The medal tally continues to climb for Wales at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. It may well reflect the investment in modern methods of sports science, but Owen Morgan argues the success also highlights older, more traditional sporting virtues of hard work, guts, determination, and a familiar nutritional liquid.
We are often told success at the top level of 21st Century sport comes down to the advantage earned by the “aggregation of marginal gains”.
If you’re not familiar with the not particularly catchy phrase above, it basically means making lots of tiny improvements to different aspects of performance which will all add up to make a larger leap towards sporting excellence.
The pioneers of making the most of marginal gains were the boffins behind British Cycling’s “Secret Squirrel Club” founded by former Olympic champion Chris Boardman.
Boardman and his team of experts travelled the world talking to everyone from Formula One engineers to the military in order to research how Britain’s bikers could go faster.
Every advantage from ultra-aerodynamic skin suits to riders having their own personal pillows was employed to gain that extra one per cent over the rest of the world.
And it worked. Britain’s cycling team’s performance was transformed and our cyclists have enjoyed unprecedented success at Olympics and World Championships over the past decade.
Boardman came to mind when Wales’ Lewis Oliva struck silver in the men’s keirin at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Oliva last year decided to leave the British Cycling programme and its army of research and support staff in Manchester in order to come home to Wales and concentrate on his medical studies at Cardiff University.
And he seems to have found his very own performance “marginal gain” a little closer to home.
In his post race interview, instead of thanking sports scientists and engineers for their support in his success, Oliva’s gratitude was lavished on a more surprising recipient.
“I would like to thank the Conway Pub back home in Pontcanna for supplying me with Guinness! Without you boys, I wouldn’t have done it, so cheers,” said Oliva.
The cyclist’s thanks may have been hugely tongue in cheek, but his success shows you don’t have to have the resources of a massive organisation behind you and give your life over totally to your sport when you have raw talent, passion . . . oh yes, and a ready supply of Guinness!
Who knew the black stuff had performance enhancing properties? And it’s legal . . . as long as you’re not riding under the influence, of course.
Instead of mysterious jiffy bags delivered in the dead of night, perhaps this year’s Tour De France will see crates of Irish stout being couriered across Europe to the top teams!
Another sport which has invested massively in high-tech innovation to improve performance is swimming, where new “super suits” were deemed to provide such an advantage they were banned from use in competition.
But again, we mustn’t forget that fancy kit isn’t the be all and end all, especially where the Welsh are concerned.
Team Wales swimmer Alys Thomas succumbed to the curse of Sunday morning swimming pool regulars up and down the country . . . her goggles fogged up.
For all the scientific sporting innovations, isn’t it comforting to the rest of us to know foggy goggle syndrome can happen to the best!
But it’s not everyone who can cope with such spectacular success when even the highest spec equipment goes wrong.
Instead of being thrown by the fact her goggles had let her down, Thomas used all her experience to overcome the problem and win an unexpected 200m butterfly gold in a Commonwealth Games record time.
“I could not see anything because my goggles fogged up,” said Thomas. “I just kept my eye on the blue line and swam my own race.
“I counted my own strokes and made it to the walls and just did what I do in training.”
Age is only a number, as they say, but Alys herself brought the subject up in her inspirational post-race interview, pointing out that this was her first international medal, despite her being the ripe old age (in swimming terms) of 27, and her success had been gained because she had never given up on her dream.
I wonder if a 17-year-old Alys would have coped as well with the situation as the 27-year-old Alys did?
Once again, it just goes to show that no matter how new-fangled your equipment, you can’t replace experience, good old fashioned perseverance and a refusal to give up your quest for success no matter how long it takes . . . or even if you can’t see where you’re going!
As well as technical advancements, sport has benefited from psychological advancements in recent decades
Once again, it was British Cycling which was amongst those who pushed the barriers in this area with the work of Steve Peters, who helped the likes of Sir Chris Hoy overcome the “chimp” in their brains – the term he gave for unwelcome thoughts and feelings that can sometimes sabotage success.
Well, Wales’ 11-year-old table tennis prodigy Anna Hursey employed her own furry little friends to help her cope with parading in front of the 35,000 crowd at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony . . . she pretended they were teddy bears!
Wales may a small country on the global stage, but as a nation we are passionate, talented, committed, and as the examples above illustrate, just as ingenious and innovative as any “Secret Squirrel Club” when it comes to dreaming up our own marginal gains.