Games glory inspires next generation

At Lea Rowing Club on the River Thames near Clapton extra members have been called up to help cope with the demand from people wanting to try out the sport following the Sydney Games.

The week after Britain won gold in the coxless four and the men's eight, 50 youngsters turned up for their first go on the water. The key now, is keeping them interested.

Richard Metcalf, club captain at Lea, which recently received a £2.75m National Lottery grant to improve facilities, said: "We have had so many youngsters turning up. It's been brilliant for the club, although there haven't been as many adults.

"Most of the older people turning up have been people who had given up for whatever reason but have been inspired again by what they saw in Sydney.

"For a long time rowing has suffered from the image of the Oxford versus Cambridge race, the idea that it is elitist. But the Olympics have helped to shed that and the mix of people who want to take the sport up now is so refreshing."

Sophie Mackley, from the Amateur Rowing Association, added: "The response across the country has been amazing. A lot of them are kids but there have also been people who use rowing machines in gyms and after seeing the Olympics on television thought I'd like to try that on the river. Most of them haven't even been in a boat before.

"We are in a good position because we have schemes in place to try and keep newcomers interested.

"Compared to a lot of sports you don't have to have loads of money or equipment. You can turn up, borrow the equipment and have a go and that's what people have been doing. Hopefully, they'll stick at it and, who knows, we might be watching a whole new generation of champions in eight years' time."

But not only rowing is enjoying a post-Sydney boom.

Cycling's headquarters at the Manchester Velodrome have been inundated with calls since Jason Queally became the sport's latest hero by winning gold in the one kilometre time trial.

Tickets for the five-day World Championships in Manchester starting on 24 October have sold out while regional development officers have taken hundreds of calls from people eager to find the location of their nearest club.

Peter King, chief executive of the British Cycling Federation, explained: "We have certainly been very busy. We have sold every ticket for the World Championships because people want to come and see our Olympic champions for themselves.

"We are working on a number of initiatives to try and take advantage of that. People have woken up to cycling and it's nice to be part of that."

Olympic super heavyweight champion Harrison has also stayed true to his pledge to help the grass roots of boxing before turning professional.

He has vowed to come along as a guest for international fight nights against United States and Scotland to help the Amateur Boxing Association raise money from sponsors.

Harrison will also lend his support, when he can, to junior coaching schemes as the sport tries to capitalise on his gold medal - Britain's first in boxing for 32 years.

His biggest contribution, however, has been to make boxing appear credible again as it continues to battle opponents who want it banned for being dangerous.

Jim Smart, chairman of the ABA and headmaster of Churchmead School in Datchet, said: "When Audley got to the quarter-finals I was at a kids' club in Liverpool. In total, 83 youngsters turned up that day for a kid gloves scheme, and that's just a tiny area of Liverpool.

"The scheme allows people to try it out without actually making contact, but within a few hours they want to hit each other.

"The excitement since Audley won has been tremendous. Among the pupils at my school it's been phenomenal.

"We are one of the few schools to still have a boxing club and the numbers turning up in the evenings to take part have been incredible.

"Like anything, the good ones will stay while the others will drift off and try something else. But right now we have to make sure we give everyone who is interested a go." It is a similar story in shooting, a sport which has faced intense criticism after the massacre at Dunblane in 1996. Richard Faulds's gold medal in the double trap discipline has encouraged many who had abandoned shooting in the wake of Dunblane and new anti-gun laws to take it up again.

Keith Murray, secretary of the Great Britain Target Shooting Federation, said: "I'm also secretary of Southend Gun Club and in the two weeks since the Olympics I've had 19 enquiries from people wanting to become new members. We normally get two a year.

"Everyone in shooting sympathises with what happened at Dunblane. But afterwards the sport's profile was not what it should have been. What Richard did in Sydney has raised shooting's profile again for the right reasons and we are already seeing people coming back to the sport."

It is a common theme across the board, even in sports like swimming where Britain failed to win a single medal for the first time since 1936. The achievements of foreign stars like Australia's Ian Thorpe and Peter van den Hoogenband, of Holland, have had as much impact as our own heroes.

The only sport which does not appear to have experienced a knock-on effect is sailing.

Ian Gawn, secretary of the Royal Lymington Yacht Club, where gold medallist Ben Ainslie is a member, said: "Britain's three gold medals in sailing has generated a lot of interest but not in the sense of new people coming down.

"However, our development programmes for new youngsters don't start until next March so we will have to wait and see whether people are still interested then."

Assuming English football has not undergone the makeover it desperately needs, there is a fair chance the memories of Britain's golden success will still be burning brightly enough by next spring.