Recipe for gold

GOING for gold takes no measly effort. Sacrifice, perseverance and a thorough preparation are some of the ingredients to make true champions out of athletes.

British duo Chris McGeorge, the former Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, and his wife Sonia, who ran at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, met some 50 Sports School pupils yesterday to share with them this recipe for success.

"What great athletes try to do is to make winning a habit," said Chris, "but to do that, they have to learn all the skills."

Chris said that learning these skills "can be quite boring in terms of repetition" but only great athletes will persevere, to go on and on and on.

"There's an incredible amount of hard work and time being put in," he said, explaining that it takes 10,000 hours of practice in over 10 years to make an Olympic champion.

He also stressed the need for high quality practice or training, where athletes must put their full focus into these sessions. "It's no good going out there and just going through the motions," he said.

Meanwhile, Sonia added that great athletes have the ability to get back up, "bounce back" and perform.

She cited world champion hepathlete Jessica Ennis as an example. Ennis, who could not perform at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 due to right foot fractures, has bounced back to clinch wins after wins after enduring a year of re-training her left leg for the long jump take-off.

She stressed that getting injured does not necessarily signify an end to a sports career.

"You're always going to have bad times as a sportsperson," she said. "It happens."

She highlighted that "the key is how you learn from these failures: How could you do better next time? What went wrong this time? What can I do to make a difference next time I perform?"

She added that athletes have to be the best they can be "you can't all be Olympic champion, but you can all make the most of what you got ... take the opportunity".

"Do not look back when you're old and have regrets," she said.

Following their talk at the Sports School's lecture hall in Berakas yesterday, the British pair also presented to the pupils a video clip of the preparations that have been done in London for the upcoming Olympic Games (slated to start on July 27 and end on Aug 12) and the Paralympic Games (from Aug 29 to Sept 9).

Meanwhile, pupils who attended the talk gave it a thumbs up, saying it was inspirational.

Ak Abdul Farid Pg Idrus, a swimmer in Year 10, for example said that the talk was good and was an inspiration for the Sports School pupils who are practising different sports.

"They advised us to grab the opportunity we have here, that we can aim for the Olympics through training and hard work," he said.The Brunei Times