higher level, and while Graeme and myself have weighed in with grand slam titles, Rory has really picked up the baton. Who knows what he’s going to achieve before he’s finished? “I have known Rory since his early teens [he came through the Darren Clarke Golf Foundation] and it was obvious even then that here was a talent that only comes along a few times every century. It’s amazing that at 25 he’s only one Major away from completing a personal grand slam and he might complete it at the Masters next spring. It’s impossible to overstate what influence he is having on the game and not just in Ireland, but all over the globe. Rory will go just as far in the game as he wants to.” O’Connor agrees. “He is one of the three greatest players now – Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and now Rory. The biggest factor in his success this year is that he has become a wonder- ful putter. From tee to green he is the best I’ve ever seen, and now his putting must be very nearly as good as Tiger’s. He’s phenomenal.” McDowell, who recently became a father for the first time and will be making his fourth appearance for Europe, has an impressive Ryder Cup record and earned the match- winning point the last time the Cup was hosted in Britain, at Celtic Manor in 2010. In the same year he won the US Open. McDowell and McIlroy are both British, but have opted to represent Ireland, if selected, when golf returns to the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. Golf, like rugby union, hockey and boxing, among others, is an “all-Ireland” sport governed by one body. “I grew up wanting to wear the Irish blazer, the green and the gold,” McDowell has said. “To me, sport has no religious boundaries. It has no political boundaries. Sport is just sport.” McGinley’s Ryder Cup contribution is remarkable. He was a player in the victorious teams of 2002, 2004 and 2006, and sank the match-winning putt on the 18th green in 2002. He was vice-captain for the victories in 2010 and 2012, and will be gunning for his sixth success next week, this time in a third role as captain. He has twice captained GB and Ireland in the Seve Trophy, against continental Europe, and is described by McIlroy as “the best captain I have ever played under”. McGinley has “always been aware of the history of Irish golfers in the Ryder Cup and always wanted to be a part of the team. I certainly feel a bond with every player who has ever played in a Ryder Cup team.” He might have been a Gaelic footballer rather than a golfer but for a knee injury. He studied marketing and management in Dublin, worked for the EC in Brussels for a year, then studied business in the United States before turning professional at the relatively late age of 25. “I have always performed highly when in a team,” McGinley has said. “I think it relates back to my Gaelic football days. I don’t know what the X factor is, but I seem to go to another level in team golf.” It was a long wait for an Irishman to be named captain. “I’m not sure it’s been unfair to Ireland that we haven’t had a captain before, more likely that nobody put themselves forward,” says Clarke, who, like McGinley, was a vice-captain in 2012 and made a rival bid for the captaincy this time round. The leadership contest created a rivalry between the two former team-mates, but it seems any rift has been forgotten. “Paul made it very clear that he wanted a crack at it and he’s been doing the kind of job I expected of him ever since he got it – extremely thorough and professional. Let’s hope he is the first of many.” The first Irish golfer to play in the Ryder Cup was Fred Daly in 1947, the year he won the Open championship. O’Connor’s uncle, Christy Senior, played in ten straight Ryder Cups from 1955 and feels he should have been captain at some point. His playing partner for years was Peter Alliss, now the voice of golf on the BBC. Alliss, who played in eight Ryder Cups, says, “Christy was one of the best shotmakers I’ve ever seen, even now, and a wonderful partner. He was a legend of Irish golf, of golf generally. He was fearless.” The Irish players were always a welcome presence, says Alliss. “They bought into the team ethos and helped enormously with team spirit in all the teams I played in. They were very good on the course and in the dressing room. Over the years Ireland’s contribution to the Ryder Cup must be on the same level as Spain’s.” That is quite an accolade, given the hugely significant role played in the “modern” Ryder Cup by the late Severiano Ballesteros, spiritual leader of the Europe team. Gleaneagles holds happy memories for O’Connor Sr: he spent his honeymoon there 60 years ago. He will watch this year’s contest at home with his wife, Mary, 87. “He still follows the game very, very closely,” says his nephew, Christy O’Connor Jr, “and he correctly predicted the team for this year, man for man.” Did he give a match prediction, too? “Yes. He says that if Europe play their best, they will win. I agree with him.” How to watch the Ryder Cup: Live TV: Sky Sports Ryder Cup The only place to watch the action live on TV. Sky Sports 4 will become Sky Sports Ryder Cup, and will show live coverage of all three days’ play, plus the opening and closing ceremonies. TV highlights: BBC BBC2 will show highlights every night, starting on Friday (8.30pm), Sat and Sun (7.30pm, times subject to change). Available on iPlayer afterwards. Radio: BBC Radio 5 Live will be based in Gleneagles. Nicky Campbell hosts the breakfast show, with live coverage from 9am.
Why runners in the men’s Commonwealth Games 1500m final have big shoes to fill
Roger Bannister, Filbert Bayi, and John Walker all made history at the Games
Leave the best till last – it’s never a bad policy. After a week and a half of sensational sport at venues all over Glasgow and beyond, the athletics programme of the 2014 Commonwealth Games closes with ten medal events on Saturday evening. The last individual race of the Games is, fittingly, the men’s 1500m. In its original, imperial, form the mile provided the most famous race the Games has ever staged in its 84-year history – the head-to-head in Vancouver in 1954 between England’s Roger Bannister and Australia’s John Landy, the only two men at that time to have run a mile inside four minutes. Touts charged a fortune for tickets, and besides the full house of 35,000 lucky enough to be there, the race drew what was then a world-record broadcast audience for a sporting contest. Bannister won, and both men broke the four-minute barrier again. In 1974 Bannister was in Christchurch, New Zealand to watch the final of what by then had become the 1500m. The home crowd roared on their great hero, John Walker, who ran faster than the world record time that had been set nearly six years earlier by Jim Ryun of the United States. But even that was not enough to win. Filbert Bayi, a 20-year-old from Tanzania, went even faster. In perhaps the greatest front-running performance ever seen over 1500m, Bayi led all the way to better Ryun’s record by nearly a second, finishing in 3 minutes 32.16 seconds. “That was the greatest run I have ever seen,” said Bannister. Brendan Foster broke the UK record and yet he was beaten into seventh place, five and a half seconds behind Bayi. “It was an amazing race – one of the greatest in history,” says Foster, who will be commentating on this year’s final for the BBC. “We knew from the way he was running the year before that he might do it.” Bayi had set a succession of national records and had beaten the great Kenyan, Kip Keino, in 1973. Bayi, whose parents were cow herders and who had been running long distances from his early childhood, went off right from the start. He stretched 20 metres clear before his rivals had settled into their stride. Walker moved closer on the third lap and looked set to challenge for the lead in the straight, but as soon as he was within a couple of strides, Bayi zoomed clear again and was never going to be caught. Sadly, the rematch between Walker and Bayi at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal never materialised because of a boycott by African countries. Walker won the gold, but he would probably have had to settle for silver if Bayi had been there. In the year after that Christchurch run, Bayi added the mile world record to the 1500m, running 3 minutes and 51 seconds in Jamaica. After he gave up running – from which he never made any money, as the sport was amateur in the 1970s – Bayi turned to teaching and set up a school whose numbers soon grew from a handful of pupils to more than a thousand. He has also played a senior role in Tanzanian sports administration. “I changed the way people ran,” Bayi said earlier this year. “Before I broke the record, most athletes ran as a group, waiting for a sprint in the last 200 metres. I changed the whole system, I ran at the front from the start. “Few people appreciate that, mainly because I didn’t win a gold medal in the Olympic Games. But my Commonwealth Games record has stayed for 40 years. “I am always at the Commonwealth Games,” Bayi said, “and it is never announced before the 1500m that we have a former world record holder in the stadium.” Never mind announcing Bayi’s presence to the crowd – he should be up there at the podium, presenting the medals. There is nobody more deserving of that honour than Filbert Bayi, a great hero of the Commonwealth Games. Brian Oliver is the author of The Commonwealth Games: Extraordinary Stories Behind the Medals, a history of the Commonwealth Games. The Men’s 1500m Final of the Commonwealth Games is tonight at 7:35pm on BBC1
Forget the Olympics – the Commonwealth Games is where sporting history is made
“There will be more women’s medal events than ever before,” says Brian Oliver
Almost two years to the day, here we go again. Britain is preparing to host an international sporting extravaganza, on the athletics track, in the pool, the velodrome, the boxing arena and out on the streets. But Glasgow 2014 is not London 2012, and the Commonwealth Games is not the Olympics. In some respects it’s better than that, because the Commonwealth Games is where things happen first. Usain Bolt and Mo Farah will be running more than six feet off the ground at Hampden Park, the home of Scottish football, which has been transformed – with the help of 6,000 steel stilts – into a world-class athletics venue. This ground-breaking technology, never before used for an entire track and in field, is known among Games organisers as “the Glasgow solution”. There are other “firsts” in Glasgow. There will be more women’s medal events than ever before, and the male-female split among competitors will be closer to 50-50 than in any previous global multi-sports event. London 2012 was hoping to be the first Games with an even split but fell short, with 56 per cent men and 44 per cent women. Then there are the 22 para-sport events, the most to be included on the main programme. And a new event, the mixed relay in triathlon, is described as “fresh, exhilarating and innovative” by the president of the sport’s governing body. It’s not the first time the Commonwealth Games have led the way. Few people are aware that the medal ceremony, with athletes standing on a podium, was not an Olympic invention. It was first used at the first Commonwealth Games, then called the British Empire Games, in Canada in 1930. A couple of International Olympic Committee presidents were there in Hamilton, Ontario, to see it and liked it so much they pinched the idea for their own Games. Another innovation in Hamilton was the athletes’ village, which has been a fixture every since. At a stretch one might even say the Games are responsible for the birth of Nike sportswear. Who says? Brendan Foster, the BBC’s athletics commentator. Foster used to work for Phil Knight, the American who co-founded Nike. In the 1954 Games in Vancouver, the mile race between Roger Bannister of England and John Landy of Australia, the only two men ever to have broken the four-minute barrier at that point in history, was a huge event, followed by a record audience worldwide. “Phil Knight was at that race,” says Foster. “His father took him up to Vancouver from Oregon and he was hooked. It was Bannister v Landy that started his interest in running, and that interest eventually led to Nike being created.” The race, which Bannister won and described as “the race of my life”, was followed minutes later by a grotesque finale to the marathon. England’s Jim Peters, the world-record holder, entered the stadium 17 minutes clear of the field. He collapsed repeatedly on the final lap and was in such a sorry state that a Canadian reporter was physically sick. Nobody helped him for fear of break ing the rules, and instead of crossing the finish line he ended up in hospital, while a Scot, Joe McGhee, had the unlikeliest victory. Peters never ran again. It was also in Vancouver that a black African won a gold medal for the first time, in any sport, in any international Games. High jumper Emmanuel Ifeajuna, who wore only one running shoe, was a national hero on his return to Nigeria, where his picture adorned the cover of school exercise books. A dozen years later Ifeajuna co-led the first military coup in Nigeria, in which he apparently shot dead the country’s first prime minister. The coup failed, and Ifeajuna fled. He returned to fight in the Biafran war in 1967 and was shot by firing squad for alleged treason, but many still consider him more hero than villain. Marcus Stephen, who won gold in the weight-lifting in 1990, went one better than Ifeajuna, becoming president of his country. Stephen, from the Pacific Island of Nauru, met the Obamas when he gave a speech to the United Nations about climate change, but it was the Queen who quizzed him at length about his weightlifting exploits. She is also a big fan of England’s 4ft 10in super-hero Precious McKenzie, who won four successive gold medals in weightlifting from 1966 to 1978 and made several trips to Buckingham Palace. One of McKenzie’s golds was in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1974, where Filbert Bayi from Tanzania ran what Bannister called “the greatest race ever” to break the world record in the 1500m. Those Games were widely regarded as the friendliest “Friendly Games” – the term was first used in Edinburgh in 1970 – perhaps because all single male athletes were provided with a female escort by the organising committee. The Games are friendlier than others because everyone speaks English and, from the outset, the athletes have always set out to enjoy themselves. But then for some, such as Nick Akers from the Cayman Islands, it was only the taking part that counts. When Akers, aka Nick Vladivar, finished last in the marathon in Brisbane in 1982, he was so far behind the stands were being dismantled when he finished. Akers changed his surname to Vladivar in a bizarre deal that saw the Vladivar vodka brand pay a fee to the Cayman Islands team, who gave him a place in 1978 and 1982 despite his never having held a Cayman passport. Akers was paid nothing. How come such an event holds its place on the increasingly serious and ever more commercialized sporting calendar? Half a century ago the Commonwealth Games were hugely significant and the standard of sport was outstanding. That was in an era of amateurism, long before the advent of world championships in athletics and swimming, and the lucrative big-city marathon circuit. Nowadays, priorities have changed – and yet the Games soldier on. Patrick Nally, one of the most senior figures in global sports sponsorship, said recently that there had been no debate about the Commonwealth Games for 20 years. True enough, but there had been none in the 20 years before that, either. They have carried on regardless of all the changes in sport and politics, and are arguably the most visible living embodiment of the old British Empire, and the much newer Commonwealth, that anyone understands. They defy logic and description, even among academics and politicians. But they are great fun. Long may they continue. See the Commonwealth Games: Opening Ceremony tonight from 8:00pm on BBC1