lympics day 5 football Sport.co.uk meets...Darren Campbell
Posted by Sport.co.uk on: 21 January 2011 - 15:30
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“The key is not to believe your own hype,” says Darren Campbell, “and work harder – not work as hard – you need to work harder.” It’s an adage you somehow feel Great Britain’s Olympic gold medallist lives his life by.
When Sport.co.uk approaches Campbell he baulks at the prospect of another interview after a long day of pacifying the media. His back is sore from an overzealous personal trainer and a long commute to South Wales from St John’s Wood in north London awaits him. He takes in our hopeful look, glances at our notepad, inhales deeply, smiles, and holds out a hand. “Hi, how are you doing?”
Aged 37, Campbell’s glittering career in athletics has now made way for a role as the ambassador for Sky Sports Living for Sport – an initiative in conjunction with the Youth Sport Trust and BSkyB. It is a role he takes as seriously and passionately as he did in training for the 100m and 200m in his heyday and one that has helped inspire children at schools across Great Britain to better their lives through sport.
Wake-up call – sport saved my life
It is a lesson he benefitted from when he was growing up in Manchester’s Moss Side. “When you grow up on a council estate,” Campbell explains, “where all you see around you is bad things, nine times out of 10 you end up a product of your environment. At the age of 17 one of my friends was murdered. It became a bit of a wake-up call that it’s not a game; it’s not a joke. If things go wrong or things go bad you could lose your life.
“Sport’s the only reason I live in South Wales. If I hadn’t been an athlete and a fairly decent one as a junior I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to move. Without having sport as a focus and a way to escape I don’t know what may have happened but I know the path I was on wasn’t a good one.
“I’m just here to inspire the young people to believe in themselves. The people that really deserve the praise are the athlete mentors who have done a fantastic job.”
With Campbell are Steve Frew, Commonwealth Games gymnastics gold medallist, Rachael Mackenzie, Thai-Boxing Women’s World Champion, Chris Horsman, Welsh rugby union World Cup player and Chris Cook, GB double Commonwealth swimming champion. Along with several other mentors they visit the schools and get to know the students, encouraging them to get into sport and realise their dreams.
“A lot is said about role models,” says Campbell, “but the athlete mentors are genuine role models. We all have stories. We’ve all been through adversity and how we’re able to inspire young people is by telling them adversity affects everybody. If you believe in yourself and stay focused and ask for help, if needed, you can make it to the other side.”
2010 Sport Student of the Year
As he starts talking about the kids who have been invited down to the event at Lords Cricket Ground for the initiative’s 2010 Sport Student of the Year Awards his media savvy façade breaks and his face lights up with a reinvigorated vibrancy.
He has been posing for pictures with the young guests and presenting the awards, introduced by Sky Sports’ immaculately turned-out presenters Vicky Gomersall and John Paul Davies. Conor Fitzpatrick of Newbattle Community High School in Dalkeith, Midlothian was awarded the title of UK Sky Sports Living for Sport Student of the Year 2010. Struggling with school life he was encouraged to take up basketball and has grown in confidence, coaching younger pupils as sports ambassador for the school and applied this motivation to his schoolwork.
“Conor’s fantastic,” beams Campbell. “All the students who have taken part are phenomenal young people. They all have inspiring stories. Conor and I spoke earlier before the awards began and today was the first time he’d been on a plane. It’s the kind of things we take for granted.
“He told me he had come here to win and it is that newfound confidence he learned through applying himself to sport. When I was in school I was that child who was afraid to put up his hand and couldn’t stand up at the front of the class to give a presentation. Now it’s just second nature.
“I think all of us who have been fortunate to be part of today will feel proud we’ve made a young man very happy.”
Career choices – walking away from athletics
Campbell, himself, began to excel in sports as a teenager, earning national attention with gold medals in the individual 100m and 200m and in the 4x100m relay team at the 1991 European Junior Championships in Greece. A year later Campbell’s precocious talent briefly flickered under the international spotlight with silver in the 100m and 200m and, again, gold in the 4x100m at the World Junior Championships in South Korea.
After making his senior debut at the Stuttgart World Championships in 1993, again in the sprint relay – an event that would later earn him world fame – the Manchester-born flyer walked away from athletics, aged just 21.
“I had been in the sport so long,” Campbell explains. “When I was 19, after the World Juniors, I was involved in a car crash and damaged my back and tilted my pelvis. I basically couldn’t run the way I had earlier on in my career. I felt if I can’t do it to the best of my ability there’s no point in doing it.
“I started working in an insurance company. My back started to heal over time and I started playing football at work. Next thing I was at Cwmbran Town, then next thing I know I’m playing semi-professional football. It wasn’t a plan, it just happened. One day after the game there was a Liverpool fan there who is now my oldest son’s godfather and he just said you’re not ready for Liverpool. I was like ‘I know that,’ plus, I’m a [Manchester] United fan.”
He went on to have trials at Millwall and Plymouth Argyle, where he scored nine goals in seven games and was offered the opportunity to go to Weymouth on £200 a week. “They offered to pay my board,” says Campbell. “The chairman said if I didn’t sign that day they would take away the contract so I took that gamble.”
The next day Neil Warnock had been appointed at Plymouth and called him at work to offer a two-year contract but when Campbell spoke to the Weymouth chairman again he just laughed off their bid. “The chairman just said that’s football,” Campbell remembers. “I kind of knew then that football wasn’t for me.”
Olympic medals – Sydney and Athens
Does he ever wonder where his career could have taken him if he had stuck to football? “I wouldn’t have made it,” he admits. “I wouldn’t be who I am today. Definitely, I’m not that good. Maybe, if I had my time again, and ended up at somewhere like Arsenal where the manager likes fast players something might have happened. I needed someone who would have worked with me. I was at the same Soccer School of Excellence as Giggsy [Ryan Giggs]. He was fast. He had a good touch and dribbling ability. I was just fast. I can do most sports but it’s because I’m fast. I know that. I’m very realistic about my skills.
“In life you’ve got a path that if you go down you’ll be successful. A lot of the time in my life I kept coming off that path, whether for my friends, or in this case, for football or injury. I just remember watching the athletics in 1995 and thinking my back’s healed. I’ve got unfinished business. I trained and went to the 1996 Olympics [in Atlanta] and knew that was where I was meant to be.”
He didn’t exactly make a bad career choice. The following two Olympic Games were to provide Campbell with his two Olympic medals – firstly a surprise 200m silver in Sydney 2000 – and four years later a stand out achievement in British athletics came shortly before his 31st birthday at the Athens Games of 2004. The 4x100m relay team of Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and Mark-Lewis Francis secured Olympic gold for the first time in the event since 1912. Yet, as Campbell explains, the magnitude of their achievement didn’t dawn on the four sprinters until later that year.
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Zhao Yunlei, Yu Yang and Wang Shixian joined Lee Chong Wei in starting the year with a title for the second straight year.
By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent live in Taipei. Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)
It was a close to capacity crowd again when the mixed doubles began on Sunday afternoon, despite the absence of the Chinese Taipei competitors. The Thai pair stayed close in the first game but suffered from control problems in the second. The game became a series of short rallies punctuated by Zhao Yunlei’s celebrations when the Thai’s were pressured into sending the shuttle wide or into the net.
“We made too many easy mistakes today, unlike when we played them in the China Masters,” said Sudket after the match, “then we fell behind and started to get nervous. But they were more consistent and stayed in control of the match.”
“We feel good that our ranking is up,” said Saralee, “but we have to remember that ranking can go up and down so we have to focus on playing well in each tournament, starting with the next Super Series in Malaysia and Korea in a couple of weeks.
“Outside of the badminton world, though, the ranking doesn’t mean much because in Thailand, the sport is not popular like football.”
“Yes, maybe my friend will say ‘Hey, you’re world #2!’ but that’s all,” added Sudket.
Zhang and Zhao admitted that they are getting comfortable in their new position as the top Chinese pair in a discipline China has always been strong in.
“It’s nice to be at the top but there are so many pairs in the world that we can never relax and expect it to continue,” said Zhao Yunlei. “Last year, I started the year with a win, too, but I can’t just be satisfied with that. We have to keep trying to win.”
“Our target for this year is to do well in the Sudirman Cup and the World Championships,” said Zhang Nan.
Asked whether he thought he could continue playing both men’s and mixed doubles, in both of which disciplines he is now ranked near the top of the world rankings, Zhang grinned, “I feel that I am still young and I am strong enough to handle it.”
Zhao Yunlei only began a trend that would dominate the afternoon, however. Two of her team-mates also followed up with their own repeat New Badminton Year celebrations, starting with Wang Shixian, taking the first title of the year for the second straight time, again with a victory over a Korean opponent.
“Starting the year with a victory is of course a good sign for me,” Wang said after the match, “but we can see that there are more and more Koreans in the finals of tournaments and they are coming on very aggressively. I see this as a challenge and I hope I can stay in front of it and keep winning.
“For 2011, I hope that I can avoid the disappointments that I had last year, like at the Hong Kong Open, and I am focussed on qualifying for the Sudirman Cup team.”
“When I beat Wang in 2007, as juniors, we were still young and she made a lot of errors,” Bae said. “But in the course of about a year, she became much better at controlling the game and improved her speed and power so she is a much tougher opponent now.
“I have been runner-up twice but I haven’t had the success that Wang has. I’ve though about what it would be like but I guess I am still lacking in experience even though we are the same age. For this year, my target is just to get my ranking up as high as I can.
“I am still not used to the media attention I’m starting to get. I still feel shy in front of the camera and I don’t feel that I am a good speaker. I’m starting to get a taste for victory but I’m not counting on a Korea Open Premier Super Series title or the prize money just yet. I came to this tournament just hoping to do well.”
Immediately after Lee Chong Wei’s victory, Cheng Shu was denied the repeat New Year success that had already come to her partner when she and Zhao Yunlei once again fell to Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang. This time, the newer pairing dominated the first game 21-7 before coming from behind to take the second 21-17, Cheng and Zhao unable to find the form that saw them take the Asian Games gold, as well as their only ever win over Wang and Yu.
Men’s doubles was the only discipline where a 2010 Korea Open winner did not win gold. Jung Jae Sung and Lee Yong Dae were forced to start 2011 with silver as they suffered their worst ever defeat at the hands of Denmark’s Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen since their first meeting, five years ago yesterday at the 2006 Swiss Open.
“We were leading after the first three rallies in both games so they were under pressure and had to play from the defensive angle and we could attack, which is our style of play,” explained Mathias Boe at the post-match press conference. “That is what made it for us today.
“Of course if you compare a tournament like this to tennis, badminton still has a long way to go but it is getting better. The prize money of course – if you ask most of the players – can always go higher but I think when Carsten and I are old men, the people sitting on these chairs will be making more than we do so I think we are getting there.”
Asked what they thought of Taipei after winning here in 2008 and then again today, Boe replied simply “We love Taipei!”
“Because this is the first tournament of 2011, we haven’t had the preparation training,” explained Lee Yong Dae, “but there are lots of tournaments to go so we will prepare more, especially once the Olympic qualifying period begins.”
“The first time we played Boe and Mogensen, the Danes didn’t give 100%,” said Jung Jae Sung. “This time, we made errors at crucial points in the match and we tried to come back but they played it such that there were no empty spots to aim for in the court so we couldn’t find a way to win.”
“We still have two weeks left before the Korea Open because we aren’t participating in the Malaysia Open,” said Lee Yong Dae. “We feel that a lack of training may be what cost us the title here so we are going to focus on preparing for Korea – where the prize money is certainly something to shoot for – and hopefully we can perform well there.”
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