Olympics: London 2012

OU Alumna Nicci Shrimpton was one of the 8,000 chosen around the UK to carry the Olympic torch on its journey to the London Games 2012.

Nicci says: "The day was amazing and a great honour..... I was excited but very nervous, the sun was shining and there were lots of people there to support me.

"The crowds were incredible, Union Jacks, Welsh Dragons hundreds wanting photos and to touch the torch!! I did a slow jog to make the most of it and loved every minute of it.
 
"The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) staff were brilliant as were the Metropolitan Police who supported us.

"The excitement has continued with lots of local schools and community groups inviting me along with my torch to share my experiences!"

Nicci took part on 27 May between Swansea and Aberystwyth and was nominated by her manager at Action for Children for the outstanding work she has done for charity. 

Read more about Nicci and why she was chosen as a torchbearer
 

Olympic gold medallist, Dame Mary Peters has received an honorary degree for her contribution to Public Services in Belfast on 19 May.

John D’Arcy, Director of The Open University in Ireland delivered the citation on behalf of the University. In presenting the award of Doctor of the University, he said:

“Mary Peters' story is one of belief, determination, achievement, excellence and contribution within, but also beyond the world of sport and one which continues to inspire people of all ages".

He reminded the audience of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich when Mary Peters ascended to global status as an athlete by winning Olympic Gold in the women's penthalon, beating the local favourite Heidi Rosendahl in one of sport's most gripping and tense battles.

He added that the context of Mary's golden moment cannot be forgotten. The 1970s in Northern Ireland's history was a turbulent, traumatic and unfortunately tragic time. However, the contribution of sports people, artists and musicians provided a much-needed dose of normality. The achievements of Mary Peters, George Best, Alex Higgins and Van Morrison brought a sense of pride, belief and aspiration to Northern Ireland which has led to a strong foundation for countless individuals to aspire, achieve and succeed.

He also said that "For some 40 years Mary Peters has helped hundreds of Northern Ireland sportspeople in a practical way through both the Mary Peters Trust and through the Mary Peters Track in Belfast. She has also made a wider contribution to public life including services to charity, as well as with The Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

As we look forward to the London Olympics in 2012, we should not be surprised that Mary has been appointed as one of Team GB's 2012 ambassadors in the company of Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes and Denise Lewis. What better way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of her own Gold Medal win. “

On receiving the award, Dame Mary Peters said: “I am delighted and extremely honoured to receive this award from The Open University in this Olympic year. The Open University has removed the barriers that have prevented many people from studying at university, enabling them to realise their ambitions and fulfil their potential.”
 

Find out more:

• Study a qualification in sports and fitness
• Join the OU Olympic group

Universities Week 2012 (30 April–7 May) aims to increase public awareness of the wide and varied role of the UK’s universities. The theme this year is the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Universities including the OU have a high level of involvement in the Games or activity in relation to them. A recently published impact report shows just some of the great things which are being achieved.
 
Some famous Olympians including Open University Honorary Graduate; Dame Kelly Holmes share stories of their university days and say why they are supporting Universities week 2012. 

The week will culminate in the BUCS Outdoor Athletics Championships, which will be held in the Olympic Stadium as part of the London Prepares series.

This is the third annual national campaign of its kind and it is supported by universities across the UK and a wide range of organisations including Podium, the National Union of Students (NUS), Research Councils UK, GuildHE, the Universities Marketing Forum, Higher Education Funding Council for England and many more. The campaign is being coordinated by Universities UK and British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS).

Find out more:

• Join and share your comments in the Universities week 2012 group
• Are you involved in the Olympics? - volunteering then tell us more in the Olympics group
• What kind of sport would you do in the Olympics? try Olympisize me on OpenLearn
• Study a sports course with the OU

 

Picture credit: SportsBusiness' photostream

 

A learning unit about the Ancient Olympics hosted on the OU's free educational resource website OpenLearn has been recognised internationally with an award for excellence.

One of five global winners in the multimedia category, the award for Ancient Olympics: Bridging Past and Present was announced at the OpenCourseWare Consortium’s OER12 Conference in Cambridge on Monday (16 April 2012), with the unit’s use of multimedia highly praised.

The Ancient Olympics: Bridging Past and Present learning unit helps users explore the differences between ancient and modern games with maps, timelines and video materials. An unusual element of the unit is the use of animation videos illustrating how athletes in ancient Olympic Games were naked, partly in order to compete equally – a long way from today’s high-performance ergonomic kit.

The academic behind the unit, Lecturer in Classical Studies Dr Aarón Alzola Romero, said: “It is tremendous news that the Ancient Olympics unit has attracted recognition from such a large global community and it is a unit that we are very proud of producing. Sharing learning materials via our OpenLearn website is a key way that The Open University stays true to its mission of extending education to all. With less than 100 days to go to the London Olympics we expect this unit to prove increasingly popular, as part of our dedicated Olympics portal.”

“We’re very pleased to honour these courses,” said OCW Consortium Executive Director Mary Lou Forward. “They are truly outstanding examples of the amazing educational resources being shared openly by the members of the OpenCourseWare Consortium.”

The Awards for OpenCourseWare Excellence provide annual recognition to outstanding courseware and OpenCourseWare sites created in the OCW Consortium community. They also recognise individual leadership in moving the ideals of OpenCourseWare and Open Educational Resources forward. The awards were judged by the OCWC Board, including Anka Mulder, the President of OCWC and were presented at an event attended by academics from around the globe.

A screencast giving an overview of the unit is available here. The Open University’s Olympics Portal contains a breadth of resources and interactives around the Games, including video interviews with academic experts and athletes including Usain Bolt and Matthew Pinsent. A fun online game, Olympicize Me, gives people a way to get their own personal experience of the Olympics – the interactive assesses physical, psychological and social factors to help determine which sport people should compete in and what medal they would win. 


 

Caroline Boyle has competed in cycling events in two Olympic Games but now the Open University graduate – who’s currently studying Latin – faces a new challenge, to find a career which combines her sporty experience and classical qualifications.

“The skills I gained as an athlete are directly transferable to study – discipline, drive and the ability to focus are pre-requisites for both - I learned to tackle my studies in the same way as I’d approached my training which worked really well,” she says.

But the difficulty she now faces, is carving a career out of her unique combination of skills. “My life experience is diametrically opposed to my academic qualifications. It will be a real challenge to find a profession which will accommodate what I have to offer particularly as my personnel circumstances restrict me to distance learning. But I am equally passionate about both sport and the arts and I want if I can to help diffuse the tension between the two which the forthcoming Olympics has undoubtedly spotlighted. There seems to be a myth that art and sport cannot coexist in harmony but for me they are inextricably linked.”

When Caroline left school she went to work at the local shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness.  Along with many of her peers she studied towards a foundation degree in Engineering. “I found school pretty uninspiring which is perhaps why I opted for an apprenticeship underpinned by the subjects I had found more challenging.

"Likewise, it was this nascent desire to be pushed beyond my comfort zone that led me enter a triathlon when I was 20 on a borrowed bike … and I won it. I’d been a county level swimmer and middle distance runner in my teens, but surprisingly I posted the fastest time in the cycling element of the event. Instead of being average at three sports I decided to try to excel at one and chose to focus on cycling. So after finishing my apprenticeship I gave up my job to train full time.”

And the training paid off. Caroline had a fantastic cycling career under her maiden name of Alexander, competing in the Olympic Games in 1996 and 2000 and in the first ever mountain bike race in the Commonwealth Games in 2002. She also excelled in the World Cup finishing second overall on two occasions and won the European Championships. But the Olympic medal she coveted so much eluded her as she encountered mechanical problems in both Atlanta and Sydney, as well as crashing heavily in the 1996 Olympic road race.

Representing Scotland in the Commonwealth Games, she finished fifth in the road race and was cruelly denied victory in the mountain bike event when a slashed tyre forced her to withdraw despite having built up a commanding lead. “It was one of the few times in my sporting career that I’d managed to peak on the right day – an art form in its self!

'The OU was a great option for many of us here on the Furness peninsula when the shipyard downsized so I feel a certain degree of loyalty. In fact I can’t praise the OU enough'

"I had started to think about life after cycling and because I’d always been interested in antiquity, I had begun studying with the OU, initially to convert my foundation degree from Engineering to Humanities. I soon discovered that training and study really complemented each other, as the latter gave me something else to focus on, and helped me to keep my mind agile while my body was recovering.

“Scotland allowed me complete autonomy over my Commonwealth Games preparation, the bulk of which was spent at high altitude, and I had won a number of international races both on and off road in the build up, therefore I knew I was close to my best physically as well as mentally. A few days before my event Paula Radcliffe, who had so often been the bridesmaid, won the Commonwealth title, an achievement which I considered significant – I truly believed it would be my turn too!”

Caroline’s career had been subjected to “bad luck and always at the wrong time” and after this latest blip, she decided to retire from competitive cycling.  “A little voice inside my head was telling me it wasn’t to be! I wanted to go out at the peak of my powers rather than carry on past my sell by date and risk being remembered as someone who should have retired sooner. Arguably there are two types of athlete, those whose goal is to qualify for an Olympics or a World Championships and those for whom qualification is almost a foregone conclusion and their aim is to win a medal – I belonged to that latter category.”

For the first year after she retired Caroline continued to train while studying 120 points with the OU. “Although I didn’t race I wanted to keep my options open and be fit enough to compete if I decided to make a comeback. The following year earning a living intervened and I only managed 60 points at Level 3 instead of the 120 I’d intended. Kids were the next obstacle to academia, Felicity in the summer of 2006 and Penelope at the close of 2009, before I finally took up the reins again in 2010 and graduated with a BA (Hons) in Humanities with Classical Studies and Literature in 2011. “

“Next on the agenda is postgraduate study," she added. "However, sadly the OU’s MA in Classical Studies is problematic for me as the most heavily weighted assignment is due in at the end of the school holidays - two young children and 60 points at postgraduate level is an excluded combination for me! The powers that be threw me a lifeline when they decided to postpone the final presentation of A860 until 2013 by which time Penelope will be old enough to go to Kindergarten, but whether further study in this field will enhance my employment prospects is open to debate.

“The OU is a fantastic institution and I’ll be loathed to go elsewhere. It’s reliable, superbly organised and you know exactly what you’re getting, plus I’ve had some fantastic support from my tutors. It was a great option for many of us here on the Furness peninsula when the shipyard downsized so I feel a certain degree of loyalty. In fact I can’t praise the OU enough, I’ve had such a positive experience. So much so that I decided to sign up for A397 Continuing classical Latin in 2012. Although a mere 30 pointer it has been quite an undertaking given that I had no previous Latin until last summer when I embarked on a correspondence course! But then I do like a challenge!”

Caroline will be attending London 2012’s mountain biking events, to enjoy the sport and meet up with friends who still race.

 

Students across the UK have the opportunity to become the commentator at the Olympic Stadium during the BUCS Visa Outdoor Athletics Championships (OAC), a London 2012 test event as part of the London Prepares Series. The once in a lifetime opportunity is exclusive to UK higher education students, as part of Universities Week 2012 (30 April-7 May).

The Become the Commentator competition is encouraging all students, whatever their academic pathway, to upload their own 90 second commentary clip reporting on a local sporting event to the Universities Week YouTube channel. The judges will be looking for truly inspirational sports reporting, worthy of London's world-class stadium, which brings to life the event with passion and precision.

The prize
On Saturday 5 May 2012, three lucky finalists will get coaching from two of Britain's best known sports commentators, John Inverdale and Paul Dickenson, before competing in the commentary box. The winner will be selected the stadium's sports presentation team to commentate in the OAC's evening finals in front of spectators at the Olympic Stadium.

Universities Week 2012 will recognise and celebrate the contribution that our universities make - and have always made - to the Olympic movement and the sports industry in the UK. The Week is part of a celebration of UK universities' world-class status, their support for students and the huge contribution they make to society as a whole.

Find out more and enter the competition.

Competition closes: 9 April 2012

* You must be a current student to enter the competition.

Professor Tim Chappell, Director of the OU Ethics Centre, writes about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. Is there a place for them? Should athletes be putting their health at risk to achieve medals? And will competing become more about the size of your wallet than your physique?

With the  Olympics bearing down on us, and with the sprinter Dwain Chambers and the cyclist David Millar appealing their lifetime bans in order to be eligible for the London 2012, perhaps it's time to have a think about the place - if any - of performance-enhancing drugs in sport.

We  all know the usual arguments in favour: “Everybody's doing it anyway.” “Bring it out into the open so you can regulate it.” “Whatever helps you win is fine.” “It's up to you what you take.” Or even: “The athlete who stops eating pies and the athlete who starts taking steroids are both altering their diets in the interests of good performance - where's the real difference?”

Before we look at these arguments more closely, I think we should step back to ask ourselves - what are we doing in sport anyway?

Whether as competitors or as spectators, we're looking for glorious, exceptional, superlative physical performances. But that doesn't mean that we want to see (or run) the fastest 100m sprint that anything can do. (If it did, we'd go and watch a jaguar, or get in a Jaguar.) It means that we want to see the fastest 100m sprint that a human can do.

With drugs in the picture, is it really about what humans can do any more? I'd say not. I'd say watching a drugged performance is more like watching what drugs can do, and the money that buys them. I'd say it’s about taking things away from the competitors and giving them to the market. Where's the glory in that?

Or think of it another way. Remember when you were two, and your game was to try and jump across a puddle two feet wide? This game is fine if you’re toddler sized, boringly easy if you’re an adult-sized adult. The logical conclusion of enhancing athletes' performance is that at least some of our games will go the way of the toddler's puddle game. Do we want that? Do we want to outgrow the games we play?

Climbing is a case in point here. If you stick bolts in it, you can get up any rock. This is what makes climbers get so angry on the subject of bolts. If you want to rattle a climber's cage ask him what his favourite climb is, then tell him you think it should be bolted. Provided it hasn't been already, of course.

Of course, if we did outgrow our current games by drugs or magic or whatever, no doubt we’d invent some other games. Fine. No more football - time to switch to quidditch... But the point for the moment is just this: athletics with drugs is, at best, a different game from athletics without. And when some of the competitors are playing one game and others the other, the whole activity gets into hopeless confusion.

Not just confusion, though; corruption as well. It's quite easy for the participants in a sport to be fairly severely exploited. Here's something that can happen: a naïve young boy from the slums with no prospects at all is taken up by a rich promoter and turned into a boxer. The boy makes some money, sure. The promoter makes more. And the promoter doesn't end up brain-damaged. If this happens (and I'm not saying it does, just that it can), then it seems to me that the boy has been pretty severely exploited for the enrichment of the promoter, and the entertainment of those who like watching boxing.

'In practice, if there is no regulation, individuals will not be free to decide. They will have no choice but to take the drugs because everyone else is taking them'

So compare the case in athletics where someone achieves fantastic performances by taking steroids for 20 years. Think about the kind of horror-stories we used to hear regularly from the Soviet Union about 50-year-old steroid-raged moustachioed ex-shot-putters with cataracts, duodenal ulcers, and severe weight problems. These people have been sacrificed for our entertainment. Are we happy with that? I don't think we should be.

Of course, athletes in the Soviet Union were forced to take performance-enhancing drugs. That doesn't mean it's a whole lot better to “leave individuals free to decide” what drugs they take. In practice, if there is no regulation, individuals will not be free to decide. They will have no choice but to take the drugs because everyone else is taking them. Here as elsewhere, by regulating the state serves the role that it's there for in a genuinely liberal settlement. It can regulate in a way that actually increases citizens' freedom, rather than decreasing it.

Also of course, not all performance-enhancing drugs are bad for you. Or like caffeine, they're a bit bad for you, but not very. Or their long-term effects are unknown. And there are drug therapies which involve not taking things rather than taking them, which seems just like giving up alcohol to perform better... surely some of these therapies must be all right?

Yes, there are grey areas. But there are often are grey areas in life. The fact that some things are grey doesn't mean that nothing is black or white. We can be quite clear about the kinds of performance-enhancing drugs that we most want to eradicate, and work backwards from those cases to the less obvious ones.

I suggest that the two things most worth eradicating are really harmful drugs and really expensive drugs. We should ban the harmful ones because, well, because they're harmful; we should ban the expensive ones because they turn what ought to be a competition between physiques into a competition between wallets. And once we know what we think about the clear and easy cases, we may find ourselves in a better position to think about the marginal and difficult ones.

 

Find out more:

• Professor Tim Chappell
• The OU Ethics Centre
• Free study unit: The Ancient Olympics: Bridging past and present
• More about philosophy on OpenLearn
• Study with the OU: Philosophy
   

Picture credit: Thinkstock

OU student Nicci Shrimpton has been selected as one of the 8,000 runners who will be carrying the Olympic torch on its nationwide tour ahead of the games in London. She was chosen for her work with disabled children as well as many extra fundraising efforts for a variety of charities.

Action for Children worker Nicci was selected by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) after being nominated by her manager, Eve Chinnery.

Nicci is looking forward to her Olympic role, which will see her carry the torch along a part of the 70-day Olympic Torchbearer Relay around the UK. Nicci said: "I don't know where I will be carrying it yet, but I have been told I will have it on May 27th somewhere between Swansea and Aberystwyth. It could be anywhere on the route, but I hope it's close to home!"

She added that when she received the confirmation email from LOCOG, she couldn't believe it. “I was gobsmacked but absolutely delighted to be chosen as I thought the chances of actually being picked were so minimal. I couldn't be more pleased.”

The keen runner has raised hundreds of pounds for charity by completing the Cardiff Half Marathon and is set to compete in this year’s London Marathon. Eve Chinnery, Action for Children Service Manager, said: “Nicci thoroughly deserves to take part in this historic sporting event. She is a hardworking and dedicated member of the team at Powys Community Support Service and also dedicates her spare time to the disabled children outside of working hours, as well as studying for an Open University degree and bringing up to two teenage sons.”

Nicci certainly has some exciting times ahead. “2012 is going to be a good year with my Graduation, the London Marathon and of course being a torch bearer which I am very honoured to be doing, and to top it all I was one of the lucky people to get Olympic tickets so will be going to the stadium with my sons to watch the Athletics on 10th August too.”

With such a busy lifestyle the OU’s study path was the best option for Nicci who is currently studying for an Open Degree.

“I am very excited to be attending my graduation ceremony in the Barbican at the end of March! I really enjoyed my studies with the OU, I like the flexibility, the support was excellent and I could fit it in around everything else to suit my schedule. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone.”

Find out more:

• OpenLearn – Olympics/Paralympics 2012
• Study sports course
• Nicci’s blog
• Support Nicci

What does it take to be a top Olympian or Paralympian? OpenLearn have created a game that will let you discover your perfect sport - Try Olympisize Me.

As we count down to London 2012, give yourself a special insight into the world's most exciting sporting event with The Open University's collection of exciting interactives, academic insights and lots of free opportunities to take your learning even further in the world of sport.

Find out more: 

• Olympics 2012
• Y164 Exploring sport online (OpenLearn free material)
• Sport and Fitness modules at the OU