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The Big Interview
The Herald (Plymouth) 26 Nov 2008
DAME KELLY HOLMES is more used to receiving awards than handing them out. But, she tells MARTIN FREEMAN, she is delighted to be helping give recognition to the stars of the next generation.:
ONE of Britain’s greatest-ever Olympians has stopped racing – but shows no signs of slowing down. Dame Kelly Holmes is on a dodgy mobile phone line in a cab in London talking 19 to the dozen, on her way to another meeting.
In between answering my questions she’s giving the cabbie directions, paying, thanking and having a laugh with him, then rushing up some steps.
“I can’t spare 15 minutes”, she says with an apology as she answers my call. “Is 10 minutes OK? I’m a bit late.” I wouldn’t dream of arguing. I’m sure I can string a few sentences together in 10 minutes, considering she made herself immortal in less than six to win the 800m and 1500m golds at the Athens Olympics.
And the first thing to write is that Dame Kelly has lost none of her enthusiasm for sport in general, and athletics in particular, more than four years after her stunning
achievements in Greece.
She sounds genuinely delighted to be coming to Plymouth to present The Herald’s Sports Personality of the Year Awards at the Pavilions next Monday.
“Sports awards like that are great for established athletes because they’re recognition for their hard work and achievement,” she says. “They’re good for the community and the region. They give up-and-coming sports people a bit of a profile as well.”
It’s that last group which is closest to Dame Kelly’s heart. In the midst of training for her last big chance of Olympic glory, she decided that whatever happened in Athens she wanted to help young athletes learn what it took to become world-class and to achieve their dreams. She launched the mentoring project, On Camp With Kelly (OCWK) in January 2004, initially helping eight young middle-distance athletes.
Back then she was already a well-established British sports star – but Athens took her to a new and unique level. She became the first British woman to win two Olympic athletics golds and the first Briton to win both Olympic middle-distance events for 84 years.
She was honoured with a Damehood in the 2005 New Year honours list. In June this year, a Mori poll showed the British public rated Dame Kelly our greatest-ever Olympian. Among the many she beat to that honour was Lord Sebastian Coe, the man whose gold-winning performance in Los Angeles in 1984 inspired her own Olympic dream.
Now retired, Dame Kelly has taken up the baton of inspiration and she shows no signs of dropping it. Despite the huge demands on her time, with a range of charity and business commitments, OCWK has expanded to include the cream of young British middle-distance talent, totalling 56 men and women.
Among them is 17-year-old Plymouth track star Jessica Burns. “She impressed me because she’s a very determined girl, quite quiet but with a good sense of humour,” says Dame Kelly. “She’s very hard-working and always willing to learn, and she’s had a few injury problems.”
Such troubles strike a chord with the double gold winner, as she never had it easy on the long road to glory in 2004. Although she had Commonwealth golds to her name, a string of injuries hit her at and before the bigger championships, so for most of her career Dame Kelly found herself unable to live up to her potential.
The worst injury, a ruptured calf muscle and torn achilles in 1997, gave her discomfort and pain throughout the rest of her racing life. At the start lines in Athens her age was against her (at 34 she should have been past her peak) and nor was she ever an imposing figure physically – in an era of ever-taller, ever-stronger female athletes she’s only 5ft 3in – but a combination of talent, determination, dedication and courage saw her through.
Dame Kelly credits the British Army with playing a key role in her success, on and off the track. She served from 1988 to 1997 as an HGV driver and – no surprises – a physical training instructor. “Would I recommend it as career for a young person today? Absolutely,” she says.
“The Army was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It helped make me who I am, disciplined and determined, and the camaraderie was great. “I know there’s the war going on, but you don’t join to go to war; you join for a career, for a trade, for your life. If that trade takes you to the front line, you accept it.”
What Dame Kelly has never accepted is failure. Even in the dark times of injury, she was focused on what she could achieve if she kept on through the pain and disappointment.
She appreciates, though, that today’s young athletes face challenges even greater than she went through. “Standards get higher every year”, she says. “Junior athletes today train like I was when I was a senior. The depth of talent we have is amazing now.”
Dame Kelly now restricts herself to doing ‘a bit in the gym’, avoiding the pain that still troubles her from the achilles injury. That has helped make her even more aware that sport is more than about winners, money and great championships.
London 2012 will be as much of a celebration of the cultural life of the whole of the UK as staging a landmark games, she believes.
By now the 10 minutes are up and there’s only time for one more question as she heads into her meeting. Did the cabbie recognise her? “Yes,” she says, sounding just a little
embarrassed, even after years of instant public recognition.
Click here to visit the ‘On Camp with Kelly’ website