Anon - The Secret Olympian

Copyright The Secret Olympian 2012

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Published in the UK in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com

The author has asserted his moral rights.

ISBN 978 1 4081 6503 4

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For S with love

Its not the winning but the struggle.
Le Baron de Coubertin

In this book I hope to give you an insight into what it is actually like to experience an Olympic Games as an athlete of what really goes on. Not just what its like to a win a gold medal but also what its like to be an Olympian. The excitement and expectation after being anointed as one of the chosen few. The inevitable mind-bending pressure before the performance of your life. Then the extreme psychological release after competition and the mind-blowing parties as the fittest people in the world celebrate or commiserate their life-defining moments. Finally, the ultimate come-down afterwards as you return to Earth and become mortal once again.

I was in Athens as part of Team GB, at the Greeks lastminute.com Games in August 2004. I watched the flames lick from the Olympic torch at one end of the stadium, like a giant plastic fire-lighter. The smell of fresh paint floated everywhere. Many of the sporting venues, roads, trams and railways were finished in late July/early August, just days before the Games began. It cost Greece 9 billion. Sounds a bit silly now, with the country on the verge of bankruptcy, but at the time their Games were seen as a great success. No gold medals for me, sadly, but been there and got the T-shirt and the other 35kg of official Team GB kit.

Being an Olympian changes you. For some, the changes are immense and last the rest of their days. Get a lucky (or even a well-deserved) break and, depending on your profile and what else is on TV when your competition airs, you can be financially secure with a career in broadcasting or public speaking stretching ahead of you. For others, the changes are smaller. They return with good memories, great stories and incriminating photos, and quietly reinsert themselves into everyday life. But their view of themselves is forever slightly altered, having been amongst the best in the world at something. You can go to the Games for those three magical weeks and come back a hero. Or you can come back an asshole. Sometimes both. Or you never quite come back at all, forever regretting some small failure or slip which no one else remembers.

Mine is only one perspective of the Olympic experience so I persuaded many other Olympians of various nationalities, ages and sports to let me interview them, often under condition of anonymity, and to ask questions like whats life like inside the Olympic Village? How do you cope with the once-in-a-lifetime pressure and tomorrow being the biggest day of your life? Which teams hold the best parties? Is there as much sex as everyone makes out? And, having achieved your lifes goal in your early 20s, where the hell do you go from there?

Oxfordshire, UK
1 July 2004

Im shocked to see the head coach smiling and, more specifically, smiling at me outside the training centre, as I work on some of our racing gear. Doesnt happen often. Takes me back to the World Championships medal podium 11 months ago, the last time the leathery, out-all-day-for-30-years-in-all-weathers face creased into a smile beneath the trademark sunglasses.

My head coach is the best in the world at what he does, which is coaching, training and selecting athletes. His charges have won gold medals at every Olympics for decades now. In my sport he is God.

And God is smiling upon me.

Congratulations, he says in a voice almost as leathery as his face, the thick gravelly accent remaining despite almost two decades in the UK. He extends a hand over the top of my racing equipment. I start shaking it, not quite believing what I suddenly realise is about to happen. Youre going to the Olympics.

The magic words every athlete wants to hear. The Olympics. Only for the best of the best of the best. Watched by billions. The athletes Everest. The maker of legends.

Pretty cool for a Thursday morning.

And Im doubly surprised. Two weeks ago wed had the opposite conversation. God had looked stern, a more natural set of his features. Ya, OK, so now we take the next step. And the next step was the World Championships for non-Olympic events, held alongside the Junior World Championships, asort of special circle of hell for the Olympic also-rans. The senior athletes looking and feeling vaguely inappropriate, like theyre hanging around a schools back gate.

But now theres been a team re-shuffle. Im going to the Olympics.

Just one downside. Im going to have to eBay the consolation two week holiday to Sri Lanka.

Girlfriend wont be happy.

Ask an Olympian about the how they felt the moment they knew they were going to the Olympics and from most you get a surprisingly subdued and downbeat answer. You might imagine it would be all leaping up and down, arms raised to the heavens, then tears of happiness and heartfelt embraces with nearest and dearest. But no. One Beijing medallist I asked about how he felt at that moment replied, It was so unimportant that I dont remember.

Another Beijing medallist and Athens veteran relived the moment he discovered he was going to the Olympics for the first time. Oh, yeah, I remember. We were all really pissed off because it had been so badly handled. It still hacks me off today. We read about our selection in a press release. It was pathetic.

The truth is that most see selection or rejection coming; my own case was unusual. After months and months of selection and trials, and often several years of World Championships results, the athletes generally know whos in and whos out well before the coaches sit them down. By the time you open the letter or go into the meeting with the head coach you know whats coming, so its a bit of a non-event.

In sprint cycling for example, the reigning World Champion and World Cup winners in disciplines like the keirin and sprint are automatically provided a slot at the Olympics. Athletics is similar; British athletes qualify based on performances at the British trials and by reaching qualifying times set by the International Association of Athletics Federation.

Nick Bell fenced the individual and team foil at two Olympics. You know from the seasons results and the ranking system. Youre not on tenterhooks. In all the times I went [to the Olympics] I knew I would go long before the selectors phone call.