These were the words I heard from Jacqueline first thing this morning, well perhaps not the last part.
A nice sunny morning after all the rain this week. I had 3 hours of work I needed to get done so went into the office and frantically multi tasked whilst on my usual Friday AM calls.
I then legged it out of there at midday to get home for the afternoon drive down to Dorset.
The Sydney crew banter is building up a head of storm ahead of the 10k race next weekend and once again it will be left to me to take the moral high ground and agree to a Timmy race off from scratch. Timmy is in his best form for 3 years and I have not ran a 10k in that entire period. Yes I have recently ran 18mins for 5k but that was a month ago and have not ran at all this week. I will be doing well to run a 36.59 whereas Timmy will be close to 36.15.
Back to the big boys stuff and have to say that I am chuffed that Alyson Felix won her first 400ms title. Dad and I saw her win the 200m Olympic title in London and she is as elegant a runner you'll ever see, almost effortless and never loses her form. She now has 9 golds, one shy of Insane Usain. Dina Asher-Smith (the local Bromley girl) is an amazing talent too and has trained mostly at our local Norman Park track and came 5th in the 200m in a new British record (and she is only 19!). I have mentioned this in previous posts that the inner city talent in South London is immense.
At district races in Australia there were 10 decent runners whereas here you turn up and there are literally thousands - the competition is very deep. In the Lewisham borough alone there are over 1 million people living.
It is noticeable to me that nearly all the young English footballing talent in the Prem is also coming out of South London. This is why I dislike Seb Coe so much. His politics mean he cannot see further than the end of his nose and because of him the iconic South London Crystal Palace is going to be ripped up and with it many a talented youngster career.
Going back to Australia, whilst their talent pool is much smaller where I think they do well is that when any kid shows talent they are much less likely to fall out of the net. Couple that with better weather, facilities and structured programs, Australians end up punching above their weight. The other key UK Australian differentiator is parental involvement. It is simply taken for granted that all parents play a role whether it be coaching or turns on the bbq. In England the parent who volunteers often gets lumped with everything.
I would also go one step further than that. In Australia particularly in Manly where our house is (a freak sporting environment and home to Olympic champions) there is not only an economic angle to social standing but equally also sporting. In other words to be a supposed 'succesful' family you need to be sportingly successful as well as economically.
Places like Manly also breed sporting stars so success becomes tangible. What I mean by that is there are role models walking about the place who have won gold medals and not 50 years ago in obscure sports either but recently at the London Olympics. Jamie's bro Murray won gold in London. It gives kids belief as they say well if he can so can I. It feels almost within reach.
Food for thought.
Minion VW dub on route & arriving in Swanage (the land of Harry Redknapp):
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