The first I knew of the doubts over Caster Semenya’s gender was in an e-mail from Zola Budd whose South African junior 800 metres record she had just eclipsed.

That was a month before controversy erupted after Semenya won gold in the World Championships but it seems ironic now when a senior Athletics South Africa official, Dr Simon Diamini, is claiming that Semenya's problems were caused because her critics were racially motivated to jealousy after she broke Budd's record.
    

Jealousy was not Zola's motivation in sending me a link to a story on a South African website. Now she lives in the United States on a two-year working visa she keeps in touch with her homeland through the internet and occasionally links me to articles she thinks may be of professional interest.
    

We met first when the Daily Mail sent me to South Africa in 1984 to check out the phenomenon of a teenager who was breaking world records running bare-foot in a country banned from international competition because of its apartheid policies. My journey resulted in her coming to England some three weeks later and receiving a British passport to which she was entitled by her grandfather's birth there.

The rest is history, the controversy that split the British public and Parliament, caused her to be attacked on a cross country course, hated in the United States because of her accidental involvement in the fall of that nation’s darling, Mary Decker, at the Olympic Games and the eventual International Amateur Athletics Federation - as it was then called - ban on Budd’s participation in the World Cross Country Championship which drove her to return to her homeland.
     

All now very old history. We have stayed in touch but Zola is about as far removed from the political machinations of South African athletics as it is possible to be. For more than a year now she and her family have lived an ocean away.
     

The now Mrs Pieterse, 43 and a mother of three, lives in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, where her children attend local public schools. Her husband Mike chose the location when she expressed an interest in running on the US masters circuit because it was renowned for its golf courses, his game.
      

She runs in low-key Masters division races throughout the Carolinas, winning many from five miles to half-marathon.  She has even run cross country there, the discipline in which she was twice world champion. Few of her rivals recognise her as a former world champion or even her name. When she signed up as a volunteer coach at her local college just one student on the athletics team knew of her background. The one happened not to be American-born. The nation that in 1984 hated her has long forgotten.
     

She runs because she has always enjoyed running. She ran the New York Marathon last year – in just under three hours – for the fun of it and is contemplating Boston next year and applying for an extension of her two-year visa. As she says, the only person she competes against now is herself.
      

The future may include coaching daughter Lisa, 13, who has started running, but when a local Carolina newspaper interviewed this autumn the writer said that the only hint that a famous runner lived there was the treadmill on the stoop.
    

It was, he noted, on the steepest setting. Zola’s never been anything but competitive, even when it is only with herself. At her peak she would have given Semenya a run for her money, whatever her gender.
 

Neil Wilson is Olympic and athletics correspondent of The Daily Mail. He has covered 18 Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

Last Saturday marked be exactly 1,000 days' until London 2012 gets underway and I cannot wait for the excitement and buzz around the Olympics to really start ramping up as we get closer to the Games.

All the facilities will be in place but I really think it will be the atmosphere generated throughout the country that will make or break the Games and hopefully it will be better than anything I've ever experienced at any other Olympics.

The biggest Olympic Classes event I've ever done in this country was probably the Olympic Trials in 1995 so to compete at an actual Olympics in front of a home crowd in Britain would be very special.
 

To coincide with the release of my autobiography recently I did a few book signings around the country and it was great to meet so many people who just loved the Olympics and seemed genuinely excited about the Games coming to Britain.

I haven't been in a Finn since Beijing last year but I have a week's training with the rest of the British Finn squad scheduled at the start of December and in all honesty I fully expect the other guys to give me a good butt kicking!

It will probably be really windy and I'm a good six-seven kilos below my racing weight at the moment but that's fine and I'm looking forward to just getting back into the boat.

I'd like to do as much Finn sailing as I can in January and February and, although nothing's concrete yet, maybe look to do a couple of events next year too. But 2011 is the crucial year for me to really step it up while adding those extra kilos I need to sail the Finn.

It's great to be working with David 'Sid' Howlett again on my Finn campaign. Sid was my coach for Athens 2004 and he'll take a lot of the workload out of the logistics and planning meaning I know I can step back into the boat and i t will all be in great shape. His enthusiasm and knowledge are priceless, especially on the technical side, and he will be a great asset.

Last month myself, Matt Cornwell, Iain Percy and Christian Kamp enjoyed a successful week in Bermuda winning the Argo Group Gold Cup. The event is part of the World Match Racing Tour and has in the past been won by some of the biggest names in sailing so to win the coveted King Edward VII Gold Cup was a very special moment for us all.

We had some tough racing during the event being pushed hard by Australian Torvar Mirsky, reigning champion and fellow Brit Ian Williams and Kiwi Adam Miniprio in the final knockout stages but with those three guys currently sat 1-2 and 3 in the overall Tour leaderboard after eight events  it was a very satisfying victory.

It's frustrating to have only done four Tour events this year meaning we're not in line to land the World title but a good performance at the final round in Malaysia in December could still see us sneak on to the podium.

Later this month Team Origin will compete in the first Louis Vuitton Trophy Regatta in Nice. With the 33rd America's Cup solely the Deed of Gift Match between Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing next February, a series of five Louis Vuitton Trophy events, sailed in America's Cup boats, have been proposed starting now and continuing throughout 2010. I think this is a really good thing and crucial if the interest level in the America's Cup is going to be maintained.

Finally huge congratulations to Jenson Button on landing the Formula One World title. I was a guest of Brawn GP at the European Grand in Valencia in August and they made me feel so welcome, even involving me in all the post-race briefs. It's a remarkable story and I'm really delighted for Jenson. 

Ben Ainslie is Britain's most successful Olympic sailor of all time, in total he has won three gold medals and one silver. He is also a nine times World champion, eight times European Champion and three times ISAF world sailor of the year. Ainslie's next aspiration is to win the Americas Cup with Team Origin before bringing back a historic fourth gold in the London 2012 Olympics. To find out more information click here.
 

With this weekend's "1,000 Days To Go" milestone making the headlines, some people might feel London 2012 is a long way off but, for me, 1,000 days seems incredibly close. At the same time, it still only feels like yesterday when I was competing at Beijing 2008.

Beijing was an amazing experience for me. I was only 19 and being hyped up as a gold-medal hopeful in the BMX event, which brought a huge amount of pressure. In the end, it may not have worked out as planned but it's a massive advantage that I’ll be able to carry that experience into London 2012. I know that, being a bit older, I'll be much better equipped to handle the pressure that goes hand-in-hand with competing at that level.

The girl who won gold in the BMX at Beijing was someone who had never beaten me but she was a few years older than me, and I'm sure she used that to her benefit. I've learnt that mental strength has a huge part to play in success at the Olympics and I'm lucky enough to be working on this with GB coach Steve Peters. He works with many athletes on their mental approach to aspects of their life and sport, which will be invaluable in 2012.

It's inevitable that the pressure on GB athletes will be greater due to the fact that the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games will be on home soil. I feel like I matured more as an athlete overnight in Beijing than at any other point in my career. I'm now familiar with all aspects of the Olympics; I've had experience of the training regime, media requirements and even the athlete village. I know that I can take the pressure and expectation with a pinch of salt and that sets me up perfectly for London 2012. The incentive to make history by winning on home soil more than outweighs the extra pressure of being a GB athlete!

As well as training with the GB BMX squad almost every day, I also get to ride with the BMX team that I support, Team Reade, which includes six of the other top BMX riders from around the country (aged between 12 and 23). Both sets of riders are constantly talking about London 2012 and there's a huge amount of excitement around it.

That said, there's still plenty to achieve in the meantime. I've been out for a number of months this year with a shoulder injury. Picking up injuries is never ideal but this time it was a blessing in disguise. I realised that I hadn't had any proper time out since Beijing and it just allowed me to have some time off to do ‘normal’ things. I was able to reflect on everything that happened last year and, having been back in training for a month now, I feel really refreshed and keen to get back to BMX competition.


Due to the injury, I wasn't able to defend my BMX World Championship title this summer so I’ll be training hard in order to regain it at next year’s event (and then retain it in the following years). That would be the ideal scenario and would be a great run-in to compete for gold at the Velopark in East London in 2012.  

I've been lucky enough to visit the Velopark even though it's still a construction site down there. All you want as a BMX rider is a good solid track but I'm sure the facilities at the new venue will be second-to-none. It's surreal being at the site, and it’s hard to imagine what it will be like when it's finished, but it gives me goose bumps to think about competing in front of a home crowd.

The other advantage of having the Olympics in London is everything that it brings with it. We've noticed the difference that the funding has brought, even down to smaller things like just having new equipment appearing in the gym. The Olympics helps highlight such a variety of sports and, because of the attention paid to BMX in 2008, it seems that more people are interested ahead of 2012.

It's an easy sport to get involved in, with plenty of tracks around the country, a lot of which hire bikes for only a few pounds. I really believe that participation in BMX is increasing and hopefully, in the 1,000 days between now and the Olympic Games, more and more people will be tempted to try the sport. Hopefully this means there will be plenty of people supporting the GB BMX riders in 2012 and I'll be doing all I can to make sure I'm there and giving them something to cheer about. 

Shanaze Reade is a BT Ambassador.  BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and title sponsor of the BT Paralympic World Cup.  For more information click here.

There is nothing quite like watching live world class sporting action.

This afternoon I will be lucky enough to witness British Olympic champions battle it out with other international stars, in front of a capacity audience here at the Manchester Velodrome in the first round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup.

At the same time over in Sheffield, the world’s best table tennis stars will be battling it out in the newly resurrected English Open. Both events have been made possible through the Lottery Funded UK Sport World Class Events Programme.
 

Having been here almost exactly four years ago, at the 2005 UCI Track Cycling World Cup, it is clear to see that things have moved on. That event was great, but we had a number of empty seats and some of the crowd turning up weren’t even sure of the names of British riders. Fast forward four years, 14 Olympic Medals and a BBC Sports Personality of the Year and all three days this weekend are sold out, I am sure things will run like clockwork and we might even have one or two household names competing.
 

This event, and the way it has developed over recent years, has reminded me of the importance of bringing world class sporting events to this country. Our announcement today, of the 64 events we are hoping to support through our World Class Events Programme in the final 1,000 days before the Olympics, is an important step in helping prepare our athletes, officials, sporting bodies and volunteers before London plays host to the greatest show on earth in 2012.
 

Bringing these events to our shores will undoubtedly have a positive economic impact for the local host region, but whilst this is always a consideration, the interesting aspect of this particular programme is that it was devised almost entirely with the benefit to the sports, of helping in their preparation for 2012, in mind.

The 64 events that will hopefully be taking place across the UK, will give British athletes the opportunity to experience performing on a world-level in front of a home crowd and the pressures and the benefits that this can bring. It will give coaches and psychologists vital insights into how their athletes handle this pressure, in plenty of time before the Games come to town.
 

It will also give the myriad of officials that are needed to stage such events, vital experience and knowledge that will be invaluable in London, not to mention the thousands of opportunities that will be created for volunteers at each event, building key skills which can again be used if needed in 2012 and beyond.
 

But the most exciting thing about the entire programme? For me that's easy. That it is more than likely that there will be a world class event held in the next 1,000 days at a nearby town or city and that everyone across Britain will have the chance to cheer on our current and future British stars, current and future Olympic and Paralympic champions. And, as I said, there is nothing quite like watching live world class sporting action.
 

Liz Nicholl is the Chief Operations Officer at UK Sport. She is a former international netball player and was the Championships Director of the 1995 World Championships. As chief executive of English Netball for 16 years prior to joining UK Sport, she steered the sport through a period of successful change.

Is there anyone out there who can undo Button? Jenson, that is, who according to the British bookies is in pole position with checkered flag already poised, odds on to become the BBC Sports Personality of the Year on December 13.

And why not, demand the petrolheads? Well I can give a fistul of good reasons. In no particular order, as they say on Strictly: Beth Tweddle, Jessica Ennis, Phillips Oduwu, Victoria Pendleton and Tom Daley, all Olympians and surely all worthier of the viewers' votes than a man who wouldn't have got anywhere but for the mechanics tinkering under his bonnet.
 

It’s not just that  I find motor racing has become a bore but because the millions the BBC have splurged on covering this season it is grossly insulting to those sports now missing out on valuable screen space. Here is a stone-rich sport and yet only this week the boss of Silverstone was bemoaning lack of public funding. It is rather like Manchester City bleating because they can’t get Lottery money to buy Kaka. Next we'll be hearing Bernie Ecclestone has been is blowing into Jacques Rogge’s ear to try and get it into the Olympics.
 

Formula One is now stands totally discredited as a sport, with proven cheating, dodgy self-regulating and sleazy adminstration (one boss likes his bottom spanked and another who thinks Hitler wasn’t all bad). Button himself seems a decent enough bloke, but how can someone who hasn't even been on the podium in his last 10 races, hitherto hadn't won a race in nine years and only stayed ahead of the rest this season because the Brawn engineers had fitted a legally dubious "double diffuser" – whatever that might be – in his opening successes claim to be Britain's number one sports icon? More than ever it is the car not the man behind the wheel who wins Grand Prixs these days. So let's hope the public can keep Button off the podium.
 

All of the previously mentioned quintet achieved greater things in 2009 than Ross Brawn’s supercharged chauffeur. My vote would go unhesitatingly to Tweddle –the Beth of British.
 

She presses all the right buttons. Not only has she now won a world gymnastics title twice but this month she literally picked herself off the floor to do so in an activity which requires the ultimate in fitness, dedication and athletic flexibility. Moreover she is an absolute charmer whose annual funding wouldn't keep Button in spare tyres for a single race. She's unassuming, still relatively unsung and a perfect role model for the hundreds of thousands of kids she has inspired to join the waiting lists at gymnastics clubs throughout the land.
 

By comparison, Button should be at the back of the grid, or even a non-starter.
 

So how ironic that our bandwagoning Prime Minister should choose to dispatch his personal congratulations almost before Button had finished spraying the champers yet had to be reminded that on the same day Britain had seen another world champion crowned. Tweddle (pictured) says she still awaits Number 10's promised letter. Oh Gord! No doubt Mr Brown forgot there was a postal strike.

You can make out strong cases for heptathlete Ennis, an equally versatile and personable queen of more athletics disciplines than Button has gears. Or Idowu, who has at last delivered the goods and reminded us that there's more to hop, step and jump than Jonathan Edwards; Pendleton, delectable and again devastating in cycling's world track championships, and tiny Tom, a world diving champion and still only 15.
 

Also giving Button a good fight there’s Amir Khan, back from a potentially career-shattering defeat to become a world boxing champion while working assidiously to bring together those from different ethnic communities. And wouldn't David Haye throw a spanner into the gear box should he land a big right hander on the chops of Russian giant Nikolay Valuey next week.

As with Olympic bids, favourites seem to have more of the hex factor than the X factor about them. Lewis Hamilton didn't win last year – but mind you the Beeb didn't seem too bothered as it was departinjg ITV who had signed the season's cheque for the sport. Not so this time.

What we do gather from sources inside the Corporation is that they are anticipating a groundswell of support for a surprise outsider -  Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs, who would be a sentimental and popular choice as the first footballer to win the award since David  Beckham in 2001.
 

Then there's Tony McCoy, who rode his 3000th National Hunt winner this year, although many punters, given the option, surely would like to place their bet on wonder horse Sea The Stars, sport’s most popular four-legged friend since Red Rum.
 

What an irony if Button was to be beaten by horsepower…

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered 11 summer Olympics ,several football World Cups and scores of world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.
 

Cycling may be the new golf, Dave Brailsford and Sky might have set off in pursuit of the Tour de France and Cav may have recently been voted the overseas sportsman of the Year in Belgium, of all places, but somethings never changes – notably the British National Track Championships.
 
Understated, unheralded and proudly non-commercial the "Nationals"  remain the grass roots event par excellence. A competitors event run purely for the convenience of competitors at the start of their winter season. A very in-house gathering of the faithful and none the worse for that. 
 
Should you wish to watch entrance is free for all but a couple of the evening sessions but the crowd is virtually negligible. The focus is totally on the riders, their bikes and catching up on the gossip in the pitts.
 
Not surprisingly it was in this welcoming and familiar environment in which Sir Chris Hoy decided to make his first competitive appearance in Britain since the Beijing Olympics after a serious hip injury torpedoed his best efforts last season. He chose well.
 
Originally Hoy had set his sights on this week’s World Cup competition in Manchester but such was his form in training in September and early October that he had no qualms in starting a week early at the Nationals where any gremlins would be ironed out away from the public gaze.
 
Not that there appeared to be any. He looked imperious on a chilly Thursday morning when he unleashed a world class time of 9.990sec in the flying 200 metres to qualify in first position for the men’s sprint. Later in the day he marched through the knock-out stages and eventually took the title in style defeating Matt Crampton 2-0 in the final.
 
If anything he was even more impressive in the team sprint when he anchored a Team Sky HD squad to victory in a very swift 43.759, the sort of time that will win a big medal at the World Championships in Copenhagen in March. In qualification Jamie Staff, Jason Kenny and Ross Edgar did the needful with Hoy being drafted in for the final instead of Edgar, a taste of probably GB tactics this season.
 
The flying Scot concluded a highly successful week on the Saturday evening when he crushed the opposition in the keirin, leading from the front as usual. He is back and clearly with no diminution of his powers.
 
Elsewhere there was also a hat-trick of gold medals for Vicky Pendleton, who seems likely to be granted a shot at three gold medals at London 2012 with the UCI poised to confirm changes to the programme next month. 
 
Pendleton finally gave herself a break in the summer after batting on after the Olympics and arrived in Manchester in stunning early season form, decimating the fields in the 500m time-trial, sprint and keirin posting times in the 500m and the flying 200m for the Sprint that were very close to lifetime bests.
 
Geraint Thomas meanwhile was catching the eye in the men's 4km individual pursuit. A key member of the world record breaking team pursuit squad in Beijing, Thomas posed two back to back 4min 18sec with no apparent discomfort. He can undoubtedly go quicker and would seem a very strong gold medal prospect in the World Championships in March.

But two factors could militate against that. As a core member of Team Sky he night be otherwise engaged on the road and even if Brailsford – his boss at Sky and Team GB – decided an assault on the Worlds is indicated is there much point in targeting an event that seems certain to be dropped from the Olympic programme?
 
The answer is an emphatic yes. The 4km is still one of the classic events and an absolute pure test of class and ability. If Thomas concentrates on it and can bring home a gold it would be a huge boost to his confidence on the track and road. It's a prize worth chasing.

The multi-talented Brendan Gallagher writes for the Daily Telegraph, covering a variety of sports, including rugby union, cycling and basketball

James Clarke, senior vice-president of the World Sport Group, was asked an interesting question at this week’s inaugural Global Sports Industry Congress in London.
 

Having set up the exclusive internet televising of the last Asian Youth Games, did he think that this method of publicising a sports event, a method employed more recently to show the England football team’s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine, was the way of the future? Was this a watershed?
 

"Yes," he said, before adding rather important qualification. "I think so."

Wise man.
 

Back in the 1920s, you could imagine those behind the first football commentaries on radio being asked the same question about the eight-square grid system in which listeners were invited to imagine the ball as it moved around the pitch.
 

Such is the problem of new technology – in the time it takes to write a sentence it's old technology.
 

Clarke's fellow speaker Paul Barber, executive director at Tottenham Hotspur, offered his own version of how swiftly things are changing on the broadcasting front.
 

Barber, who before joining Spurs in 2005 was the Football Association’s Director of Marketing and Communications, recalled the furore that occurred in 2000 when England’s World Cup qualifier in Finland was exclusively broadcast on the pay-for-view U-channel, which had purchased screening rights for £3.25 million.

"Even though we had no control over that decision, we were lambasted because it was the first time an England World Cup qualifier had been on a paying platform," Barber recalled. "Now virtually every England game is on a paying platform."

Barber has witnessed the cutting edge of technological change in his own household – as wielded by that most fearsome of new wave figures, a youngster. "My 15-year-old thinks using e-mail and texts is prehistoric," said Barber with a fitting degree of resignation. "They use Facebook or PSP."

"Yeah," I thought. "Right. PSP. Had to be."

Then I thought: "Is that like…ESP?"

So then I asked: "What is PSP?"

PSP – short for PlayStation Portable, a generic term for hand-held game units with their own hard drive.
 

Barber and his colleagues are now considering using such units in the proposed new Spurs stadium, the theory being that fans can use a PSP to replay as much of the foregoing action as they please until they leave the ground, at which point the data will be blocked, or stripped.
 

"I'd be happy to pay an extra couple of quid for that option," Barber said brightly. He may be right. He may be wrong.

It's just a stray thought, and not a particularly positive one, but I’m just wondering what thousands of football fans might feel like doing with their PSPs if things start to go seriously awry on the pitch.
 

I could imagine a situation where some technology might take a swift route down from stands to grass – if they continue to play on grass, that is.
 

Such things have been known to happen in football grounds.
 

But I digress.

Before I undigress, though, I wonder whether referees and linesmen could be given their own PSPs for instant action replays of controversial incidents.
 

They might be less likely, too, to lob the technology into the stands if things weren't going tickety-boo…
 

Frankly, nothing is better calculated to make you feel out of touch with the modern world than a bright and lively youngster.
 

I speak as a man whose ability to record TV programmes was effectively phased out by a new DVD player several years ago.
 

I'm sure it's all very simple, but I just cannot be arsed to pick up the instructions, skip past the Arabic and German sections and start looking for English sentences that correspond even vaguely to something I need to know.
 

Barber offered another tantalising glimpse of the future when he discussed the new Sony development of  "picture-stitching", which he says can recreate in a viewer the experience of being in a stadium. "It makes you feel like you are there," he said.
 

At this rate, they won't need to put any seats in the stadium because everybody will be able to get the same experience without leaving the pub.
 

If people are still drinking in pubs by then, that is.
 

There will also be increasing options for remote viewers of sporting action to be interactive. They will be able to track particular players throughout a match, or to view the action from particular angles.
 

Another general comment from Clarke on the subject of broadcast technology seems appropriate here: "The pace of change will be faster than we can imagine."

Again,wise man.
 

He's right, no doubt.
 

But the urge to imagine is strong – and I have a bold concept which, although it appears far-fetched right now, may one day be viewed as a commonplace.
 

It's this. How long can it be before the red button we use to choose our viewing options includes the result?
 

Nothing is better calculated to improve viewer approval than a successful outcome in the sporting event they are watching.
 

And if viewing rights can be purchased, why not outcomes?
 

The monetisation of this optional process is straightforward. RBR's, as they will be know – Red Button Results, stupid – will be achieved through the accretion of nominal payments from participating supporters.
 

Put simply, the team whose viewers contribute the most through this method win, with contributions from the other team being transferred to their next sporting fixture.
 

That will mean their team are effectively a goal up before they kick off – a situation which will require even larger numbers of opposing fans to enter the RBR process.
 

I think it's worth running up the flagpole. If we still hang flags on poles, that is.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames.

Sixty Charlotte Street represents the new home of British Olympic and Paralympic sport. It is significant, and a great step forward, that we are co-locating with our Paralympic colleagues. The relationship between our two organisations has always been strong.

We, of course, share similar values, not just from the wider Movements of which we proudly belong, but within the British sporting landscape where we uniquely share the honour of servicing and representing our country’s finest athletes through Team GB and Paralympics GB. We felt it was only appropriate that our two organisations found a home somewhere that symbolised excellence - and while it is incredibly modern, it imaginatively pays tribute to our Olympic and Paralympic heritage.
 
Given the extensive media coverage of the finances of the British Olympic Association (BOA), you may be wondering how the BOA could afford such a wonderful new office. Put simply, we benefited from the sale of our old HQ at the height of the market and then negotiated this new lease at the very bottom of the market in the spring.

For the fitting out, in true entrepreneurial spirit, we begged, borrowed and cajoled and above all received an unprecedented amount of support from our Landlords (PPG), Olympic partners (Panasonic and BT) and a whole host of suppliers (architects Gebler Tooth, design and build Modus, brand agency Antidote, Cisco, our agents CBRE and NetPractise (Audiovisual), many of whom have worked at cost to help us create something that we would otherwise not have been able to afford. 

The BOA has undergone a significant restructuring and transformation process over the past year. Our chairman’s vision was to ensure that we as an organisation were fit to deliver for our athletes and fulfill our objectives as a Host Nation of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The move to Charlotte Street encompasses that fresh vision and purpose. We want to create a culture that is vibrant, a place where our staff feel motivated and inspired, and an organisation that is dynamic and forward-thinking. In the timeless words of the Olympic Movement: Faster, Higher, Stronger.
 
To coincide with the opening of the new offices, we have also introduced revitalised emblems for both the BOA and Team GB, emblems that reflect the values we’ll bring to every aspect of our work, both now and in the years ahead. We have also sought a fresh way of encapsulating Olympism and the values of the Olympic Movement, creating an expression that is personal to the BOA - "Better Never Stops".  This expression will underpin our working practices, encouraging us to strive for excellence in everything we do.
 
As the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games come closer, there has never been a more important time for our organisations to be unswerving and resilient, and above all - aligned in our purpose. The British Olympic and Paralympic Movements will, I have no doubt, thrive in Charlotte Street and that can only benefit the future of sport throughout the United Kingdom.
 

Andy Hunt is the chief executive of the British Olympic Association

They were mixing it at the Boxing Writers’ Club dinner in London’s Mayfair this week. Not in the nose-biffing sense, of course. The annual bash of the pugilistic cognoscenti is always a model of decorum, cauliflower ears sponged and pressed (and that’s just the scribes) and everyone chirpily swapping yarns rather than punches. No, the exchanges were friendly rather than fistic, none more so than the one-time fractious professional and amateur elements of the of the fight fraternity.
 

There is a new togetherness now that can only be good for the game. Thankfully gone are the days of the apartheid between the headguards and vests brigade and  those who punched for pay that was as viciously imposed as that which once existed between Rugby Union and Rugby League. Colin Moynihan , the British Olympic Association (BOA) chairman, who won a boxing Blue for Oxford as a bantamweight, still chuckles when he recalls how he was suspended by the simon pure blazerati of Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) for sparring with pros at the famous Thomas A’Beckett gym in South London.

There was a time too, when the ABA would not share the same room as the professional British Boxing Board of Control with whom discussions have subsequently started about the possibility of boxing eventually coming under a single umbrella body.

This is the same ABA who, together with then freshly-constituted British Amateur Boxing Association, this year took a table at our Club dinner, a function traditionally dominated by the professional element. Of course, all the big name pros or ex-pros  there, including Frank Bruno, Chris Eubank, Billy Walker, John H Stracey, Charlie Magri, Lloyd Honeyghan, James DeGale and Tony Jeffries were all former  top amateurs. And that was always the bone of contention.

For inevitably the amateurs lost their best men to the professional stables and how it rankled.
 

Now these are more enlightened times. The barriers have been eased down and the twin aspects of boxing are sensibly learning to work together. Pros and amateurs now spar regularly. It was not generally known that the successful Beijing Olympic squad took four paid sparring partners with them to their pre-Games camp in Macau at the instigation of then national coach Terry Edwards. It worked well.

Now two former world class pros, Robert McCracken, the one-time British middleweight champion who now trains world champion Carl Froch, and Richie Woodhall, ex-world super-middleweight champion, are now consultants to Britain’s new national squad. Woodhall is currently with them on their boxing tour of the United States and Finland.
 

Fittingly too, the personable young amateur bantamweight Luke Campbell (pictured in blue), from Hull, Britain’s first Euro champ for almost half a century, followed unbeaten pro Kell Brook on to the rostrum to receive a Best Young Boxer award at the dinner.
 

This rapprochement is not only heartening but practical ,as nowadays boxing is fast becoming a pro-am sport anyway. Lottery funding means the best amateurs can train full time and be pros in all but name. And in fact when the new World Series, devised by AIBA, the international governing body for amateur boxing, gets under way, they will be pros in actuality too.

For so handsome are the proposed rewards in the global team tournament (five three minute rounds, sans vest and headguards) that most will earn more than they might as fledgling fighters on professional promotions within prize money ranging from US$30,000 (£18,000) to $300,00 (£180,000).
 

More details are likely to be unveiled when BABA and the ABA jointly launch their “Road to London 2012” mission at the House of Commons on November 9. For guest of honour will be Dr C K Wu, the new Taiwanese President of AIBA. While Dr Wu may sound like someone who tripped off George Formby’s ukulele, he is becoming a significant voice on the Olympic scene.

Not that his new baby, financially weaned by sports marketing giants IMG,is being welcomed into the world by everyone in the sport. In fact the incipient "professionalisation" of amateur boxing is believed to be one of the reasons why Kevin Hickey’s spell as BABA’s performance director was so short-lived.

But most see Dr Wu’s move, like the introduction of women’s boxing into the Olympics, as both progressive and necessary. Though it does lead us to wonder now the last bastion of the Olympics has been breached whether the day is not far off far off when boxers who have had only a few fights in the professional prize ring will be allowed to compete over three rounds in the Olympics should they wish to do so.

After all, tennis. basketball, and now golf, are entitled to field their top professionals and I can even envisage a future situation in which boxing has an open tournament at, say  under-23 level, as in football. Never? That’s what they said only a few years ago when pros and amateurs weren’t allowed to share the same table, let alone the same ring.

Now, if not exactly hand in boxing glove, they are at least touching gloves and getting ready to come out fighting. Together.  
   
Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist and boxing correspondent of The Independent on Sunday, and a former chairman of The Boxing Writers’ Club. He has covered 11 summer Olympics.

The Olympics Games have always held a fascination for me. I was born in an Olympic year, 1960, and Mexico 1968 with Tommie Smith’s black power salute, Bob Beamon’s jaw dropping long jump and David Hemery’s hurdles gold medal are among my earliest sporting memories.

In 1972 news of Valery Borzov’s sprint double, Mark Spitz’s domination in the pool and the horrors of the Olympic Village massacre filtered through from Munich to my family holiday in Brittany via tiny TV screens in local bars and three day old copies of the Daily Mail. 

By Montreal in 1976, aged 15, I was on a scout camp in Devon, listening to the radio commentary of Trinidadian Hasely Crawford’s surprise win in the 100 metres and by the time 1980 came along I was a lowly pensions administration clerk rushing home to watch Allan Wells, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Daley Thompson triumph in Moscow.    

The Los Angeles Games coincided with my first taste of radio journalism at my local station County Sound in Guildford where I was a breakfast show runner, helping compile the news and sport for bulletins. Even then, if someone had told me than that I'd actually be at the next Olympics in Seoul as a commentator and reporter I'd have drugs tested them for LSD, magic mushrooms and methylated spirits.

And yet, having eventually graduated to the ranks of sports reporter at Independent Radio News (IRN) I embarked upon my own Olympic odyssey which spanned the five Games between Seoul 1988 and Athens 2004. 

Now don't get me wrong, the BBC covers the Olympics brilliantly on TV, Radio and online. And so they should, since they routinely send more people out to the Games than the Team GB do and have a special correspondent for virtually every sport.

At IRN things were rather different. Generally we would have a staff of two with a brief as far and wide as the event itself. Basically it was a giant treasure hunt in which, using our journalistic and sporting instincts as metal detectors, we would scour the host city for the merest whiff of gold, silver or bronze for Britain.

When it came to athletics and swimming this was relatively straightforward given that we understood the sport and knew the performers well, but just as often we would find ourselves reporting from events of which we had little or no knowledge. And that is where things didn't always go according to plan. 

At Sydney 2000 archer Alison Williamson was considered a medal hope and so I went along to do an interview with her as a scene setter. I knew nothing about archery but, assuming it couldn't be too complicated and keen to sound well informed, I came out with, what I thought, was a clever opening question.

"So four long years of training and preparation all comes down to that little red cirle at the centre of the target."

"It’s yellow," she replied.

In Barcelona when Chris Boardman (pictured) and his super bike became one of the biggest stories of the Games I headed of to the Velodrome to capture the British cyclist’s bid for glory in the 4,000 metres Individual Pursuit. 

Although cycling is now an Olympic sport at which Britain regularly excels, in 1992 it barely warranted a mention and so I was far from being an expert. Indeed, prior to Boardman’s success, the last time Britain had won a gold medal on two wheels was courtesy of a couple of blokes on a tandem in 1912. 

I was not providing actual live coverage of the race but wanted to capture a commentary the final lap on tape so that it could be replayed in forthcoming news bulletins. It was clear, even to a cycling neophyte like me, that Boardman was going to win, as he was almost on Lehman’s shoulder as the last lap loomed and, barring a stray cat or a Spanish lollipop lady wandering across the track in front of him, the gold medal was as good as his. The bell rang for the final lap and I took a deep breath and got as far as. "It's Chris Boardman for Great Britain…legs pumping furiously in pursuit of golden glory……"

At which point Boardman whizzed past his German opponent Jens Lehmann (no, not the former Arsenal goalkeeper), raised his arms and then freewheeled for a hundred metres or so before dismounting and punching the air in triumph. 

What I had singularly failed to understand was that once a rider overtakes his opponent he has won the race, since the pursuit has been successfully completed.  In my defence, it has to be said that this outcome is extremely rare and had never before occurred in an Olympic final.

I am just thankful that, during my Olympic time, there were never any British medal prospects in the individual sabre or Greco Roman wrestling.
 

Freelance broadcaster John Anderson covered five Olympic Games in a long career as the chief sports reporter at Independent Radio News. Now he’s written a memoir entitled "A Great Face For Radio", which is packed with hilarious anecdotes, witty observations and fascinating behind the scenes insights drawn from almost two decades on the road. To order a copy click here.

As I checked my e-mails a little after 8pm on Friday evening I noticed a message in my in-box from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).  As I opened it and read it I realised this innocent looking e-mail was my official notification from the IAAF, from Pierre Weiss, IAAF General Secretary, granting my request for a change in "status". 

As of Friday, October 16, 2009 the IAAF will now allow me to compete for Great Britain & NI - I was officially "British" again after more than a decade of having competed for the United States. This change means that the IAAF has cleared the way for me to attempt something very unique and to do it in my home country in 2012:  I am going to attempt to compete in an eighth consecutive Olympic Trials in the javelin at the ripe old age of 50!

So the question now is can I do it? Can I stay fit and healthy, avoid injury and sickness for the another three years in one of the most violent, physically stressful events there is? It is hard enough to do when you are young. Now I have all the age related health concerns and physical limitations due to the aging process and all the wear and tear of decades of training and throwing. Well the answer is I don't know, but I am going to try. I do like a challenge!

This is not the first time I have set myself such lofty, ambitious goal.  In 1968 I was diagnosed with spina bifida and told never to play sports, in fact I was instructed to avoid them altogether for fear that I would become paralysed. I remember very vividly the doctors looking at the x-rays of my spine and being baffled that I could walk - but I did. 
 

Around the same time as my diagnosis in 1968 I watched the Mexico Olympics in amazement. I was inspired. I knew that's what I wanted to be - "An Olympian" and I even knew the event I wanted to pursue: the javelin.

The odds were stacked against me, but I was inspired, determined, and very, very stubborn.  I knew I would have to train hard but I also knew I would have to be creative.
    

I sought out the most knowledgeable coaches I could find and developed a special technique for throwing that would minimise stress on my back, yet allow me to reach my full potential. I began improving dramatically but at every barrier I reached, every new level I got to whether it was school, district, county or national, I was greeted by a slew of  "naysayers" telling me why I could not go any further:  I was too small, too slow, had a weak back, etc. 
    

As I smashed record after record at the school, district, county, national and international level, I was still met with a myriad of reasons why I could not throw any further and repeatedly told that I was going to get injured and my back would give out.  Even during the television coverage on the BBC of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, my good friend and neighbour BBC commentator Ron Pickering talked about my back, my spina bifida.
    

I was the first Britain to break 90 metres with a Commonwealth record of 91.40m [under the javelin's old speficiations]  in 1985. I was the first person in the world to break the 80m barrier with the new rule javelin with a world record 81.74m in 1986, which I then improved on to a life time best of 83.84m the following year.

Several decades later here I am, still standing, still throwing, still competing and still breaking records. This year I threw 72.49m for a world age-record for a 47-year-old. - a distance that puts me fifth in the 2009 UK Rankings. To date I haven’t had any problems with my back and I have never had a single surgery on any part of my body (again, to date ) - how many javelin throwers can say that? 

So as I look toward 2012 I feel confident I can make it to my eight Olympic Trials. Will my back give out, my knees, my body?  Maybe. But my passion and the love for my sport and the Olympics will not waiver. 
 

My Olympic journey began over 40 years ago in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. It has taken me around the world, living in two Olympic cities Los Angeles and Atlanta . It seems only fitting that I end my athletic career on my home turf and hopefully in the Olympic Stadium in 2012. My Olympic journey would then be complete traveling full circle from beginning to end. 

Javelin throwing is an explosive fast dynamic event but if I can make to that field in 2012 it would be athletic accomplishment of durability, perseverance a 50 years in the making.  But make no mistake if you see me out there throwing my spear in 2012 it will be as much an artistic statement as athletic accomplishment.  Not because I may be wearing hand painted outfits that match my javelins, although I am not ruling that out, but it will be "performance art" that combines sport and art with time and timing - 50 years of time and a set time and location to perform. 

Will my quest have an amazing ending or will it be a sad saga of someone that doesn't know when to quit? Well I embrace both knowing that either is possible - to succeed one must be willing to fail.
 

Roald Bradstock represented Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics and in 1996 was an alternate for United States Olympic team. Bradstock competed in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 United States Olympic Trials. In addition to being an Olympic athlete, Bradstock is also an Olympic artist dubbed "The Olympic Picasso".

I went to Hiroshima seven years ago.

It was during the 2002 World Cup and the visit acted as a supreme reality check.

After three weeks wallowing in the best escapism on the planet, the sight of the Japanese city’s ruined dome, its skeleton exposed like a barbed wire climbing-frame, restored my sense of perspective with a thud.

Two days earlier in the bowels of a football stadium maybe 500 kilometresm away in Shizuoka, I had looked on as a distraught David Seaman and his England team-mates reacted to being knocked out of the competition by an outrageous Ronaldinho free-kick.

At the time, their despair seemed only natural. Viewed from the spot where the most terrible and important single event of the 20th century had taken place, it was exposed as utterly preposterous.

How could a grown man be reduced to tears by anything as small as a World Cup?

These memories came rushing back to me this week when I read that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the other Japanese city attacked with an atomic bomb by the United States in World War Two, were considering a joint bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

Conceptually, this is a stunning and wonderful idea.

We all take winning in sport much too seriously these days.

Pierre de Coubertin’s assertion that, "The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part", has taken on the timbre of a quaint cliché, more honoured, by far, in the breach than the observance.

Staging the Games on land incinerated by bombs that harnessed what President Harry S. Truman described as "the basic power of the universe" would restore a much-needed dose of humility to proceedings.

No other city could give a more compelling answer to the question, 'Why should the Olympics be staged here?'

It is on turning one’s mind to the other fundamental question – 'How are the Olympics to be staged here?' – that the practical difficulties that would probably undermine a Hiroshima/Nagasaki bid become evident.

These are principally, 1. They are not big cities – the population of Hiroshima is just over one million; that of Nagasaki not quite half of that and 2. They are not that close – a map I consulted suggests an intervening distance of about 300 kilometres, as the crane flies.

It could be that the symbolism inherent in staging the Games in these two cities would be deemed so potent as to override the usual practical concerns, but I doubt it.

As the last two contests have shown, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is spoilt for choice at the moment when it comes to selecting its Summer Games hosts.

Having said that, a strong Asian bid should stand a good chance of walking off with the prize in 2020.

For example, Tokyo – which garnered a lot of goodwill in a losing cause with its recent 2016 bid – could be formidable if it tries again.

It seems to me that there could be a way of granting Hiroshima and Nagasaki at least a piece of their Olympic dream while investing a new Tokyo bid with a potentially decisive extra dimension.

Why not advocate making Hiroshima and Nagasaki the heart of the 2020 Olympic football tournament?

This is generally spread around the host country in any case and my hunch is that FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who is also an IOC member, would welcome the idea.

Other places associated with the war – Okinawa? – could perhaps also stage matches.

● As one Olympic race finishes, another begins.

We now know that there will be just three bidders – Annecy of France, Munich of Germany and (for the third time in a row) Pyeongchang of South Korea – in the contest to stage the 2018 Winter Olympics.

For the 2014 Games, won eventually by Sochi, there were seven applicant-cities.

So my question is: Should the IOC be concerned?

I have to say my answer would be, Yes, kind of.

There is no crisis here: economic times are hard, so it was always likely that cities which might in other circumstances have bid would think very hard before entering this prestige contest.

And these are solid runners; I would be surprised if any of them fails to make it to the Candidate-city phase, making it a three-horse race in the final stages – the same as last time.

It is only fair to point out too that Sochi 2014 is bucking the economic trend as far as corporate sponsorship is concerned.

As I speculated in February, it could be that Sochi will be the first Winter Olympics to raise more than $1 billion (£613 million) in domestic sponsorship.

But Sochi, I suspect, will prove a bit of a one-off.

Not only is Russia a part of the world where the Winter Olympics matters more than just about anywhere else, but Vladimir Putin, a politician who wields very considerable power, has made the Sochi Games a personal project.

Both factors, I would think, must be helping Games organisers to ride out these tough economic times in good shape.

Vancouver 2010, for whom the global financial crisis could hardly have come at a worse time, have appeared less serene, with the IOC recently agreeing to assist Games organisers if, as feared, they incur a deficit caused by the recession’s impact on corporate sponsorship.

The Canadian city’s problems are largely a timing issue.

As Andrew Benett, global chief strategy officer for Euro RSCG Worldwide, the advertising agency, recently told me: "If the Vancouver Winter Olympics had been in February 2011, not 2010, they would be suffering less."

However, as Benett went on to say, "Even so, the Winter Olympics have never done as well as the Summer Olympics."

In short, I am starting to wonder whether the time has not come for the Movement to start thinking in earnest about how to beef the Winter Olympics up.

The fundamental problem, of course, is that – unlike their summer counterpart – large chunks of the world, which rarely experience snow and ice, are not really interested in them.

This has business repercussions for the IOC since, while the sums raked in by the Winter Games are far from negligible, its real copper-bottomed money-spinner – the Summer Olympics – comes along only once every four years.

(In this respect, the IOC is a bit like FIFA, world football’s governing body, whose flagship competition – the World Cup – is also on a four-year cycle.)

I have long thought that the IOC would benefit by making the Summer and Winter Olympics more equal in scale.

It seems to me, furthermore, that there is a relatively simple – if no doubt politicially delicate – way of achieving this.

Why not switch some of the indoor sports currently in the Summer Olympic programme to the Winter Games?

I can’t really see why disciplines such as track cycling and gymnastics shouldn’t make such a move, in the process broadening the appeal of an event that can seem like the Movement’s poor cousin.

And how about volleyball – a sport popular in many snow-less nations that would still have, in beach volleyball, a format ideally suited to the Summer Games?

The financial milestones being established by Sochi will probably mean that Olympic bosses can get by without making significant changes to the shape of the Winter Games if they want to. Whether this would be the wisest stance to adopt is another matter.

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering last year's Beijing Olympics. An archive of Owen’s material may be found by Twitter users at www.twitter.com/dodo938

I'm in a big bind here – I love rugby (even went to the school where it was invented) and I especially love Fiji rugby (I'm writing this within arms reach of a jersey signed by the 1997 Sevens Rugby World Cup-winning team, and a framed photo of the 15s side that beat the British Lions in 1977).

But sometimes you have to think with your head and not your heart. And I believe that by admitting rugby into the Olympics, the International Olympic Committtee (IOC) are propping up a political structure of governance that is discredited and needs to be swept away to save the game we all love.

Political power within the International Rugby Board (IRB) is vigorously and jealously manipulated by a self-selected elite of first-world nations. But don't just take my word for it. Last year an independent study, co-authored by top UK legal firm Addleshaw Goddard, found that seven per cent of the IRB's member unions controlled 62 per cent of the voting power. Put another way, 90 per cent of the unions (think, developing world) had less than a quarter of the votes. The system is rigged in favour of the few, over the many.

The IRB does have a Congress and it also has an Executive Committee but slotted in between is the 26-member Council, the apex of power – rugby's equivalent of a boardroom, and expressly referred to in the game's constitution as the sport's supreme authority.

Sixteen votes, two-a-piece, come from the so-called Foundation Unions of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Compared to this permanent bloc, the 10 votes shared, one each, between Japan, Italy, Argentina, Canada and the six regional confederations, are almost an irrelevance.

Impoverished Fiji, for instance, has one vote among 11 others within the Federation of Oceania Rugby Union (FORU) to select the Pacific's IRB representative (currently, the Samoan lawyer Harry Schuster). Australia and New Zealand also vote in the same FORU election as well as having two seats apiece in the Council.

And what of the IRB's Congress, where all the member unions attend? Little more than a talking shop, concluded Addleshaw Goddard, in a highly critical report entitled Putting Rugby First. Noting the Congress meets only every two years and has no formal legislative powers, consequently the wider membership - in one sense equivalent to the full shareholders register of world rugby - has extremely limited power and fewer opportunities to influence the direction of world rugby.

If the rest of the sports affiliated with the Olympic Movement are doing things differently, with greater accountability and transparency, why does rugby have this mania for control and privilege?

The answer is fear. The painful truth is rugby is not in good health across the Council membership.

Some examples: the number of senior male players in Scotland may soon tip below 10,000; in Australia almost all of the Super 14 matches were out-rated in the critical New South Wales TV market by the National Rugby League Under-20 Toyota Cup (that's right, no-name teenagers playing league); in England, a month into the Premiership season and only two sides had scored try-bonus points and five out of the 12 teams were averaging less than a try a match (prompting headlines in the Daily Telegraph such as, Is It Me, Or Is The Rugby Rubbish?)

Everybody on the Council is fretting about something, from the weakness of their local currency to inroads made by rival sporting codes. Which is why the 20 delegates representing national unions view issues through the prism, not of what is good for THE game but what is good for MY game.

This mutual suspicion is what collapsed long-overdue attempts to rewrite the laws of the game (the so-called ELVs). And why, as rugby enters its first economic recession since turning professional, the game's lack of leadership is imperilling its very existence as an entertainment choice.

Not only have the ELVs been bounced into touch but a raft of long-overdue areas of reform have also been neglected because decision-making has become such a fraught and deadlocked process.

The IRB concedes the political structure is skewed in favour of some nations but adds, it is not unreasonable to argue that those that provide the bulk of players and money into the game should have the bulk of the representation.

The bulk of players? Well, that isn't true. Fiji, with a population one-sixth of Scotland, has more senior male players and a consistently higher IRB ranking but is only represented at arm's length by a regional confederation.

Perhaps quality of players? Not true either. Japan, Italy and Canada hold three precious Council votes but between them have only once reached the final eight in all editions of the Rugby World Cup. Samoa has made it to the knockout stages in three of the five previous tournaments, yet has no direct vote.

The tragedy of rugby is that it started at the same time as football, from the same place, has a similar colonial heritage and a deliberately low cost of entry and participation.

But rugby's consistently backward-looking governance has denied the sport the spectacular trajectory enjoyed by football.

The teams likely to win the 2011 Rugby World Cup are the exact same sides you would have backed 100 years ago had there been a tournament. And those sides belong to the very unions in whose grasp all political and legislative control is permanently vested. Yet with all that power, rugby is in, or teetering near, apparent crisis within most of the council membership.

And that's why the IOC should have sent a clear message to the IRB Council. Play fair with your governance. Loosen your grip, open things up, and once you've created a level playing field, then come and join the Olympic Movement.

London-born Charlie Charters was marketing manager of the Fiji Rugby Union from 2001-04 and helped create the Pacific Islanders test side. He is now a writer, and his debut book Bolt Action, a thriller, will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2010