We spoke to Olympic legend Daley Thompson about legacy, Jess Ennis and school sports day.
Olympic legend talks to Sky Sports about legacy, Ennis and home pressure
Olympic legend Daley Thompson is still terrifying the opposition even if these days it is the poor dads at his son's school sports day - and he insists it will be a huge missed opportunity if London 2012 isn't used to attract more kids into sport.
Double Olympic decathlon champion Thompson is widely regarded as one of the greatest Olympians of all time after his superb performances in the toughest event of them all.
Thompson is desperate for the legacy of London 2012 to involve getting more kids into sport, and he told
Sky Sports he is leading the way in more ways than one.
"I'm having a great day today, because my 10-year-old has got his school sports day," Thompson told
Sky Sports on the set of the MINI's Britalian Job. "The other dads are in so much trouble, in the parents race I am undefeated in 17 years!
"They do try and stop me every year. I'm trying to get the pole vault in, or I might turn up with a javelin and a discus one year, that'll be really fun."
When not terrorising the parents at his children's sports days, Thompson is championing the cause of stepping-up sports in schools, and believes London 2012 offers up the perfect opportunity.
Legacy
"It's about government inclination really, and whether they see the benefit of it, because the priorities in school are the subjects but I think the health of the kids should be just as important," he added.
"It's a great opportunity to inspire a generation or even two generations of kids, the great thing about having the Olympics is it puts sport right in the forefront of people's minds, if we don't do it it's a wasted opportunity.
"Athletics and sports in general need to become more popular. Kids just need to get down to their local clubs and give stuff a go, don't specialise too early and that's the way we'll get more top athletes coming through."
One such athletes is Jessica Ennis, who could become the female equivalent of Thompson if she bags a home gold in the heptathlon - the most gruelling of events for women.
"Jess Ennis seems to be doing alright, she won a big event a couple of weeks ago so I don't think she needs too much advice from me.
"But I saw her a couple of weeks ago after her competition and she was just going back and working on some of the things that hadn't gone so well and I think that's just a great attitude. The smart thing to do is to go work on the things that haven't gone so well, but you can't go and neglect anything else."
Pressure
Although the weight of a nation will be on team GB this summer, Thompson says the majority of athletes will thrive and expects a huge performance from the team as a whole.
"When you get any group of people under stress you'll find most of the group will respond positively so around 85 per cent will enjoy it and 15 per cent will struggle under pressure, so you just hope they've got a good team around them to enable them to overcome that extra stress and perform at their best.
"The two I'm focusing on are the Brownlee brothers. They could finish one and two in the triathlon and that's exactly what I'm hoping for. They did that in a race recently at the Blenheim Triathlon which some friends of mine where in and they're really great fellas, let's hope they can finish together again."
Amongst those under huge pressure in Lutalo Mohammad, after he was selected ahead of Aaron Cook in a controversial a secretive selection process by British Taekwondo, and Thompson says the process should have been handled much better.
"I'm surprised British Taekwondo haven't just come out and explained their reasons for picking Mohammad ," Thompson said. "I think they've made themselves look a bit amateurish by not explaining what their reasons where.
"Because clearly they all know a lot more about it than we do but we can't see the sense in it. All they had to do was to come out and say what their criteria was so that everybody can say 'oh that's what it was', even if we still don't agree with it at least we know why they did it.
"Mohammad has got loads of stress going on now as a result and I feel for him, so like I say it's just been handled badly."
Daley Thompson stars in MINI's 'Britalian Job', a London 2012-themed film that pays homage to the 1969 classic and celebrates MINI's partnership with Team GB and ParalympicsGB. To view the film visit http://bit.ly/britalianjob
