Anything but Footy

This is Anything but Footy - the Olympic and Paralympic Podcast.

New faces on and off the track for British Athletics as the sport returned with the British Championships after lockdown. Christian Malcolm is the new Head Coach for the Olympic Programme, a welcome appointment for many, but and alongside new CEO Joanna Coates, there's a lot of issues to sort out! But all we ask is please give them time - this isn't footy!

Holly Bradshaw, Jake Wightman, Sophie McKinna and Abigail Irozuru were just 4 of Britain's 16 podium funded athletes competing at the national championships in Manchester as others sat it out, or ran elsewhere around Europe. Should they not all be supporting the governing body and its broadcast deals? And could it be the end of the Diamond League sparkle in the UK? We also talk Adidas, Nike, Reebok ...

Georgia Taylor-Brown became another British world champion in Triathlon in Hamburg and Giles Scott remains on course for another Olympic sailing medal - but what colour?

This is the Olympic and Paralympic podcast - Anything but Footy! Let us know what you think @anythingbutf on twitter or message us on insta & FB or check out the website www.anythingbutfooty.com

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This is Great British Bosses from ‘Anything but Footy.’ John Cushing and Michael Weadock present the podcast having covered the Paralympic, Olympic and Commonwealth Games, Euro 2016, Wimbledon, World Cycling Championships, Tour De Yorkshire and the Rugby World Cup for our leading commercial radio stations during the past 10 years and between them they have 50 years of broadcasting experience.

In our 20th episode of 'Great British Bosses’, we go to the heart of one of the biggest and influential sporting organisations of the world. Craig Spence joined the International Paralympic Committee as Communications Manager ten years ago and is now Chief Brand and Communications Officer - as well as outstanding athletes and performance in London and Rio in recent Games - Craig's effectively responsible for the continued good name of the IPC!

He tells us how encouraged he now is the Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead next summer as sport begins to return around the world - and they have 12 months to work as hard as they can to stage a safe Games for athletes and spectators alike! Craig reveals his parents are his secret weapon in ensuring the Paralympics gets the exposure and media coverage it deserves. He reveals London 2012 may have been a game changer but actually Rio 2016, despite being 24 hours from cancellation, kicked the movement on even more! And why kicking out Russia from the Paralympics 4 years ago was his proudest moment!

If you’re listening to this podcast for the first time - please subscribe and download the other 19 episodes all focusing on the behind the scene decisions, in an effort to make British sport a success.

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This is the podcast that speaks to the men and women at the top of their game, at the head of their sport, making decisions behind the scenes that impact on everyone - staff, volunteers, athletes, supporters and you! This is Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy!

In this episode, we hear from David Grevemberg CEO of the Commonwealth Games Federation about the future of multi-sport events like the Olympics, Paralympics and Commonwealths. He thinks the pandemic of 2020 will change the way everyone thinks about these events and how they're staged. He's told us nothing is off the table in terms of the future staging of his event, and thinks it'll be similar in the corridors of power at the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, where he used to work in Bonn.

David, now an honorary Scot after organising and delivering the Glasgow 2014 Games so successfully, admits he regrets not ensuring Birmingham 2022 had the right diversity on the board for the next instalment of the games in 2 years time and has promised change now and in the future.

Find out how the one time schoolboy in Louisiana, worked his way up to the top job in the Commonwealth, via wrestling and being an agent, and how he really feels about working from home in lockdown - "you’re living at work"!

If you like this episode, please subscribe and there's 18 more stories from the key decision makers in British Sport to download too!

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This is Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy - the series where we profile the men and women responsibly for running sport in this country - from grassroots participation to those medal moments at Commonwealth, Olympic, Paralympic and elite level.

Jane Nickerson is the CEO of Swim England - the national governing body for swimming. It's a sport with more than 4 million people taking to the pool every month before the coronavirus lockdown of 2020. As restrictions were eased in early summer, with shops restaurants and pubs reopening, swimmers remained locked out of their facilities before a highly successful media campaign, led by Jane and her team, changed minds and priorities. But still the challenges remain with only 20% of swimming pools having re-opened and the future for leisure centres and clubs looking bleak. Jane also reveals she's yet to get a swim herself!

It's undoubtably a worrying time as we also hear her fears that we could lose a generation of children to swimming as "this pandemic will be the next big excuse, not to take them to the pool."

But have a listen to Jane's story - from working in hotels to running this huge organisation - an inspiration for all!

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There's one year to go until the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Now, we've been here before of course, but as it stands the organising committee are continuing their planning and preparation. The venues have all been secured for the new dates in 2021 and the schedule has also been released of what events will be taking place and when.

We re-cap some of the changes you need to expect for the games in 2021. These include new sports and new disciplines. We also review the athletes that had already secured their place in Team GB prior to the postponement and who have been re-confirmed to take part in 2021.

But, what should the postponed games look like? Will it go ahead exactly as planned or do the organisers need to reflect that the world has changed significantly over the past few months and in fact an expensive Opening Ceremony might not be appropriate. And, we discuss how this could be an opportunity for the International Olympic Committee to reflect and review on how cities go about staging the games in the future as the trend has been to go bigger and better with each edition to date.

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This is Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy - the series where we profile the men and women responsibly for running sport in this country - from grassroots participation to those medal moments at Olympic, Paralympic and elite level.

In this episode we catch up, remotely of course, with Joanna Coates, the new Chief Executive of British Athletics (UK Athletics). She only began her role six days before the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were postponed and closed the BA offices, for staff to then work from home, just days later due to the coronavirus pandemic!

Joanna tells us she wants people, staff and athletes to be proud of the organisation again, but that it also needs to be fit for purpose once again, following an independent investigation into it, launched before her appointment.

She also tells us how important it is for a sport they stage the British Championships in Manchester this September, after the cancellations of all other major events this summer and we discuss Black Lives Matter protests and how British Athletics will support them!

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This is Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy - the series where we profile the men and women responsible for running sport in this country - from grassroots participation to those medal moments at Olympic, Paralympic and elite level.

In this episode - recorded remotely from three separate locations, Mark England - Chef de Mission of the Team GB delegation for the next summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, joins us via Zoom from home to discuss how he has had to re-work the British Olympic Association's strategy for the event following the postponement to 2021.

Mark will be leading the delegation from Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Japan - a repeat of his role with the history making team from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. He talks about the challenges that elite sport has had in this country in order to ensure the unprecedented medal success has not been at the expense of the welfare of the individual athletes involved. He also discusses how he is in dialogue with the International Olympic Committee over their stance on the Black Lives Matter campaign and what would happen if a Team GB athlete chose to take the knee at the games.

With exactly one year to go until Tokyo 2021, he also reveals how Johanna Konta's skirt caused him a real issue in Rio and why he needs to listen to John and Michael more about how he decides his schedule during games time in order not to miss the key medal winning moments.

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This is Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy - the series where we profile the men and women responsible for running sport in this country - from grassroots participation to those medal moments at Olympic, Paralympic and elite level.

In this episode, recorded remotely from three separate locations, Sue Storey - the CEO of Volleyball England joins us via Zoom from home to discuss how the volleyball community has been coping with lockdown and not being able to play their sport. Volleyball England has run a number of online initiatives during the past few months but is now eagerly awaiting Government advice on how indoor sports can resume playing.

Sue only took over at Volleyball England in late 2019 and oversees the disciplines of Indoor Volleyball, Beach Volleyball and Sitting Volleyball in the country. Whilst she admits the chances of sending a GB team to take part in the Olympics is a long way off, she highlights the achievements of the Sitting Volleyball team and highlights the involvement of Martine Wright, who lost both her legs in the Aldgate underground explosion, on the 15th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London.

She also notes that with Beach Volleyball on the programme for the next Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, there is a fantastic opportunity to raise the profile of the sport. Although, she gives us few clues as to where Birmingham will stage the events, other than saying it will be another iconic location!

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The lockdown is easing and that means sport is also returning - from snooker to Royal Ascot and football to tennis. It's right that new events like Jamie Murray's 'Battle of the Brits' takes centre stage this week, when we'd usually be preparing for Wimbledon. But organisers of the US Open have also announced their event in New York in August will just be mens and women's singles and doubles - no mixed, juniors or wheelchair competitors. We all want sport to be back but at any price?

We have the pleasure of welcoming Mark Milne to the podcast to talk about a new format for tennis that he's come up with which he hopes will generate more excitement and more interest from younger audiences - its called Thirty30 and despite the new format he says its more 'traditional tennis' than any other shorter version of the sport out there! Check out more at https://www.thirty30tennis.com

And Anything but Footy wouldn't be Anything but Footy without the latest athletics 'drugs' controversy as World Champion's Christian Coleman and Salwa Eid Naser are provisionally suspended for 'missing tests.' Michael's had enough and tells us why!

It's all in this latest edition of Anything but Footy - the Olympic and Paralympic Podcast!

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We are joined by two freelance sports journalists to find out how they have been able to continue working despite having no live sport to report on.

Mark Woods is a journalist and broadcaster who writes for various newspapers and is the host of the basketball podcast MVP Cast. We are also joined by Liz Byrnes, a freelance journalist for various newspapers and the European Correspondent for Swimming World magazine.

Ordinarily, both would currently be looking forward to covering the Olympic Games in Tokyo and would have been present at events this summer including the Anniversary Games, the British Championships in both athletics and swimming and the Diving World Series Finale which was being held this year in London. We find out how they've been carrying on with their work despite not having these events and a weekly diet of live sport to focus on.

We also hear from them about their views on how sport will begin to recover from Lockdown, their thoughts on how events will now need to be staged and their views on holding the Olympics in 2021.

Mark can be found on Twitter @markbritball and Liz can be found on Twitter @LizByrnes14

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