Commentary: We must not fail the capital's young athletes again

5 April 2012

Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined Team GB would finish fourth in the medals table in Beijing, even though we knew the athletes were in great shape going into the Games.

Their achievements mean that in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics there will be no better opportunity in my lifetime to drive sports legacy. In terms of boosting participation in sport in this country the red carpet has been rolled out with a gilt edge attached.

But there seems no point in driving participation without the facilities to satisfy the demand. In this respect London will benefit in particular because of the muchneeded athletics, swimming and cycling venues the Games will leave behind.

If you look closely at where the British Olympians returning from China have come from - or are based - you will see that London has not been punching its weight. It's no surprise to me that those achieving success have had access to top-class facilities such as Ponds Forge aquatics centre in Sheffield, the national cycling centre in Manchester and regional rowing facilities.

London needs to redress this imbalance because if the talent has to relocate to other parts of the country - as has been the case with divers and cyclists - then you lose the really important dynamic that is role models in your own backyard.

I believe the greatest driver of participation is in Olympic champions such as Chris Hoy, Christine Ohuruogu and canoeist Tim Brabants. That's not to say that is enough on its own. You have to be able to be street smart and convert those medals into mass participation.

The challenge for central government, the Mayor and London councils is to come up with smart strategies to make the most of the springboard Beijing has provided. They will have to answer to a more sophisticated type of sports fan who will not just be content with 16 days of sport.

There's a generation that has seen their children let down and they want to see a better deal for their grandchildren. They want to see medals, but they want a dividend for their grandchildren and they will make a judgment in 2012 and beyond.

I am conscious that I made a commitment in Singapore that nudged us across the line when we were bidding for the Games and I will always have a niggling conscience if I don't think we are delivering on that.

A key feature of the legacy is what becomes of the new 2012 venues, and Boris Johnson quite rightly took a keen interest in this from the outset. There can be no justification for an 80,000-seat stadium in east London or a 20,000-seat aquatics centre that would be at capacity perhaps once a decade for a world swimming championships. Legacy plans will need refining and the London Development Agency will need to take the lead on that.

We are working painstakingly with the international equestrian federation on the riding facility in Greenwich Park and I am very comfortable about where we are. Of course we want legacy but it's not just about bricks and mortar. It's also about familiarising young people with sports, such as equestrianism, which ultimately drives participation.

We need to learn the lessons of previous neglect and it still hurts me to think of the lost opportunity for my sport of athletics in the Eighties.

We returned from Moscow and the Los Angeles Games with a sackful of track medals. I went back to Enfield and Haringey Athletic Club with John Regis and Daley Thompson. It was a Sunday morning and there was a huge queue of kids wanting to become club members. I flatter myself that they wanted to become middle distance runners but they probably wanted to become decathletes or sprinters.

I just knew that we couldn't do anything about it because there was no system in place to take them in and most of them drifted out of sport. We went another 10 years without a world-class decathlete and I wonder how many of those kids were potential Daley Thompsons. I don't ever want to see that again.

If we end up with that situation repeated in 2012 then we would have failed.

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Commentary: We must not fail the capital's young athletes again

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