Sharron Davies Excited For London 2012

Sharron Davies picked up medals at the Olympics, European Championships and Commonwealth Games during her swimming career before moving into TV to work for the BBC.

I caught up with her to talk about her work on London 2012 as well as the prospects for the Great Britain swimming team in eighteen months time.

- The 2012 Olympics are just eighteen months away now so an ex-swimmer yourself how excited are you at the prospect of a home Games?

I’m delirious (laughs) I’m so excited, I have been involved with the Games from the very beginning so I have had a lot to do with it and I think I would trade my right arm to swim in front of a home crowd - I never did that.

I was involved with Manchester when the Commonwealth Games came there and we did an amazing job - everybody in the North West supported it fantastically - and I’m sure that London will be that times ten.

The facilities are looking incredible and swimming, which I can obviously talk about with knowledge, is doing really well we have a World Championships in Shanghai at the end of July.

We had a great European Championships and Commonwealth Games last year and hopefully I will be on the side of the pool with a microphone for the BBC - so I will still be involved but not actually swimming.

- Well you have touched on my next question really British swimming really is in a good place at the moment so what are you expecting from the squad next summer?

It would be nice to do better than last time, obviously we had Becky’s (Adlington) two gold medals which were incredible, but we did have a lot of finalists, which people were not always aware of, and a lot of semi finalists.

A lot of youngster who were just teetering on medals last time hopefully will be achieving medals this time people like Fran Halsall, who is European and Commonwealth Games champion, Hannah Miley, Lizzie Simmonds, Gemma Spofforth, who is world record hold in the 100m backstroke. 

Our women’s team are, on the whole, stronger than our men’s team but our men’s team are working very hard and people like James Goddard and Liam Tancock are doing really well and we have a young crop coming through that will hopefully have enough time to develop before next year but probably not.

But I do think that most of the medals will come predominantly from the women’s team.

- All of a sudden this crop of swimmers has come through Liam Tancock, James Goddard, Rebecca Adlington, Lizzie Simmonds and Gemma Spofforth…

Well the truth is they haven’t the problem is that swimming hasn’t really had the profile that it deserves, take someone like Liam he won a world championships six years ago.

So they have been around for a long time teetering under the radar and unless they are winning major medals then the tabloids aren’t particularly interested in swimming - which is a shame because it’s the biggest participation sport and it has proved over and over again when it’s on the television people watch it and it’s very popular.

So we keep harping onto the BBC to feature it more and they keep saying that it’s finances, it’s this that and the other - this year the world swimming championships should be on and we are hoping that they will do a competition called The Jewel Meet which is against the U.S. in Atlanta, the did it a couple of years ago in Manchester.

But it’s such a shame that one of our biggest sports, and certainly our second biggest Olympic sport, gets on the telly twice a year.

- And the team did very well at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year so what are your expectations, medal wise, at this summer’s world championships?

They are good. They have got to follow it up now and go to the next stage winning at European level is one thing, winning at Commonwealth is another but winning at world level is something else and winning at the Olympics is one above that.

Each year we are hoping for them to step up a little bit more, we have had three of four in Manchester at the trials - so it just goes to show that we have some great depth there.

There is no reason not to be really really optimistic most of the women’s freestyle events, backstroke events, IM events, women’s fly event - Ellen Gandy is doing really well as well - we have got women representing us now at the absolute top level in every event - the only event that is struggling a bit for us is breaststroke. 

- So what programmes have been put in place in recent years to help brings these guys through?

Well we have had a good system in place for quite a long time but Lottery funding has made a huge difference because it has meant that these athletes can be full time athletes - that again takes time for that to work through.

We have built more pools in the last three years than we had in the previous thirty - so bringing the Olympics to our country has really kicked sport up the backside and it has made us have to build some more facilities.

It’s a little bit like chicken and egg if you don’t have tracks, polls and velodromes then you are not going to find champions - so yes we have had the odd council pool but they have been 25m or 33 1/3m - we were the only nation in the world that build 33 1/3m pools and there were more 50m pools in Paris than there was in the whole of the UK when we started working on the bid.

So it’s two fold a system went in from ASA, which has certainly worked very well, we have had Lottery funding, which has helped those with real potential to be full time athletes, and we are building more facilities now.

- As always the big challengers will come from the U.S. as well as Australia so can you see GB mixing it up with them - and who are the ones to watch from those two countries?

You mentioned Australia and we had to compete against them at the Commonwealth Games, which we did very successfully, American men tend to dominate but not the women so I don’t think our British girls are frightened by the American women by any stretch of the imagination.

Also we have had the Asian Games at the end of last year and they threw up some real anomalies for us and the first time that our girls will probably compete against them will be the world championships in Shanghai - so that really interesting to look at China.

China is somewhere that we tend to not know too much about and they often bring people out of the woodwork - they have thrown up some really good distance swimmers and 400 IMers - so pre Olympic is always a very interesting year because everyone is beginning to show their cards.

- Of course everyone is already talking about Michael Phelps what has he done for the swimming - I suppose he did for swimming what Usain Bolt has done for athletics?

Yeah, except Michael has been around a lot longer than Usain - Usain really only became a star at the end of the last Olympics while Michael was in Athens.

He has now been at the top of world swimming for a very long time but I don’t think that we will see him go for eight (gold medals) in London because he has modified his training programme and taken out some of the long distance events like the 400 IM that require massive yardage - as you get older your body tends not to recover as well and you just need to come down the distance a little but.

So his intention is to sprint a little bit more. And Ian Thorpe has come out of retirement to compete so the pool is going to be an exciting place, we have a seventeen and a half thousand seats, I can’t wait.

- As you say Ian Thorpe is coming out of retirement - so what do you think of that decision? And does he have what it takes to take on Phelps?

What will be interesting in is what Thorpe specialises in, previously he was a 400m and a 200m swimmer, he won’t come back and swim the 400m, I don’t think, he specialise in the 100m and the 200m and he will aiming at making the Australian relay team so he can pick up medals - so the Australians can challenge the Americans - so I think that will be his underlying targets.

I don’t know if his real intention is to take Michael on or whether his intention is to pick up more medals and be back in the game.

He has been retired for a few years now and I think he just misses it. He is young enough to come back in, I don’t know whether he though his career was going to go off in a different direction and it didn’t.

Having retired myself and come back in you don’t want to go through life wondering what if or maybe. And there is so much camaraderie, swimming is one of those sports where we get on incredibly well, we know each other really well and our teams are incredibly strong, track and field tends to be more of an individual sport they come together as Great Britain but they are under different coaches, we are much more unified that they are and I think he just missed that to be honest with you.

He is very talented, very strong, perfect shape and we will certainly see them compete, I think, in the men’s 4x100 relay but whether hey will compete in the individuals I don’t know.

- You now commentate on the swimming and have done for many years so how do you find being on the other side of the fence?

Sometimes I get very itchy feet and would love to get back in the water and sometimes I look at 5am training and think thank goodness I have a microphone (laughs). I am envious of the home crowd because the roof will be raised and the atmosphere will be fantastic - and that is a definite advantage as historically every home nation has always had a very successful Games.

I’m very envious of that but I’m in a very privileged position to be on the side of the pool to be the first person to almost speak to them when they come out - whether they have done well or they haven’t - and to get to put a microphone in front of Michael when he wins eight gold medals - those are real special moments and I’m part of that because I work with the BBC and I’m very grateful for that and I really enjoy it.

Myself, Adrian Moorhouse and Andy Jameson are the TV team and Karen Pickering, Steve Parry and  Bob Ballard are the radio team and we work really well together, five of us are ex-internationals Bob is the only one who is not a swimmer, and it’s great fun when we go away.

- Beijing put on a real show back in 2008 what are your hopes and expectations for the 2012 Games n general?

I think it will be a different Olympics if you were to ask me what my favourite, bearing in mind that London will be my tenth; I have worked on six and competed in three, my favourite without doubt was Barcelona in 1992.

Just because of all the iconic scenery and I think that London will be a lot like that, we are going to have amazing iconic backdrops, and I think that there will be a real party atmosphere.

The whole of the UK can be involved, we are such a small country compared to America, Australia and China; who have all had the Olympic Games in recent years, we are so tiny everyone can get down - even if you travel overnight from Scotland see the Games and travel back overnight and sleep on the train.

There are events where you don’t have to pay for tickets such as the marathon and the triathlon and there are pricing programmes where kids can pay their age, the same of OAPs there are cheaper tickets. So I suggest that everyone be part of it in some shape or form - it’s once in lifetime only. 

- Tickets go on sale for the 2012 Olympics on 15th March so for anyone who is interested in being at the Games how important is it to get the application in quickly?

Pretty important I think. You can go online now and apply but then you go into a ballot because some of the events will be over subscribed. From the 15th you can see whether you have got tickets but if you go in now you can put yourself in for everything.

We were looking for 70,000 volunteers and I think we got that in a week so people are behind it, people are very excited about it and I can genuinely tell you that it has been an investment not just in the East End but in sport - that knocks on into health and fitness and good ethics for kids and all sorts of good messages which are really important for young people.

- Finally what's next for you?

For me personally it’s very much 2012 at the moment and my own family. I have got several companies that I work for on an ambassador programme because of 2012 - I’m working with the BOA and the BBC - and I have a 17 year old, a 12 year old and a 4 year old so they keep me pretty busy as well. So life isn’t dull it’s always pretty busy.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

To Apply for London 2012 tickets visit www.tickets.london2012.com any time between 15 March and 26 April

Sharron Davies picked up medals at the Olympics, European Championships and Commonwealth Games during her swimming career before moving into TV to work for the BBC.

I caught up with her to talk about her work on London 2012 as well as the prospects for the Great Britain swimming team in eighteen months time.

- The 2012 Olympics are just eighteen months away now so an ex-swimmer yourself how excited are you at the prospect of a home Games?

I’m delirious (laughs) I’m so excited, I have been involved with the Games from the very beginning so I have had a lot to do with it and I think I would trade my right arm to swim in front of a home crowd - I never did that.

I was involved with Manchester when the Commonwealth Games came there and we did an amazing job - everybody in the North West supported it fantastically - and I’m sure that London will be that times ten.

The facilities are looking incredible and swimming, which I can obviously talk about with knowledge, is doing really well we have a World Championships in Shanghai at the end of July.

We had a great European Championships and Commonwealth Games last year and hopefully I will be on the side of the pool with a microphone for the BBC - so I will still be involved but not actually swimming.

- Well you have touched on my next question really British swimming really is in a good place at the moment so what are you expecting from the squad next summer?

It would be nice to do better than last time, obviously we had Becky’s (Adlington) two gold medals which were incredible, but we did have a lot of finalists, which people were not always aware of, and a lot of semi finalists.

A lot of youngster who were just teetering on medals last time hopefully will be achieving medals this time people like Fran Halsall, who is European and Commonwealth Games champion, Hannah Miley, Lizzie Simmonds, Gemma Spofforth, who is world record hold in the 100m backstroke. 

Our women’s team are, on the whole, stronger than our men’s team but our men’s team are working very hard and people like James Goddard and Liam Tancock are doing really well and we have a young crop coming through that will hopefully have enough time to develop before next year but probably not.

But I do think that most of the medals will come predominantly from the women’s team.

- All of a sudden this crop of swimmers has come through Liam Tancock, James Goddard, Rebecca Adlington, Lizzie Simmonds and Gemma Spofforth…

Well the truth is they haven’t the problem is that swimming hasn’t really had the profile that it deserves, take someone like Liam he won a world championships six years ago.

So they have been around for a long time teetering under the radar and unless they are winning major medals then the tabloids aren’t particularly interested in swimming - which is a shame because it’s the biggest participation sport and it has proved over and over again when it’s on the television people watch it and it’s very popular.

So we keep harping onto the BBC to feature it more and they keep saying that it’s finances, it’s this that and the other - this year the world swimming championships should be on and we are hoping that they will do a competition called The Jewel Meet which is against the U.S. in Atlanta, the did it a couple of years ago in Manchester.

But it’s such a shame that one of our biggest sports, and certainly our second biggest Olympic sport, gets on the telly twice a year.

- And the team did very well at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year so what are your expectations, medal wise, at this summer’s world championships?

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