Greg Boyed interviews Barbara Kendall
Sunday 12 August, 2012
Greg Boyed interviews Barbara
Kendall
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Q +
A
Greg Boyed Interviews Barbara
Kendall
GREG
Olympics 2012 in London have been good for New
Zealand, to say the least, maybe great, with five golds,
including Lisa Carrington’s blistering performance in
kayak last night. It’s 13 medals in all. We won our
100th medal with Blair Tuke and Peter Burling’s silver in
sailing’s 49er class, and their medals were fittingly
presented by former New Zealand boardsailing great and
three-time Olympic medallist Barbara Kendall, now a member
of the International Olympic Committee. Barbara Kendall won
gold at Barcelona in 1992, part of a career that spanned
five Olympics and a full set of medals – a gold, silver
and a bronze. Barbara Kendall, hello, from London. It’s
been a great Olympics from this end of the world. How would
you rate it? Best ever?
BARBARA KENDALL –
International Olympic Committee Member
Oh, it’s been amazing just being part of it, and the
English have done such an incredible job of this Olympic
Games. Every sports event has run completely smoothly.
Transport – there was lots of glitches in the beginning.
They thought there was going to be, but it’s just been a
really amazing Games.
GREG The New Zealand performance – what, five gold medals – that would have to be something we would have really only hoped for in our wildest dreams, wouldn’t it?
BARBARA Well, you know, if
you look the New Zealanders’ performance, it’s
absolutely incredible, considering how professional sport
has come. They’re saying that Seoul as the last time that
we got that many gold medals, but sport has become so much
more professional. There’s so many more countries now
pouring a lot more money into sport, and New Zealand has
done incredibly well.
GREG The water
sports are where we’re doing well. The kayaking saw Lisa
Carrington last night, our rowing guys, of course, just
blitzing it. Can we ever hope to broaden it out? Of
course, your own history as well, obviously, on the water.
Can we hope to broaden out to more track-and-field things,
to more events?
BARBARA Sorry,
there’s a really loud guy right beside me, and I’m
having difficulty hearing you. Can you just say the last
question again?
GREG Absolutely.
We’re just saying that the water sports are where we’re
dominating, of course. Lisa Carrington last night and our
rowers are doing so well. Can we ever hope to broaden the
winning in the medals out?
BARBARA
Well, you know, it’s pretty difficult because it
all comes down to developmental pathways for all the sports,
and it’s a bit of the ‘chicken and the egg’ type
scenario. You know, if you don’t have the programmes in
place and the funding in place to be able to help young
athletes and kids come through developmental pathways,
you’re never going to get those results. And we know that
it takes eight years of an athlete doing that sport
full-time and sacrificing a lot to be able to get there.
And if we don’t have the systems in place for those
athletes, we’re going to be— you know, it’s really
difficult to develop different sports. But I’m pretty
stoked that the water sports are leading the
way.
GREG
Yeah, of course, but Karapiro is the home base, of
course, for rowing. The infrastructure, no one would argue,
is probably about the best we’ve got in the country, you
know, putting aside things like rugby. Is that the model
more sports should be working from?
BARBARA
Absolutely. You know, now I think that there might
be a bit more of a push to have a water-sports centre in
Auckland for the sailing and for the kayak, because what it
does is when you get a high-performance-sport environment,
you get all like-minded people together and they feed off
each other and create this energy and environment that makes
you want to achieve. And that’s what they’ve done in
Karapiro, and it’s a great model to show how it actually
does work making these high-performance centres. And
because we are a small nation, that’s the only way we’re
going to be able to do it is by actually putting these
facilities in one place and the high-performance athletes
come and they can base themselves in these
places.
GREG
Looking at the other side of the coin, though,
rowing wins, so rowing has a base, rowing gets money, so
rowing wins. The other sports don’t win, they think,
‘Nah, we’re not going to pour the money into it.’ It
comes down to dollars, doesn’t it, Barbara?
BARBARA Well, it does too, but, you
know, within these dollars there’s also talent
identification, so every now and again you might find an
athlete that has an X factor. Look at Valerie. You know,
she has that X factor. Cycling – there’s a lot of
cyclists there that have the X factor. Sarah Walker – you
know, she’s one out of a bag. But if they don’t start
putting development programmes in place so we can find the
next Sarah Walker, find the next Valerie Adams, you know, we
won’t have it. It’s a bit like what happened in
windsurfing. You know, we didn’t find the next Barbara
Kendall, and now there’s no windsurfing at the Olympic
Games. So, yes, it does take money, but it takes talent
identification also, and then it takes a great partnership
with a coach and also a high-performance support structure
around those athletes to bring them up.
GREG Tens of
millions of dollars and obviously a big feel-good factor for
the athletes there are for us back home, but is it worth it,
though, in your opinion?
BARBARA
Absolutely. You know, feeling proud to be a New
Zealander is what— you even put a dollar value on that –
what it does for a nation. And, you know, people go to work
with a smile on their face, and when people go to work with
a smile on their face, they’re going to be more passionate
about what they do. You can be inspired by these athletes
and put it into your own whatever life that you’re doing,
and that will just— it just makes a better— I don’t
know. I love being a New Zealander and watching New
Zealanders achieve on the world stage. It makes you feel
proud, it makes you want to stay in New Zealand and, you
know, it’s something that maybe you can’t put a dollar
value on because it’s— you know, it’s an amazing thing
what happens. And, you know, if we’ve got the money,
let’s put it in that area because it does inspire New
Zealanders to go out there and do the best that they
can.
GREG
On the other side of the ledger, of course, we’ve
all heard about the failure to enter a couple of the
athletes in actual events. How did that happen? How can we
ensure it never ever happens again?
BARBARA
You know, it’s a human error, and mistakes do
happen, you know? Everyone makes mistakes. I went over the
start line early in a couple of races. I should know better
than that. You know, lots of things like that do happen.
We’ve got to look beyond and look at the positives of
that, because we know Valerie probably never threw as far as
the Belarus girl before, so we’ve got to keep it all in
perspective. And, you know, if we look at the positives
from that, Valerie’s going to come back really hungry for
the next four years, and maybe that’s the motivation and
the passion that will keep her around for the next four
years. So, you know, everything— every bad thing,
there’s always a good on the other side of it.
GREG All right,
there’s been plenty of them, but for you there as an
Olympian yourself, favourite moment of the Games?
BARBARA Lisa Carrington. (laughs)
She is a beautiful person from the inside out. What an
amazing story. She’s so humble, and her life is never
going to be the same again. And so, you know, watching Lisa
really reminds me of when I won my gold medal back in ’92
and you sort of have no idea what you’ve just done, and
then life just turns to chaos. And she’ll handle it
really well because she is really a beautiful
person.
GREG
Fantastic. Barbara Kendall from London, thanks so
much for your time.
BARBARA
Pleasure.