- 9 Sep 08, 01:05 PM
I know a bloke who likes to say a little bit of him dies every time one of his friends has some measure of professional success. He works in the City so he probably means it.
It's an attitude many in the British Olympic family could sympathise with right now, because while Beijing was the very best of times for some, it remained the same old story for others. And with Team GB operating on a "use it or lose it" approach to funding, success has almost become a self-fulfilling prophesy, while failure, well, you just don't want to go there.
But "there" is exactly where British judo finds itself and the choices it is grappling with are the same choices all the other "under-performing" sports will have to address very soon.
So when judo debates the merits of centralised training bases, national head coaches and the link between the elite and grass-roots ends of the sport, you can guarantee archery, athletics, badminton, basketball and so on, are paying attention.
Going into Beijing, the agency that funds the majority of British Olympic sport, UK Sport, issued a medal target of 35 and wanted 17 sports to contribute to that total.
As it turned out, we smashed the target by winning 47 medals - 19 of them gold - for our biggest haul in 100 years. But only 11 sports contributed to that total. And of the 17 sports that had individual targets, only 10 met or surpassed them. Six of the seven sports that failed to meet their targets failed to medal at all, and three of those - archery, judo and shooting - had targets of two medals.
It is this sense of failure within an otherwise golden bigger picture that underpins the rather public conversations the first two of those sports are now having (and shooting is undoubtedly having more privately).
Judo's case is perhaps the most interesting because the governing body appears to be the most ready of all those who struck out in Beijing (although athletics isn't far behind) to come back swinging with a whole new game plan for London.
I spoke to British Judo Association chairman Densign White last week and was impressed with the breadth of his vision and determination to see it through. He struck me as somebody who has looked at what is working for our star pupils - cycling being the undisputed head of the class - and decided it was time to start copying.
He recognises that winning no gold medals in 11 Olympic judo tournaments - and only one silver medal in the last four Games - is probably enough evidence of a need for a new approach.
The key aspects of that plan are adding a top-class head national coach (Frenchman Patrick Roux) to an elite support structure, which was already taking shape prior to Beijing, and moving it all to one facility, the British Judo Performance Institute in Dartford.
This centre, after a £5m redevelopment of the existing Dartford Judo Club, will house all of British judo's national coaches, support staff and, most crucially, top players.
That's the plan, anyway. Getting all of the latter to up sticks and move to Kent will be the tricky bit, particularly when it is obvious many of them value their own coaches and clubs far more highly than the BJA's.
Two of Britain's best judokas made this clear to me when I met them at the same function White was attending. Euan Burton and Sarah Clark did not sound like two athletes ready to relocate from their successful (on the world and European stage, at least) Edinburgh club to the brave new world being promised in Dartford.
The reason for the lack on confidence in the national set-up can no doubt be debated for days, and I'm sure White himself, who has been in the job for seven years, would feature heavily in that debate, both as an active particpant and as a topic of conversation.
Some might also argue that linking funding to performance is a risky business. After all, the judo tournament in Beijing was an unpredictable affair. Reigning Olympic and world champions went out early and the highly-fancied, 13-strong Russian team also went home empty-handed.
But that doesn't alter the fact British judo has been under-achieving on the biggest stage for years. The team in Beijing was packed with medallists from world and European events, and numerous other countries had no problem converting potential into prizes. The Dutch, for example, won five medals with about a quarter of our population and a far smaller budget.
That said, judo is a "bigger" sport in the Netherlands. It has 150,000 regular players to the estimated 100,000 in this country, most of which are not affiliated to the BJA.
White is aware of this problem too. He knows he needs to grow the base of the pyramid as well as remodel its apex. With this in mind his organisation is tweaking its belt-based progression ladder to keep those less interested in competition involved longer. It is also concentrating more resources on selling the sport as a strength and fitness tool.
But White and everybody else in British judo (not to mention archery, shooting and all the other Olympic sports jealously eyeing cycling et al's success) knows all of that grass-roots work gets much easier when you win an Olympic medal or two.
So expect to hear a lot more about these "let's come together/let's keep it local conversations" in the weeks and months to come - a little bit of soul-searching and air-clearing is no bad thing this early in an Olympic cycle.
Nevertheless, the clock is ticking, so I hope White wins his argument soon and without needing to put a chokehold on anybody.
If the wider British Olympic family can get things right now, there should be more than enough 2012 glory to go around for everybody to have to pretend to enjoy other people's successes.
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Comments
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Matt,
Interesting that you've not mentioned the role that Sir clive Woodward had with Judo? For those that missed it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/judo/7112899.stm
Does this mean that his 'vision' failed? Can we expect a follow-up interview:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/7014144.stm
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Well spotted, bricklaned.
So, has Sir Clive Woodward's vision for British Olympic sport failed? Mmmm, I should probably say "pass"....but I'll have a crack at a diplomatic answer.
The truth is CW's plan hasn't really been given a chance yet.
I've read some comments on message boards about our success in Beijing being down to his involvement in Olympic sport and I'm sorry to say that is utter nonsense. It's nonsense not because his plan is rubbish, it's nonsense because Euan Burton (see above) is the only Olympic athlete CW has worked with so far, and even Burton admits to "only scratching the surface" of CW's high-performance plan. He speaks very highly of it but says it will take longer than the nine months or so he spent working with Woodward for it to have any benefits.
I should also point out that Densign White's new plan will not fit with the CW model. He wants something more inclusive, more judo-specific and more likely to produce a measurable legacy for his sport.
White, however, was very nice about the CW plan. And that's kind of the problem for CW. Everybody I've spoken to in British Olympic sport says they were impressed by CW's presentation, intrigued by his plan's potential and certain it would work.....for somebody else! They also nearly always point out that it's very expensive.
Where this leaves CW, his plan and the British Olympic Association is unclear. At the moment, he appears to be working more closely with his counterparts at UK Sport, which is a good thing as they could learn from/use each other, and helping the BOA raise the money they need to play a bigger role between Games.
What is certain is if CW is still involved in Team GB in four years' time, he will have definitely played a part in whatever success we achieve in London.
He just wasn't given the chance/have the time to do much ahead of Beijing.
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very diplomatic...I can only assume you're lining up another interview and don't won't to risk upsetting him ahead of time. That's fine, I can wait till after you've seen him to read your true feelings.....
You do raise an interesting point about CW and the wider games - he seemed very keen to associate himself with the 'performers' - and the cameras picked him up in the velodrome more than once. Was he involved with the cycling at all?
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No. This is what British Cycling's Chris Boardman had to say on the matter:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/7104159.stm
But BC's performance director Dave Brailsford is a perfect example of the thing I mentioned above.....they all think CW's plan is exactly what those muppets over at (insert your own choice for archetypal British disaster sport here) should be doing, providing somebody else pays for it.
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Matt,
An interesting reminder on the funding situation.
I remember Gerry Sutcliffe warning (among others) before the Games that sports would see their funding cut if they did not achieve.
Bearing in mind the six sports you mentioned that did not meet their targets, surely any plan judo (or archery, shooting or athletics) is dependant on retaining their funding levlews from this Olympic cycle. Do we know yet when each sport will find out its funding level for 2009-2012?
And are UK Sport and the government increasing the overall amount available, given there are expected to be many more GB teams competing in London?
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Hi pollyowls,
You're absolutely right to point out that much of judo's plan is dependent on UKS giving them at least as much money as they got for the 2005-2009 (Beijing) cycle. With overall funding for British Olympic sport going up, they should be OK for this.
From what I understand, UKS is fairly supportive of judo's position and likes what it has seen/heard of BJA's reaction to Beijing so far.
Densign White was spot on when he said their "funding partners would expect judo to come to the table with a detailed and well thought through plan" for turning things around by 2012.
As for when the 2009-13 money is sorted out, UKS is talking to all the sports later this month and throughout October. This will be to review Beijing/the last year.
The various panels will then meet and divvy up the cash in November, and we should learn who gets what in December.
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Before criticising Sir Clive Woodward, I suggest people read his excellent book "Winning!".
There were a lot of calls for his head after the 1999 Rugby World Cup - and his honest assessment of the situation was used against him but thankfully the support of some of those in the RFU ensured that he could carry out most of his plans for the successful 2003 World Cup.
At the end of his book he states his concerns at the lack of access to players for 2004 and that the country vs club conundrum needed to be sorted out - which eventually happened this year.
The 2007 World Cup showed that when the England players had significant preparation then they stood a chance of success - and if only they had borne the lessons from 2003 then we could have seen back-to-back victories if access had been consistent rather than one year out of every four.
Interestingly, as announced on this site, Martin Johnson has announced that the England team will once again be based at Pennyhill Park - just read Winning! to see why it is a significant factor.
So before anyone criticises CW's results - remember Rome was not built in a day - and that the success of the Olympic and Paralympic cyclists has been around 8 - 10 years in the making - again there was an excellent article by the former Head of GB Cycling talking about the lessons they learned...
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Just to point out, Judo had a centralised centre at Bisham Abbey (still in the South but a much more central location than Kent) with much the same premise - getting all the top players in one place. However, the BJA - lead by Densign White - didn't give it the support it to make it work, and then Densign closed it. Now hes trying to look like the saviour of British Judo by comming up with this 'new' scheme to copy cycling, when he was partly responsible for the disaster in the first place.
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veryfedup, it's interesting you bring up "Winning" as it has come up in quite a few conversations I've had with coaches and performance directors. By and large, they have all said the same thing: it's an interesting read, and fair play for winning a World Cup, but that's rugby, what I do is very different etc etc etc.
I'll leave it at that because this isn't about CW! Suffice it to say he remains a controversial topic in Olympic circles, largely for reasons beyond his control and not his fault.....but then that's not surprising, he's a controversial topic in rugby circles.
esn, you're right to mention Bisham Abbey, DW admitted things could have gone better there. He thinks one of the reasons it failed was that the players didn't have enough financial support. They couldn't afford cars so they got bored/isolated.
I'm not sure about this but our Olympic talent certainly has more money to spend on little luxuries these days. Whether Dartford will be any more exciting than BA is another question.
I think another reason BA failed is what he said about the players having more faith in their club coaches than the national ones. That, of course, must be partly the BJA's fault, which is what I was alluding to in this par:
"The reason for the lack on confidence in the national set-up can no doubt be debated for days, and I'm sure White himself, who has been in the job for seven years, would feature heavily in that debate....."
But one of the things that struck me about judo's problems is how similar they are to the problems of so many of the other Olympic sports in this country: the things DW talked about are the same things his counterparts in archery, basketball, boxing etc etc talk about, I've heard about 30 different versions of this central v local debate alone.
But then isn't that exactly the same as business and politics? The wisdom of the day will state it's all about economies of scale, working to a plan and hot-housing talent, until one day somebody else comes along and says no, it's all about choice, diversification and giving people room to be creative. Right now British sport seems to be going through a centralisation is best phase....look at the FA, it closed Lilleshall and left development up to the clubs, but has now decided the clubs aren't doing it properly so wants a new Lilleshall at Burton. They're all at it!
Right, that's enough from me on this. Cheerio!
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ive been involved in Judo for almost 30 years now, begining as a kid at school, bearing in mind i am just your average club level player/coach i hav'nt the experience of the elite athletes or the set up but in my humble opinion its the kids at the very start of there Judo career that will provide the champions of tommorow, and getting them through the dojo door and ignigting a passion for the sport is where the governing body should be looking to make a big investment, i would love to see a development officer that has been at the top of the game coming round small clubs speaking to the kids and the coaches and finding out what we need to get and keep numbers, with kids having so many options now Judo is the hard work option so making Judo appealing to the masses is what we should be doing, get back in the schools have judo as part of the physical education curriculum like it was while i was at school, after a month of Judo at school our local club was chock a block with eager young kids, this would be a good start for the long term future but as well as that what about at the other end theres the Judoka that dont want to compete but still want to enjoy the sport and be involved, theres a lot of experience there that the governing body should be looking to retain rather than these ex players falling away from the sport as they feel theres no where to go after contest, it only takes one of these more mature Judoka to inspire a youngster to stick in at judo and go on to an olympic medal, theres a thousand guys like me out there with no intrest in financial gain or the politics of Judo but just a genuine love and passion for our sport that the governing body should be tapping into to try and turn around our lack of olympic success.
All the best
Ray. Edinburgh Bushido
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Interesting article.
Why doesn't the BJA set up a centre of excellence in Edinburgh. The whole country is supposed to benefit from the olympics, so centres of excellence for different sports spread around the country would be one way to aid this.
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It strikes me that the most pertinent piece of information in the article is that most of the UK’s judoka are not associated with the British Judo Association (or “British Judo” as they style themselves; I suppose that “2/5 British Judo” just doesn’t sound important enough).
The repair of fragmentation into different codes in the sport is where the serious effort should be being made. Players often have to keep licensed and graded in at least two different codes in order to participate in enough training and competitions to really progress. There are players in non-BJA clubs who have a great potential to be top players, but who can remain undiscovered (or even be considered somehow inferior) because of the particular code that they follow.
If centralisation is the hot practice (and having worked for IT vendors most of my life I’ve done the centralised/decentralised thing to death and long ago discovered that both are pointless in isolation), the focus should be on creating a single body which actually controls and standardises the grading and competitions across British Judo, letting the clubs at a local level develop the not insignificant talent pool along a single and transparent path to the top level, while having access to regionally based top quality coaching support which is not tied to a particular faction.
The existing entrenched positions suggest this organisation should not be formed out of an existing group, but from scratch (with equal represenation from each), with authority over all the existing codes. This would be a “British Judo” organisation which actually represented and delivered to British Judo. We might then start to see the economies of scale through regional centres which are so important without requiring that everyone move to Kent.
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A crucial question in this debate is, even if a centralised programme is right for the British Judo 2012 performance programme, why does it have to be in Dartford? Edinburgh would have a very strong claim as the location for such a centre, not just because of Euan Burton and Sarah Clark, but because a number of top English players have moved there in recent years because of the high quality of the Edinburgh Club programme. There is also a ready made judo training facility at Ratho near Edinburgh Airport, which is the centre for Scottish Judo and currently underused. Surely a tendering process for a centralised GB centre, given that it is public money, would be the most sensible thing to do. That way, a choice could be made as to which location offers the best value, as well as the best training environment.
I agree that having the best judo players scattered across the country is not the ideal environment in which to create Olympic medallists, but this does not mean that centralisation in one location is the answer. Up to three centres of excellence would make sense, if you look at where the best players are curently located: London (Dartford?), Birmingham and Edinburgh. Support services from the English and Scottish Institutes of Sport could be built around those locations and there would be no need for support staff to 'criss cross' the country as Densign White claims is happening at the moment.
Finally, the argument about the merits of centralisation in all sports, simply because it has worked for cycling, is a weak one. Track cyclists need a highly specialised training facility and Britain cannot afford to build world class velodromes all over the country. That is the principal reason why the programme was set up by Peter Keen in Manchester in the first place. That does not apply to sports like Judo where the facility requirements are much more basic, i.e. a sports hall with enough space for a decent sized mat area and access to essential support services for athletes.
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