Join Euan Crumley for the very first episode of The Athletics Weekly Podcast, the place to go for all things run, jump and throw.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Athletics Weekly podcast. My name's
00:12Ewan Crumley and I'll be your host for all things run, jump and throw. You may already
00:17be familiar with AW Magazine and AthleticsWeekly.com, in which case you'll know we're experts in
00:23athletics and we'll be bringing you a monthly podcast with great interviews, news, analysis
00:28and previews of everything exciting happening in the athletics world. With the 2024 Games
00:34upon us, there's an Olympic theme to this episode. We'll be looking forward to the action
00:38in Paris, but also stepping back in time 40 years to the LA Games of 1984 to remember
00:44the big moments that made it a Games to remember. I'm very pleased to say we have a wonderful
00:49special guest for our first episode, the 2004 double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes.
00:56You can read our exclusive full-length interview with the two-time gold medalist in the latest
01:00issue of AW, which is a bumper guide to the Paris Olympics. On this episode, Dame Kelly
01:06speaks to me about the action to come in Paris and the chances of Britain's Keeley Hodgkinson
01:11following in her footsteps when it comes to the 800 metres. But without further ado, I
01:17would like to welcome my guests on this episode. Both have a long history in the sport and
01:22incredibly strong ties to AW. Wendy Sly is Managing Director at AW, not to mention being
01:28Olympic 3000 metre silver medallist at the 1984 Games, while Jason Henderson is Head
01:34of Digital at Athletics Weekly and has interviewed everyone from Bannister to Bolt during his
01:39lengthy journalistic career. Hi both. Thank you for being here.
01:43Are you?
01:44Hi there.
01:45Wendy, many listeners will be aware of you and your athletics career, but tell us a little
01:50bit about yourself to start off with, please.
01:52Well, it's quite frightening to think that it's 40 years ago that I was in Los Angeles,
01:57but it's even more frightening to think that I started running more than 50 years ago and
02:03joined an athletics club like lots of youngsters do these days and ended up, I joined the club
02:11in February, so I got thrown into cross-country and discovered that that was probably by luck
02:16the better of my events, because then having tested myself at long jump and hurdles, it
02:21was quite clear I was fairly useless. Yeah, ended up running for my club, won the national
02:26cross-country when I was 17, same year ran as a junior for Great Britain. The following
02:33year made the senior team in cross-country and that really was the start of a career
02:39that spanned only 13 or 14 years, but a very busy 13 or 14 years, sadly cut short by injury.
02:50But yeah, I mean, I was second in the Commonwealth Games in 82, finished fifth in the first world
02:59championships over 15 in 3,083, a silver medal in the Olympics in 84, which was the first
03:07running of the women's 3,000 at the Olympics, competed in 88, won a bronze at the indoor
03:16championships, European indoor championships in 88. And I guess probably one of the prouder
03:22things was I won the inaugural women's 10k on the road back in 83. So yeah, it wasn't
03:29a massively long career. As I say, I was unlucky with injury, but there was lots going on in
03:34that time, not just for me, but for the sport itself.
03:38And Jason, you've had a long, long association with AW, not bad athlete yourself as well.
03:46Tell us a bit more about yourself too.
03:48Yeah, unfortunately I'm not quite as talented as Wendy, so my PBs probably aren't worth
03:53mentioning. I guess I was a kind of child of the Coen Ovette era. My imagination was
04:00fired by the Moscow Olympics mainly and their great showdowns at those games. And then it
04:06carried on throughout the 80s. I always wanted to be an athlete mainly. I would have loved
04:13to have been an elite athlete, but sadly wasn't quite good enough. It sounds a bit cheesy,
04:20but I think I decided at one point that if I wasn't going to run at the Olympics, then
04:24I might try and write my way there instead. So I managed to do that eventually. I joined
04:30AW back in 1997, which was the same year that one of our young colleagues who works alongside
04:36me now was actually born, which he's fond of reminding me about. And I've been with
04:42the magazine ever since. First Olympics was Sydney 2000, which was a real cracker. I think
04:49the longtime former editor of Athletics Weekly, Mel Wattman, said to me at the time that it
04:55was a terrible first Olympics to go to because it was just so good and everything after that
04:59would just be a disappointment. I think he was kind of half right. I mean, it's obviously
05:03not been a disappointment since, but it certainly was a great Games to live up to. And during
05:10that period and for about 20 years, I was editor of our old weekly magazine. Whereas
05:15these days I look after the digital side of things a lot more. Lots of online articles,
05:21social media, that kind of stuff, which certainly keeps me busy.
05:25Yeah. And we're about to be incredibly busy with the Paris Olympics coming up, but we'll
05:31start by going back in time a bit, those 40 years to LA84. Now in our July issue of AW,
05:41the American author Stephen Lane wrote a really good feature about how LA was effectively
05:48the template for the modern Olympics as we see them now. It was a massive shift in terms
05:56of how the Olympics were staged and a lot of the commercialism that runs around them now.
06:03Wendy, can you cast your mind back and give us an idea of what it was like to be a part
06:09of those Games and how different they were?
06:13I mean, like Jason, I was a spectator in 1980 and I was already a fairly accomplished athlete,
06:20even though I was a young one, I suppose, and I just missed out on the team. But I wasn't
06:28quite ready for what I landed to in LA. One of my most ridiculous memories is walking
06:36through security in the village and being encountered by a string of Coca-Cola 7-Up,
06:42all the branded soft drink fountains that you could just get free as you walked in.
06:48And that certainly wouldn't have been available in Moscow. But I think you appreciated that this
06:55was a very commercial Games, the brands that they had associated with, the very well-documented
07:04a opening ceremony, which was very grand and is far more typical of the opening ceremonies
07:12we see now, not just a procession of athletes walking through, but a big show. And I think
07:18the enthusiasm of the American people who really embraced hosting the Games, it was a very exciting
07:27place to be. And although it was never necessarily stated, I think we all knew we were part of
07:33a new era in the sport. Yeah, yeah. And there were so many sort of big moments,
07:40especially from a British perspective as well. Obviously, Carl Lewis was the, you know, the big
07:45American star to come out of those Games. But obviously, you had people like Daley Thompson,
07:50who's just been voted by the AWE readership as the greatest British Olympian when it comes to
07:57athletics. Closely followed by Seb Coe, who obviously did so well in those Games as well.
08:03Jason, what were the big moments that stood out to you from those Games? And what do you
08:08remember of them? Well, crikey, there are so many to mention. I mean, Athletics Weekly's had lots
08:14of really good writers and contributors over the years. And we had a chap who wrote for us called
08:19Tony Ward, who I know Wendy will remember from back in that period. He was also the spokesman
08:26for British Athletics for a period. And he wrote a few books, and one of them was called The Golden
08:31Decade, which literally covered that period. And I think it's stood the test of time, because that
08:39mid-1980s period was just glorious. I mean, you mentioned Daley and Seb Coe being remembered as
08:46the greatest Olympians ever. And, you know, just coincidentally, they happened to strike gold at
08:51those Games. We're launching at the moment our archive, where you can get hold of all the old
08:59issues of Athletics Weekly. And I had a quick dip into it before our conversation here. And I saw
09:05that the covers leading up to the Games that summer included cover stars such as Daley, Seb Coe,
09:12Carl Lewis, who you mentioned, who was a massively iconic athlete, who we were in slightly surreal
09:19circumstances able to see at the UK Championships in Manchester earlier on this summer. And then
09:26the issues straight after the Games had cover stars like Joan Buenoit, who ran in the first
09:32women's Olympic marathon and won that race. Carlos Lopez, who won an absolutely stacked men's
09:40marathon at those Games. Valerie Briscoe-Hooks won the two and 400 metre races. Tessa Sanderson.
09:47You know, these were all cover stars during that summer. It's just literally a who's who
09:52of legendary athletes who are still remembered very fondly to this day, even though it's 40
09:58years ago. So, yeah, it was a terrific, a terrific period. And also, as Wendy says, it was the start
10:04of a new era because I think we'd come from the Moscow Games four years earlier, which was a
10:10boycotted Games. Montreal, which was full of debt. And Munich, which was obviously badly affected by
10:17terrorists. So I think L.A. had this great feel good factor, lots of razzmatazz. And yeah, it's
10:24just gone down in history as being a fantastic Olympics. Yeah. And Wendy, as you alluded to
10:30earlier on, is that, you know, so much was changing within the sport. It seems, you know, mad to be
10:36talking about that first, that being the first year of the women's marathon and also the first
10:42running of the distance that you competed at, the 3,000 meters. It was a game-changing time.
10:50It certainly was. And it was interesting. I was in a car on the way to the airport from one of
10:55the Diamond Leagues just recently chatting to a Dutch athlete and explaining to her that when I
11:02started running, the longest distance for women was 800 meters. And that had only recently been
11:07brought back because the IOC had made a decision that women were in some way, shape or form, the
11:13weaker, the weaker sex. So it had taken a whole lot of lobbying and a huge amount of time to get
11:21the 1,500 in, which that came in in 72. And then finally, the 3,000 in 84, by which time all of us
11:31were competing at 10k on the road. All of the middle distance women were competing at 10k on
11:35the road, admittedly not running that far in the country, but still more than capable of running
11:41long distances. And people like Joan Benoit and Greta Weitz had broken through in the marathon too.
11:48So it felt like it was long overdue. And I did feel actually, that was one time where I did really
11:56feel like I was part of a new era, even though I didn't, I felt frustrated slightly. I think the 5,000
12:01would have been a good distance for me, but we all knew we were taking part in a new period for
12:09women's sport. And I think we were probably one of the first sports to recognise female athletes in
12:15the way they should be recognised, even though in 84, it was only in a small way.
12:20Now it's time to hear from our special guest. It's 20 years since Dame Kelly Holmes became the star
12:25of the 2004 Athens Olympics, when she famously won 800 metres and 1,500 metres gold. I recently sat
12:33down with her to talk about how she achieved that dream double, but also about how the events have
12:37changed and who she thinks might excel this summer. Here's an extract of that interview.
12:43I was keen to ask you, just with a view to this summer's games coming up now, obviously we have
12:50in Keeley Hodgkinson, someone who's, with what happened to Athene Mode at the Olympic trials, is
12:58now a favourite for gold. I mean, what do you think of what she's achieved so far and what her
13:07chances are, I guess, this summer? Yeah, I mean, obviously she's been an amazing athlete. She
13:15went to her first Olympic games at 19. This is her second one. It's her first one in a massive
13:21Olympic stadium filled with people, though, because remember we had a closed game, so it'll be a
13:25different environment, but she's been to many championships and won medals. So I think she's got
13:31a real mature head on her for an athlete of her age, with the enormity of maybe the expectations
13:42from the athletics world, because she's number one in the world.
13:47Obviously, like you say, with Mu going out, it heightens her chances of being Olympic champion.
13:58What I hope won't happen is that that pressure and expectations
14:05doesn't get to her. Her team are going to be very astute to the fact that there's immediate
14:12tension. She's done a lot. She's doing documentaries, doing things, and she knows it,
14:17but she's very strong-minded. She's relaxed. She's so relaxed as a person about what she's done,
14:22and she's not stressed or anything, which is something I would have taken out of a book
14:28myself, but what I always say to people who try and raise somebody's expectations is,
14:35do I think she could become Olympic champion? Yes, but she can't become Olympic champion until
14:41she's on that final start line, and that's what people have to remember. She's got to
14:45get through the rounds without anything going wrong, and if she's in the final,
14:51she's got a chance of winning, and I think people have to remember that the moment you start to
14:56go, she's going to be Olympic champion. The detrimental effect of that is her,
15:03not to have anybody else writing about it and disappointed, but it becomes a real big issue,
15:08so I think, can she win it? Yes, she'll be the first Olympic 800-meter medalist since myself
15:1820 years ago, and only the third in Great Britain since Ann Packer, so that will be amazing,
15:25and I really hope that she can pull it off because it'd be just great to see my discipline
15:32continue, and yes, she runs so well. She's a strong, really strong athlete, but like I say,
15:42you want to get to it and you think, who's in the final? Because you've still got other rivals that
15:47are good enough to be there. You never know how a race is run either. You've got seven other people
15:52in your way. Some people expect it to be such a fast run that it's good, but sometimes it's the
15:58slowest run ever of a sprint, and whoever's got the mindset on the day to focus on what they're
16:06there to do, and that's to run the best that they can run, and I think she's got that ability if
16:10she's in the final. Thanks again to Dame Kelly for joining me, and that leads on very nicely to
16:16ports to come in Paris, and a good place to start would be one of the main British medal hopes
16:26for the summer, which is Keeley Hodgkinson going for gold in the Women's 800. Now, Jason, you were
16:34at the London Diamond League meeting the other week where she, well, any hopes of her going under
16:41the radar, kind of were blown out of the water by her breaking the British record 154.61.
16:49I mean, what did you make of that run and how she's preparing for these Olympics? Well, I don't
16:57want to get ahead of everybody here, but I think she's got the world record in her sights here.
17:01I mean, Jan-Mila Kratoch-Velova's world 800 metre record is the oldest track
17:08record in the books, and she's only, what, 1.3 seconds behind that now, and I don't know,
17:18I think if you spoke to a lot of runners, like male runners who could run 153, 154, and you
17:25spoke about trying to take just over a second off that time, I don't think they'd think it
17:30was impossible. If you've got a really good race and the perfect conditions and just everything
17:37clicks, I think she can do it. Maybe not in Paris, obviously in Paris she just wants that gold
17:43and she'll be going for the gold and she won't care what time she runs in Paris as long as she
17:48wins the gold, but sometime in the next few years, maybe in the next year or two, I think she's
17:55certainly got that world record in her sights. And as for Paris, I mean, she's got to be the
18:00strong favourite now. I mean, she just looks so good. I think she spoke after the Diamond League
18:05in London about just wrapping herself in cotton wool now, just hoping that nothing goes
18:10wrong in the next few days before she starts racing in Paris, making sure that she doesn't
18:15come down with any, God forbid, any illnesses or any kind of niggles or problems or whatever.
18:21But if she manages to maintain this form and turns up for the Olympic final in the same kind of shape
18:27that she was in during the London Diamond League, then she's got to be a sort of heavy odds-on
18:33favourite, surely. Yeah, and Wendy, without wanting to put a medal around her neck just yet,
18:39but as tempting as it is, Elliot Giles came up with a brilliant description of the 800
18:47to me at the European Championships. He called it Russian roulette. You know, it does to the
18:55outside at the moment look like the path is there for Keighley to follow to the gold,
19:00but so much can happen in these middle distance events, even as you well know in some of the
19:05endurance races, you know, you can be on your feet one minute and then on the turf the next.
19:10Yeah, I mean, one of the things that has been very impressive about Keighley this year,
19:15and I spoke about it when we were talking about LA earlier, is she's controlled the races.
19:22She's gone to the front but not put any stress on herself at the front. She's kept people
19:30at base that they've not been able to get past her. So I think one of the keys for her
19:36in Paris will be being able to control that final and not being dislodged from that by
19:45one of the other competitors. It's very easy to put medals around people's necks without
19:52understanding how tough the Olympics is, but like we've all alluded to, the shape that she's in
20:00right now and the way she's running right now, the way she looks, quite honestly,
20:06she looks so strong and so mature in the way she's racing that it's very difficult not to.
20:16What also impresses me about her is the way she seems to deal with pressure.
20:21I mean, we obviously don't know what's going through her mind, but she has a sort of quiet
20:28determination about her and hopefully can sort of retain all of that and keep away from the hype
20:36while she's getting ready in these last couple of weeks
20:39for what will be one of the best events of the championships without question.
20:47Jason, do you think the fact that Athene Moe hasn't made it one of her biggest rivals,
20:53the Olympic champion just now, the fact that she's not there, does that
20:57make it easier or add that extra sort of mental pressure that makes the challenge just as
21:04difficult as if she was there? I think it makes it easier for Keeley because one of her main
21:09rivals, if not the main rival, is now out of the Games. I also think in 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years
21:16time, nobody will really remember that Athene Moe wasn't there. They'll just see Keeley Hodgkinson
21:22hopefully touch wood Olympic champion. I think it's got to make it easier for Keeley, for one of
21:29the big rivals, not to be at the Games. As Wendy says as well, I think if Keeley is able to control
21:35the race and get to the front at a key point, even maybe after the first 200 metres and then just
21:42control things from there on, that's got to be good. I think athletes do it indoors a lot because
21:49it's very hard to overtake indoors. They get to the front in an 800 metre race and then they just
21:54stay there. We've seen athletes like Mo Farah do it towards the end of 5 and 10,000 metre races.
22:00He's done it multiple times, goes to the front with about a kilometre to go and he just stays
22:05there. If anyone tries to get past, he'll just accelerate a little bit, hold them off, hold them
22:09off. Then when he gets into that crucial stage with 100, 120 metres to go, he just puts in his
22:16final kick and he's managed to win several times. I can see Keeley possibly doing
22:23the similar kind of tactics in Paris. Who knows? We've got all this to come in the next few
22:30days. Nobody quite knows how the races are going to unfold. As Wendy was saying earlier on, talking
22:36about the LA 3000 metres, anything can happen. That's part of the beauty of athletics.
22:42If we could all predict the results now and the times and everything, then we wouldn't bother.
22:49We've got it all to look forward to. It's going to be a great ride in the next few days.
22:54Well, our colleague Steve Smythe has attempted to do that very thing and predict the outcome of
23:00everything right down to the times and distances in the new issue of the magazine that's out now.
23:07Thanks to Wendy and Jason for joining me today and also to our special guest Dame Kelly Holmes.
23:12We hope you enjoyed the first episode of the Athletics Weekly podcast. We'll be back with
23:17another full-length episode in late August, but if you can't wait until then, we'll be releasing
23:22daily podcasts from Paris as the athletics action unfolds. From August 1st, these short episodes
23:28will cover the latest news as well as previews of the day's action. Remember, if you enjoyed
23:34the podcast and especially our interview with Kelly, then you'll find more on that in this
23:38month's Bumper Olympic Preview issue of AW Magazine, available to subscribe to on athleticsweekly.com.
23:46You can rate, review and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
23:51We'll be back with another full-length episode in late August.