Category Archives: Ben Oakley

Making sense of formal and informal activity spaces

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By Ben Oakley

This purpose of this blog – which is one of the early readings for learners on our introductory module E114 – is twofold. It explores the main differences that exist between informal sport, exercise and physical activity spaces and those that are more formal and organised such as sports clubs and leisure centres. Some suggest that the use of formal spaces is in decline with informal spaces becoming more popular than in the past (Eime et al. 2020). In highlighting some of the distinctive features of informal activities the blog demonstrates why knowledge of these are useful for those working in the sector. Focusing attention on informal activity spaces is timely because the social and physical need for such spaces was highlighted by the experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal spaces are likely to be a growth area for physical activity participation in the coming years.

The blog also serves as a vehicle to show how two styles of writing can be deployed to discuss the same topic. A personal first-person reflective style is used in the first section, where the author draws on their own perspective and experiences and refers to themselves directly through the use of ‘I’ or ‘my’. The later section uses a more detached third-person objective style to discuss the topic more generally; this latter style creates narrative distance by positioning the author as an outside observer, often seeking to explain or analyse a topic drawing upon sources of information written by others rather than personal experiences.

The blog is structured with three sections. lt opens with some personal reflections of how activity spaces shaped the author’s sporting journey, followed by a section exploring the differences between formal and informal sport. The final section considers some of ways that informal sport spaces can become important to develop a sense of community among minoritised groups, before some concluding thoughts.

My childhood experiences of activity spaces

I grew up in a medium sized town on the coast with considerable time spent at play outside. The influence of school sport and activities gradually became more and more important to me and much of my childhood was spent being active in education spaces. The sporting rhythm of the year was dictated by the seasons with football and rugby in the winter and cricket and athletics in the summer whilst occasionally we were introduced to ‘new’ sports such as basketball or volleyball during physical education (PE) classes. The spaces where these took place ranged from the indoor sports hall, the playground (mainly football in lunchbreaks), a playing field (rugby and cricket), the nearby city athletics track and the corner of a car park outside my house (varied activities). My mother was also member of a local watersports club where I learnt to sail, aged 6-7, and later competed in summer holidays. I was quite good at all these activities and without knowing it at the time sport became an important part of who I was –  I became reasonably skilled and developed the confidence to embrace new activities.

Towards my later school years my diet of activities broadened further through my mum’s efforts and ability to pay for my new sports experiences. When school staff asked if we wanted to try new sports such as squash or tennis by travelling and/or paying for introductory sessions I leapt at the chance. With friends I travelled on public transport to either a club opening their doors or a local leisure facility. With racket in hand, I also took up casual self-organised summer badminton when we strung up a washing line in a friend’s back yard. I was also introduced to walking and camping in nearby countryside under the supervision of schoolteachers giving up their holiday time and mum paying for the trips. At that time I also learnt how to windsurf at a fledgling local commercial beach watersports centre; this activity later became the focus of my full-time coaching career.

Reflecting on the spaces I used, they were varied types across my childhood. Originally, they were dominated by school facilities, a friend’s garden and the car park next door to home. Gradually I started to use local leisure centre spaces and was introduced to sports clubs either as ‘member’ or as a ‘pay and play’ guest. My neighbourhood shaped my preferences since the watersports and hiking opportunities would not have existed if I had lived 20 miles inland or in a large city. I was privileged to have so many sports spaces nearby and a supportive mother.

Using the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ activity distinction

In this section there is a change of writing style to the third person by positioning me the author as an outside objective observer. To help achieve this, ‘they’ or ‘it’, or similar, are sometimes used to indicate the more detached position of the writer.

One way to analyse the types of active spaces described in the above account of childhood experiences is to draw on the distinction between formal and informal active spaces. Formal spaces are places like a school sports hall, playing fields, sports clubs, local authority facilities or a commercial watersport centre; the space needs to be booked and sometimes paid for. A definition of informal spaces is one in which group based physical activities occur but without a club structure, significant fees, formal membership and without formal rules or referees. For this reason, the activity is often more spontaneous. It occurs in the public spaces often in urban environments ranging from green spaces to open access facilities on housing estates. These are often known as multi use games areas (MUGAs). It has been noted that informal ‘meetup’ physical activities ‘increasingly have a digital life in that they are sometimes arranged via mobile phone apps and on social media forums (Wise et al., 2018).

The formal and informal activity distinction is explored further using examples that help illustrate more precisely what is meant by informal spaces and why they have become more important in recent decades (Borgers et al. 2016). The first example comes from basketball. Until the 1990s there was a problem in basketball, like other indoor sports, of indoor facilities being a barrier to young people being able to play because it was expensive and you usually had to be part of a team to book a court (Basketball England, 2024). An outdoor basketball initiative was created to support informal street basketball by installing hoops into mostly public spaces. For about a decade from 1996 some 9,300 basketball hoops were fixed into the asphalt across England in spaces such as parks, recreation grounds, youth centres, schools, colleges, universities, housing complexes and community centres. The sportswear company Adidas were the main title sponsor with £1 million (Basketball England, 2024) and evidence of these and similar hoops are part of many neighbourhoods around the UK.

Researchers have observed informal sport as recognisable sporting forms (e.g. cricket, soccer and basketball)– termed by Borgers et al. (2016) as ‘sport-light’. ‘Participation is flexible with the opportunity for individuals to drop in and out’ (Jeanes et al., 2019, p.81). Informal sport activities are a familiar feature of urban life most visible of which are street football, cricket or basketball.  The numbers of those participating in informal sport have increased and now outnumber those playing in clubs (Neal et al. 2024). However, there has also been ‘an increase in … less familiar forms of informal leisure activities such as volleyball, climbing, parkour, frisbee, wild swimming and urban running and walking groups’ (2024 p.877). This trend reflects the diversification of informal sport and leisure groups with collaborative and sometimes competitive features.

Developing a sense of community through informal sport

A further recognisable feature that has been reported is how informal sport often supports social aspects of a community and bolsters minority communities’ identities. Neal et al. (2024) describes an asphalt space in a corner of a London park in a low-income district. They report that on most warm evenings the space becomes a meeting place in which members of the Central and South American migrant communities come to participate in and watch volleyball matches. The ‘court’ and net are DIY created by the players. The players are pretty skilled and boisterous with their audience sitting in groups, some with food and some who appear to be betting on matches. They conclude that the neglected park edge transforms into a hubbub of loud social and sporting activity.

Informal activities such as this facilitate a sense of community and belonging amongst participants (King and Church, 2015). It is also suggested that informal opportunities can provide a valuable opportunity to expand participation to traditionally marginalised groups, e.g. those of low socio-economic status and ethnic minority communities (King and Church, 2015). Such unstructured opportunities often appeal to individuals precisely because they are not rule bound (Wheaton and O’Loughlin, 2017). In relation to parkour, the same researchers suggest participants are ‘often hostile to rules and regulations, especially those that are externally driven.

Final thoughts

Back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s informal sport consisted mainly of ‘jumpers as goals’ football matches in parks. However, a combination of new sports and forms of physical activity (e.g. skateboarding, BMX, parkour), the health benefits of exercise being recognised and more traditional sports adapting to meet people’s changing lifestyles has seen informal sport increase. Arranging collaborative ‘meet ups’ to play have also been supporting by subsequent developments in mobile and digital communication so that today there are a range of ways in which physical activity can be engaged with beyond traditional facilities. All these factors are important considerations for organisations such as National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of sport who are continually seeking to develop opportunities to attract new participants and keep existing participants involved in their sports. Urban planners should also consider how multi-use (e.g. 5-a-side football, basketball, netball, cricket), open access and free spaces are provided when new housing developments are created.

Reference List

Basketball England (2024) The history of the iconic Outdoor Basketball Initiative. Available at:  https://www.basketballengland.co.uk/news/2024/the-history-of-the-iconic-outdoor-basketball-initiative/ Accessed 17th December 2024.

Borgers, J., Breedveld, K., Tiessen-Raaphorst, A., Thibaut, E., Vandermeerschen, H., Vos, S., & Scheerder, J. (2016). A study on the frequency of participation and time spent on sport in different organisational settings. European Sport Management Quarterly, 16(5), 635-654.

Eime, R., Harvey, J., & Charity, M. (2020). Sport participation settings: where and ‘how’ do Australians play sport?. BMC Public Health, 20, 1-9.

Jeanes, R. Spaaij, R., Penney, D. & O’Connor, J. (2019) ‘Managing informal sport participation: tensions and opportunities’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 11(1), pp. 79–95.

King, K., & Church, A. (2015). Questioning policy, youth participation and lifestyle sports. Leisure Studies, 34(3): 282–302.

Neal, S., Pang, B., Parry, K., & Rishbeth, C. (2024). Informal sport and leisure, urban space and social inequalities: Editors’ Introduction. Leisure Studies, 43(6): 875-886.

Wheaton, B., & O’Loughlin, A. (2017). Informal sport, instiutionalisation, and sport policy: Challenging thesportization of parkour in England. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 9(1), 71–88.

Wise, A., Parry, K., Aquino, K., Neal, S., & Velayutham, S. (2018). Pushing casual sport to the margins threatens cities’social cohesion. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/pushing-casual-sport-to-the-margins-threatens-cities-social-cohesion-92352 Accessed: 17th December 2024.

Reflecting on the complex legacy of Linford Christie

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By Caroline Heaney, Ben Oakley, Ola Fadoju and Jim Lusted

© BBC Photo – Photographer Jim Sharp

In July 2024 an impactful OU/BBC documentary ‘Linford‘ exploring Linford Christie’s (1992 Olympic 100m Champion) legacy aired on BBC1 just before the Paris Olympics. As well as charting the highs of his career, the documentary also addressed some of the lows such as racism and doping which were acknowledged in the media as being particularly powerful aspects of the programme. For example, The Guardian described the ‘racist fetishisation’ experienced by Linford as ‘heartbreaking’, whilst Athletics Weekly acknowledged the ‘painful’ sight of two of Linford’s children in tears after watching archive footage of their father facing the trivialisation of racism. In this article four #TeamOUsport staff members reflect on the documentary and the impact it had on them.

Ben’s reflections

Image: Josep Maria Trias, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

At the 1992 Olympics, for Linford’s 100m victory, I was in the Olympic village as part of the Team GB coaching team (windsurfing). That night many Brits crammed around the TV to watch him, aged 32, win the gold. It was one of those shared moments. We leaped around the room in celebration, proud that ‘one of us’ had won the blue-riband event. We all walked a bit taller. In a way it galvanised the GB team.

Watching how his personal story unfolded in ‘Linford’ I now understand that by defending his corner he was often perceived as tricky character by the media. For me, the greatest personal slight and racist trope having scaled the peak of Olympic sprinting history was for the very next day his achievement to be demeaned by the Sun newspaper. Their front page focused on his genitals rather than his supreme global victory. In the Olympic village we didn’t see the papers but now I better understand how racist stereotypes were at play. Would the same have happened to say, Andy Murray after his Wimbledon success or other world beating white athletes? For me, this type of framing of success can’t be dismissed as ‘banter’, it is abusive.

Ola’s reflections

Linford Christie was iconic – he was ‘the man’ who took the fight to the USA sprinters. The way he stood on the starting line, completely focused and dominating everybody in that 1991-93 period  made him the greatest in that era.  While watching the documentary it was great to see him being honoured but you can also see how much he was maligned by the British media.

I remember fuming in my Haringey bedsit  at the subtle racism and gaslighting at play as Linford was having to justify why he was wearing Lycra shorts on the Saint and Greavsie programme, so much so that I wrote a letter of complaint. The British mainstream media never gave Linford the platitudes or spoke about his supreme mental strength and great sprinting ability which contrasted to the positive coverage for white male athletes. The press just wanted to talk about his genitalia as if that was what all Linford was.

Image from Pixabay

He won a case against the Met police in the 1990s and interestingly things haven’t changed as two of the athletes that Linford coaches, Bianca Williams and Ricardo Dos Santos, also successfully took the Met police to court because they were unlawfully arrested and found to be racially profiled by officers in 2020. At the time Linford brought this to our attention on social media and was castigated by many people that he was a ‘race baiter’, rather than being praised for supporting his athletes.  How can it be that even now the Police are still racially profiling Black people in the UK?

Linford was the greatest sprinter this country has ever produced. His legacy should be celebrated.

Jim’s reflections

I had just turned 16 when Linford Christie won 100m gold in 1992 but I remember it like yesterday. I got the chills watching the race again via the documentary, aided by David Coleman’s famous commentary. He was one of my childhood sporting heroes – he came from London (like me), he was a sprinter (I liked to run fast too), he took on the brash, dominant North American athletes with all their privileges and beat them all (an easy narrative to get behind as an impressionable teenager).

Image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay

Looking back now, I think I followed Linford’s career because of these simple personal connections. The racial politics associated with his career only really became apparent to me later as I began to take more of an interest in issues of ‘race’ and racism in sport during my studies and then through my academic career. For me, one of the most fascinating moments in the documentary was when Christie talked about wrapping himself in the union flag after his victory. He notes the controversy this caused, recalling a UK official telling him at the time that ‘this wasn’t something (Black) athletes should be doing’. But this simple gesture took on huge significance as it became an iconic moment well beyond sport; Christie’s flag wearing was an overt display of Black Britishness, one which helped to re-define national identity in late 20th Century Britain. In that respect, it is what Linford did straight after, rather than during, that race in Barcelona all those years ago that is arguably his greatest legacy.

Caroline’s reflections

Image by Claudio Bianchi from Pixabay

As someone who has been involved in athletics since the early 1990s and trained in a similar area of West London to Linford, I felt honoured to be an academic consultant on this documentary with Ben. As an athlete in that period Linford was a legend and it was always exciting when he trained at my track or was at the same competitions as me. To me and others in athletics he always came across as a nice guy, who took the time to speak to people and seemed very humble. It surprised me when others and elements of the media seemed to have a different opinion of him. That differing perspective continues to this day through his perceived legacy since retiring from competition. To those outside of athletics, Linford is perceived to be invisible and to have disappeared under a cloud of disgrace after his drugs ban. Those inside of athletics know that Linford is in fact still very visible, and his legacy has lived on through his role as a coach. Learning from the close partnership he had with his own coach Ron Roddan, Linford has gone on to successfully coach several athletes including Olympic medallists Darren Campbell and Katherine Merry and 2024 Olympian Bianca Williams. His coaching career, however, continues to be touched by issues of drugs and racism. His drugs ban means that he is not allowed accreditation as a coach at any Olympics and so his ability to support his athletes in hindered. Sports coaching as a profession continues to lack diversity with black people typically underrepresented and so Linford’s position as a successful black coach means that he continues to be an important role model and continues to challenge racial stereotypes – an important legacy.

 

The ‘Linford’ documentary has been instrumental in raising awareness of some of the darker sides of sport that not only affected Linford Christie’s competitive career in the 1980s and 90s, but sadly continue to affect athletes today. Let’s hope that this awareness can be a catalyst for change.

The ‘Linford’ documentary is an Open University (OU)/BBC co-production. You can watch it on BBC iPlayer.

Associated resources exploring why athletic performances continue to improve can also be found on the Open University Connect website.

2020 Insight: do your recruitment and retention strategies need to change to suit a modern sport and physical activity workforce?

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By Ben Oakley (The Open University) and Steve Mitchell (Sporting People)

Reproduced with permission of Sport England (image without words)

Central government (2015) and Sport England (2016, 2017 and 2018) have both indicated their desire to see more focus and funding invested into developing the sport and physical activity workforce. But what does this mean for your organisation and the people you employ now and in the future? This is particularly important if you are a public organisation or a club that is interested in receiving taxpayers’ or National Lottery funding beyond 2020. In this article we illustrate four examples of workforce development in action and consider what further transformation might look like. But first: why is change needed?

Figure 1 A timeline of main strategy announcements from Government (2015) and Sport England (2016-2018) indicating a direction of travel for policy and funding.

Why change?
Approximately 900,000 people are paid, many part-time, in supporting, or coaching, others in sport or physical activities (Sport England, 2018). They represent, in effect, a significant social movement. Yet, research suggests their approach to working with marginalised groups, and engaging inactive communities is often sub-optimal (e.g. London Sport, 2017).

The training of this workforce is also inconsistently delivered, assessed and benchmarked against other professions and regulated sectors. The CEO of Sport England suggests that claims about inactive groups being ‘hard to reach’ is unjust; the current approach of organisations to engage many inactive or marginalised communities has been poorly informed and executed.

Therefore, if we all agree to:

a) increase the number of physically active people we need to better prepare our ‘people’ by developing them with the skills and confidence to work towards this.

b) And, in order to maintain the confidence of the general public, and for the public health, justice and education sectors to invest in our work, we need to change how our learning and development operates. We need to demonstrate that our sector has sufficient quality development experiences to ensure safe practice that is both accessible to all and effective.
Some might say ‘our sport and people are just fine as they are’. Yes, we can continue the status quo but if you value public confidence and funding in our sector then keep reading to see some ideas you should be considering.

Four examples of recent people initiatives
These examples, with online links for further context, have emerged from organisations creating innovative solutions to workforce gaps or needs. To date there has been little coordinated sector effort … but there could be. Do any of these stimulate ideas relevant to your own organisation?

1. A National Governing Body (NGB)
Great Britain and England Hockey has transformed its coach training model to become better at developing appropriately skilled coaches. They have introduced a far wider coach development pathway involving many more specific and online development opportunities and built in more flexible assessment methods to support people to completion. The NGB’s consultation suggested courses “need to have maximum ‘pitch time’ and more online home study opportunities to allow for coaches to learn in their own time.” This has reduced the length and cost of courses, including travel costs.

2. A Community Activator Apprenticeship
Coach Core’s vision is that communities can benefit by having young relatable role models who could progress, not just their own life chances, but improve the lives of others around them too. They create a meaningful education and employment programme for 16-24 year olds funded through the Apprenticeship levy on larger businesses that was introduced in 2017. They focus on young people that need the opportunity the most in deprived inner-city communities and pay a wage during their Apprenticeship. This suggests that coaching related Apprenticeships are a valuable modern training option and pathway into sustainable employment.

3. Quality online coach learning and development
The Open University identified a need for new CPD learning for those that support and develop coaches; very little opportunities currently exist and promotion to the role is currently based on experience, rather than education. Using our expertise in coaching and distance education we launched a free online ‘Coaching others to coach’ course that has attracted 1900 participants in seven months. Learning that is open to all, 24/7, means people can learn at a time that suits them with a quality assured digital badge upon completion. Other CPD opportunities are being explored and the OU have also launched a similar, free ‘Communication and working relationships in sport and fitness’ course.

4. Active partnership: health professionals and leisure centres
Sport for Confidence programmes place health occupational therapists and specialist coaches into leisure centres, to provide inclusive sporting opportunities to people who face barriers to taking part. For instance, those with learning disabilities, mental health issues, dementia, autism or disability. The model works by using mainstream environments and delivery adjustments alongside breaking down barriers to ensure sport and physical activity is more accessible and can deliver occupational outcomes for public health and social care.

Final thoughts
Momentum is building with the Chartered Institute for the sector (CIMSPA) and UK Coaching refreshing quality standards for the sector and developing products to support coach development. In the future you need to be actively investing in your workforce, more so than at present. Perhaps it is timely to start to think about creating a ‘people developer’ role to prepare for the challenges ahead. But, for us, this far more than a coach education lead or HR specialist. How will these people developers be prepared for their important new role? Who has the insight on recruiting this talent and ensuring it is ready for the challenge?
We await feedback on this post and if there is interest, we may continue to write more on this intriguing topic. We think it is a puzzle to be solved in several ways.

References
London Sport, (2017) Bigger and Better Workforce Review, August 2017. Available from: https://data.londonsport.org/dataset/vdkjm/bigger-and-better-workforce-review.

Sport England, (2017) Working in an Active Nation: a Professional Workforce Strategy for England. Available from: https://sportengland-production-files.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/working-in-an-active-nation-10-1.pdf

The Authors
Ben Oakley and OU colleagues, have developed online CPD provision for those who develop coaches along with resources for other groups.

Steve Mitchell sits on an Active Partnership board and holds various Directorships across skills and training.

Getting the message across: interpersonal communication

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By Ben Oakley

If you only have a hammer in your tool box, then everything is a nail.

In other words, you approach every job in exactly the same way. Hammer it in. If it doesn’t need hammering, tough luck – hammer it anyway.

Now apply this to communication. Do you approach every situation in exactly the same way? Or do you vary your approach according to the requirements of the situation and the needs of the people involved? Which of these approaches do you think an employer would prefer?

Knowing yourself: a self-evaluation questionnaire

A key part of effective communication is being able to evaluate your own communication strengths and weaknesses and beginning to understand how others perceive you. One tool that can help is use of a short one page self-evaluation questionnaire (see link below). You may complete this yourself but it would be more powerful if you also asked trusted friends or colleagues to also rate your skills.

Communication Skills: Self-Evaluation Questionnaire

We are not presenting this as a golden nugget solution to communication; however, it will help you begin to identify how you interact. Developing self-awareness is a feature of those who are able to effectively communicate.

Ideally you might also complete the questionnaire and think about the subtlety different ways you respond to different groups such as work or classmates compared to closer friends.

Any feedback on this questionnaire would be gratefully received.

Sport and Fitness Student Induction: Student Hub Live

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On Tuesday 26th September 2017, as part of our induction for sport and fitness students studying at the Open University, we held a live induction event through our Student Hub Live platform. If you missed the session you can watch the full video here on the link below or you can watch the individual videos of each session below.

Session 1: Sport and Fitness Qualification Overview (Caroline Heaney and Ben Oakley)

Session 2: Sport and Fitness Blog and Social Media (Helen Owton and Karen Howells)

Session 3: The Role of the Tutor (Helen Owton and Ola Fadoju)

Session 4: E117 App Demonstration (Ben Langdown and Caroline Heaney)

Session 5: The Student Journey (Jess Pinchbeck and Caroline Heaney)

What do the Olympic medal tables say about your nation’s sporting priorities?

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By Ben Oakley and Simon Shibli

Each time the Olympic and Paralympic Games come around, a small minority of nations tend to do well. On average, only 25% of competing nations at the Olympics will win a gold medal – and they’re pretty much the same ones year in, year out.

Intrigued, we dug into data spanning back to 1948 – derived from our colleagues at Gracenote Sport – to unravel how different countries approach sport, and how that affects their chances of Olympic success.

Looking back over the last 20 years, we found that the top 20 nations have consistently won more than 70% of the medals at each games. Despite the fact that some progress has been made over the last five games, the figure below demonstrates that this trend has persisted throughout modern Olympic history.

It follows that if some nations consistently perform very well, others repeatedly do not. One group which appears to perform relatively poorly is Muslim nations – which we define as those nations where around 50% of the population is Muslim. We found 53 nations that meet this definition, which collectively account for 18% of the world’s population.

Econometric models have consistently shown that bigger populations and greater wealth are closely linked with medal success. But based on these trends, Muslim nations perform well below what we might expect. For instance, Muslim nations only won 61 (6.3%) of the medals awarded at London 2012. By comparison, the top-ranked nation at the games (the US) racked up 104 (10.8%) of the medals, with only 4.5% of the world’s population.

There are several reasons which could explain this relatively poor performance. For one thing, the Olympics largely features typically European sports, such as swimming, rowing and cycling. All of these require significant facilities and investment to develop medal winners. This doesn’t play to the strengths of many Muslim nations, which tend to be more successful in combat sports and weightlifting – events where there are comparatively fewer medals up for grabs.

The gender balance

All things being equal, you would expect nations to win medals in proportion to the medals available for each gender (47% women, 53% men). The fact that women won just 15 (25%) of the Muslim nations’ 61 medals at London 2012 indicates that Muslim nations under-perform in women’s events particularly.

When we considered the top ten nations in London 2012, we noticed that Korea and Italy also under-performed in women’s events, and over-relied on men for their overall success. By contrast, in recent years China has actively targeted success in women’s events. This has proved to be a highly successful strategy: 57% of the nation’s medals in 2012 were won by women, which led to second place in the medal table.

Other nations with strong contributions made by women include the US – where college sport provides a fruitful pathway to develop young talent – and Australia, which has targeted elite sport success for men and women since the 1980s, when it set up the Australian Institute of Sport. Meanwhile, with their successful equestrian programmes, Germany and Great Britain won nearly 10% of their medals in mixed or open events at London 2012.

Positive approaches to women’s sport will only become more significant, as the International Olympic Committee works towards its goal to achieve gender equity in the 2020s.

Paralympic power

As you might expect, there is a strong correlation between the nations which dominate the Olympics, and those which succeed at the Paralympics. But a few nations buck the trend: some perform better in the Paralympics than the Olympics, and others significantly worse.

To illustrate this point, the figure below shows the index scores of Paralympic success compared with Olympic success for London 2012. An index score simply enables us to make a like for like comparison between the two events. For example, the US won 6% of medals in the Paralympic Games and 12% in the Olympic Games. So, the US has an index score of 50 ([6% / 12%] x 100 = 50), which means that it achieved only half the success in the Paralympic Games, relative to the Olympic Games.

The higher the index, the greater the nation’s Paralympic success, relative to its performance in the Olympics. We did this calculation for all nations which won at least 15 Paralympic medals.

North African nations Algeria and Tunisia – which also happen to be Muslim nations – excelled at the Paralympics relative to the Olympics. Of the traditional Olympic powers, better performances were also seen by Ukraine, Australia, China, Canada and Spain – three of which have been recent hosts (Sydney in 2000, Beijing in 2008 and Barcelona in 1992).

By contrast, the US and Japan performed relatively poorly at the Paralympics, suggesting that elite disabled athletes may not be receiving the levels of support which are provided to elite able-bodied athletes.

Fuller explanations for these variations are complex, but social attitudes towards disability must play a part. For instance, British parliamentarian and multi-Paralympic medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson cited the role of television coverage as a key factor in the US’s modest Paralympic performance.

Bizarrely, in a country where you have Title IX about women’s entitlement to sport at university and they have had scholarship programmes for disabled athletes for 40 years … the public do not get to see it [on television].

As the Olympics and Paralympics play out in Rio throughout August and September, we’ll probably see the same old suspects dominating the medal tables. But dig beneath the surface, and you’ll find that the results can tell us a thing or two about each nation’s sporting priorities: especially when it comes to the success of their elite women and disabled athletes.

The Conversation

Ben Oakley, Head of Childhood, Youth and Sport, The Open University and Simon Shibli, Professor of Sport Management, Sheffield Hallam University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Why watch Chasing Perfection?

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In a previous blog post we told you about an exciting new TV programme, Chasing Perfection, co-produced by The Open University and presented by Michael Johnson. In the video below, Ben Oakley, one of the academic consultants on the programme, tells us a little more about Chasing Perfection and how it links to a new module (E314 Exploring contemporary issues in sport and exercise) we are developing for our BSc (Hons) Sport, Fitness and Coaching qualification.

Chasing Perfection will be screened on Channel 4 on Sunday 15th November and Sunday 22nd November 2015 at 7.05am. It will also be available to watch on demand on All 4.

For more information visit:

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/chasingperfection
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/chasing-perfection
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/chasing-perfection/articles/all/insights-from-chasing-perfection

Are we any good at sport?

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By Ben Oakley

Team sports dominate the general public’s perception of sporting success. The UK proudly looks forward to supporting all four of its national teams in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. But, if some, or all, fail to qualify for the final stages of world or European Championships – as happened with the football teams in 2008 – there is collective gloom at our demise. After all, many team sports were developed in Britain – so shouldn’t we be good at them?

We tend to judge ourselves by success in team sports which are closely linked to national identity: football, cricket and rugby. Although national teams can do well in cricket and rugby, these are essentially not seen as ‘world’ sports since they reflect colonial dissemination – we should do well, given the small number of nations who play these sports professionally (less than 15). Consider the data on registered rugby players in England (340,000), Wales (73,000), Scotland (49,000) and Ireland (97,000) compared to top ranked New Zealand (148,000). Click to see this infographicExternal link 10 from World RugbyExternal link 11 for more information and statistics.

In global football, on the other hand, England’s recent achievements are lamentable and reaching the last four (last achieved in 1990) of the World Cup seem a distant past. The rhetoric in the build up to such events is astonishingly optimistic but the hope often belies reality. But in terms of the Premier League football commercial ‘product’, we are world beaters with it surpassing the American football equivalent (NFL) in 2012 for global broadcast and sponsorship revenues.

Two England Rugby players

Creative commons image Credit: By David Barkhausen [CC BY-SA 2.0External link 12], via Flickr Creative CommonsExternal link 13

But what of other sports? Britain has a more diverse range of sports than many other countries, and with some esoteric examples such as Octopush or ‘underwater hockey’; we should celebrate this plurality.

From 2000-08 the UK’s Sporting Preferences survey asked some 2,000 British people in which sports they would ‘most like to see British teams achieve success’. Athletics and football easily topped the polls, depending when the survey was undertaken. Swimming came next followed by tennis, gymnastics, boxing, rugby, cricket and other sports.

The public then, does also particularly connect with Olympic sports, and we are very good at them as the 2012 Olympics showed. The trouble is such sports have got harder and harder to win as more nations have been formed in the post-1989 democratisation era. In addition, many nations such as China have entered the ‘sporting arms race’ to gain recognition. This means, rightly or wrongly, more and more is being spent on nurturing sporting champions, including sophisticated methods for nurturing those who show promise. Sadly though, British celebrations of the Olympic Games have recently got a lot harder with the loss of BBC’s control of broadcast rights for the Games from 2022, being sold to Discovery, owner of satellite channel Eurosport.

In the increasingly competitive Olympic environment, Great Britain is excelling, with Olympic squads in sports such as rowing, cycling and sailing dominating the world stage and our Olympic athletes’ behaviour contrasting strongly with that of some footballers. The British team arrive at the 2010 Winter Olympics, led by Shelly Rudman

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However, winning margins at this level are tiny with, for example, five of Great Britain’s gold medals in 2004 won by a total margin of 0.545 sec. A wobble here, an incorrect body position there or a failure to use a new training aid can mean second place rather than first. The role of sport science and psychology in understanding these small performance margins is immense, and people’s interest in this subject, as well as blossoming employment opportunities following the 2012 Olympic legacy has underpinned the success of The Open University’s degree in Sport, Fitness and Coaching16.

Great Britain has enhanced its Olympic rankings with the use of National Lottery money with the National Lottery Act being specially amended in 1997 to make this possible. There have been dramatic improvements in results in the 20 years since the nadir of 1996 when only one gold medal was won (15 medals in all): the improvements have been by a factor of four with 60 medals (20 gold) anticipated in Rio 2016. There is also evidence to suggest that national sporting success does matter to those in power. Indeed in 2002, government economists searched to find economic links between sporting success and productivity and GDP. They concluded that the ‘feel good factor’ alone was worth the use of public money to help achieve success.

So, we might be better at sport than we think. In fact we ought to celebrate all success, regardless of how well we do in the team sports which so often dominate

This article originally appeared on the OpenLearn website. Click here to read the original article. OpenLearn also has a Rugby World Cup Hub containing many more interesting articles.

The other giant leap for mankind: how this athlete set a world record that’s still standing 20 years later

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By Ben Oakley

In the late evening Scandinavian sun at the 1995 World Athletics Championship, Jonathan Edwards, a British triple jumper, was the tenth t jump out of of 12 finalists. He took a minute to collect himself, then sped down the runway to jump 18.16m, breaking his own world record by 18 centimetres.

Edwards wandered around in a contented daze, waiting for the distance to be displayed when he heard the crowd roar as they saw the scoreboard before he did. The jump was valid. Then, 25 minutes later Edwards went again; he looked incredibly relaxed before he sprinted for his second celebratory jump, whose rhythm and smoothness produced a further distance of 18.29m. The stadium exploded in a tumult of shared joy of witnessing something very special.

And very special it was – that record has stood for 20 years now. In a world where athletes constantly shave millimetres, seconds and nano-seconds off previous bests, that jump in 1995 is assuming the status of a mythical feat. The closest anyone else has got is 20cm away – Kenny Harrison (USA) at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. More recently, Cuban Pedro Pablo Pichardo’s steady annual improvements have seen him come within 21cm.

How did Edwards do it? He described it as a magic combination of timing and speed, power and touch. And studying his 2001 authorised biography, A Time to Jump, and his subsequent public comments can give us more insight.

Early years

A key ingredient in Edwards’s success was a genetic blueprint that meant he had raw speed on the track (according to his biography, his best 100m time is 10.48 sec). Speed as you approach take-off in triple and long jump is one of the key pre-requisites of success, since it translates into horizontal distance when jumping. But genetic potential is the relatively easy part; the rest is a blend of multiple factors.

Growing up in Ilfracoumbe, a modest town in Devon, South West England, helped. Where you grow up influences the likelihood of sporting success with small towns enabling a more supportive developmental climate. It’s often better to be a big fish in a small pond. West Buckland private school also allowed Edwards to thrive in a diverse range of sports including rugby, basketball, tennis, athletics, cricket and gym.

Participating in a rich mix of different sports in childhood is the optimal preparation for future success in most sports. Learning to move in varied ways is the best foundation, rather than specialising in one sport from an early age which might be called “extreme nurture”. Edwards eventually concentrated on jumping at the age of 21.

At school, his diminutive stature earned the nickname of “Titch” and a birthdate in May magnified his late physical development in comparison with others in his school year. A concerned PE teacher was frightened to select him for inter-school rugby fearing for his safety. Children born in May, June, July and August, the youngest in their school year, are less likely to get selected for squads in adolescence, but are more likely to achieve senior professional status: a reversal of the relative age effect. The additional challenge experienced by these initially disadvantaged younger athletes is thought to build resilience – a key component for success.

18 metre man.
John Giles/PA

Faith and training

To succeed, champions need to learn their craft. After graduating in Physics from Durham University, the 1988 Olympics was his first major event at the start of his elite development. Fortunately his body responded well to training and he mostly stayed injury-free, both of which are starting to be recognised as having genetic components.

An international athlete’s craft involves refining diet, responding to coaching analysis, conditioning in the gym and making wise travel arrangements. While in the arena, optimising the warm-up, saving energy for competition and coping with pressure all need to be incrementally developed through experience.

After six years of full-time training, aged 27, following disappointment at both the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games, Edwards made the World Championships podium (bronze) having leapt 17.44 metres. Jumping a whole metre further seemed impossible at that time.

Athletes need to be fascinated with this process of improving. The paradox is that they need to be able to make sense of this seemingly selfish pursuit; a need to be content with the purpose of their lives. At times Edwards battled with realising his talent and fulfilling his strong Christian obligations which until 1993 meant he would not compete on Sundays. His evangelical faith helped make sense of optimising his jumping talent: it was in service to God. Many years later, in retirement and after losing his faith, he said that looking back “faith gave me more perspective on success or failure, it was my sport psychology in a way”.

A further ingredient of success is rest and recovery. Edwards was forced to recuperate after contracting Epsterin Barr virus in 1994; it meant he was revived as he eased his way back into training. It also gave him time to think deeply about his jumping technique including a new two-arm swing skywards.

The big jump

The final ingredient in the mix is supreme confidence. Edwards’s 1995 season started well. A national record in his first contest, he was on his way. Then in June he achieved the longest leap of all time, 18.43m in Lille. Unfortunately the jump was only a hair’s breath, 0.4m/sec, over the legal wind threshold. But he had re-defined the parameters of the sport.

He first broke the world record properly weeks later in Salamanca with 17.98m. Then came Gothenberg and his place in history. Watching the footage of his second, record-breaking jump, you can see that on the runway he is relishing the moment having just broken the world record again minutes previously. He knows he might do it again and is supremely confident and relaxed.

Later, he admitted that if he could combine the physicality of Gothenberg with the technical perfection of Lille he believed 18.60m was possible. He never achieved such a distance, but five years later he won gold in the 2000 Olympics, aged 34.

Jonathan Edwards’ path from a cherubic vicarage schoolboy to the 20th anniversary of his enduring triple jump world record reveals rich insights about the complex jigsaw of podium success.

Often discussions of elite athletics all too easily fall into a facile nature-nurture debate. Probing athlete’s biographies alongside research can reveal fascinating and varied routes to the top. And there are few higher (or further) athletic achievements than that great leap in 1995.

The Conversation

Ben Oakley is Head of Childhood, Youth and Sport at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
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