One of the franchising community’s top leaders has a first-hand view of the “drive to win” needed to succeed at the Olympic Games. Any Lab Test Now CEO Clarissa Bradstock’s husband is Roald Bradstock, an Olympic athlete in the javelin and award-winning artist. The multi-talented couple just returned to the U.S. from the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea.
Roald Bradstock painting during the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Friday, 15 January 2016
Are we fighting a losing battle trying to stop athletes taking performance enhancing drugs? Is cheating just so much a part of “our” collective genetic makeup that it can never be eradicated from sport? Is the only option to throw more money at it, and make the offenders criminals and put them in prison, or is there an alternative, albeit extreme option?
What if we went the other direction, and did a 180, and created an entirely new “genre” in the sports world, where it would be not only legal to take PEDs, but you would actually be encouraged to take them?
We have the Olympic and Paralympic Games for abled and disabled athletes. Why not add another section for enabled and enhanced athletes? Creating Super-Olympics would give those individual athletes and state sponsored programs that want to cheat a stage and an outlet. Could this be the solution? Maybe, just maybe, these “cheats”, be it individuals or statewide programs, would then self-purge themselves and move to the new platform, a sand box created especially for them, where they could go and play. Then the decks would be cleared and our current system could be cleaned up. (more…)
Original Article
Inspiration is an integral part of sports: inspiring stories, inspirational performances and inspirational athletes.
Cheating, unfortunately, is another, albeit less savory, aspect of the sporting world.
But how can two such polar opposites come together to inspire us? It’s not possible, is it? (more…)
“To the victor go the spoils” is a well-known phrase first uttered by a New York Senator in 1831. Simply put, it means the winner gets the prize. But in the sports world determining a winner can be sometimes be challenging.
You would think that the person crossing the finish line first or the team scoring the most points is the winner, right, seems kind of a no brainer. They’re the ones that stand on top of the podium and receive the bouquet of flowers, get their medals, trophy, jacket or jersey and hear their national anthem played. Of course, they are the champions. That’s why we have competitions and why we have an award ceremony afterwards, so we can (more…)
One of the things I teach as a coach, and lecture on as legacy ambassador for the Youth Sport Trust at sport colleges around the UK, is the importance failure plays in both sport and art.It is a necessary “evil” for any athlete or artist to really grow, mature and reach their full potential. It is important to learn from your failures and mistakes. Often you learn just as much, if not more, from your failures as your successes. (more…)
It has been two years since I declared my intention to try to qualify for the 2012 UK Olympic Trials, when I will be 50.I don’t know what odds the local bookie would have given, but it is safe to say they would have been pretty long.Well, on May 19, on a warm spring evening in Tuscon, Arizona, I broke my own UK Veterans javelin record three more times and set three more world age records for a 49-year-old. But my most important accomplishment that evening was that I threw far enough to qualify for the 2012 UK Olympic Trials – my eighth consecutive Olympic Trials.
This past weekend I traveled with my family, my wife and mother, to beautiful Fort Myers, Florida for the official grand opening of the Art of the Olympians (AOTO) Museum. International Olympic Committee member and five-time winter Olympian HSH Prince Albert II flew in from Monaco to attend and participate in this special historic event.There were lots of activities scheduled to celebrate the occasion: Olympian school and hospital visits, Olympians breakfast with Prince Albert, a press conference and student round table and a black tie reception and Gala banquet, all with Prince Albert. On Sunday there was even a friendly game of volleyball with the prince. Wow! But it was during the “Painting with the Prince” event, on the lawn in front of the Museum on Saturday afternoon, that something quite extraordinary happened and something truly historic. Even though I was right in the middle of it I did not realise, for several days, what had actually happened: Something truly historic had taken place.
As an athlete one of the many things that I have had to endure throughout my athletic career is pain. It comes with the territory, whether it is the pain from pushing my body in the weight-room, the pain from injury or the pain of failure or defeat.As I train hard, my sights set firmly on 2012, I am finding, surprisingly, an increase in challenges I am facing due to my age – 48 years 8 months and 4 days to be exact.On Saturday I had my first competition of 2010 at the beautiful new track at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, USA. This was also the official beginning of my quest for the 2012 Olympics when I will be 50.I have competed in almost 700 competitions to date in my 38-year competitive career but this meet felt very different, very surreal.
Last Thursday I got to talk for a few minutes on BBC Radio 5’s show “London Calling”. The theme of the programme was age and athletes “coming back” or trying to come back for 2012. I was the final guest for the show because I was the extreme: the athlete who will be 50 years old in 2012, an ambition I had revealed first oninsidethegames last October.
I was surprised by the response I received about my ambitious goal but I think I understand why people were so vocal about my goals.
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!
By Roald Bradstock – 1 June 2009
Last Friday was the last day for entries for the 2012 and the Arts Council’s ‘Artists Taking The Lead’ project.
For those of you that do not know this project has a budget of £5.4 million for 12 new works of commissioned art, each worth up to £500,000.
The commissioned work can be in any art form and in any location in the UK.
I had many ideas that I wanted to propose but the rules clearly state that there could only be one entry per artist/ person. It was tough but I picked out my best idea and pitched it. The hardest thing to do was to do it in just 400 words or less.
Have you heard of the expression “a picture worth a 1000 words?”. Well try describing a visual image and concept in only 400. It is tough. I used all 400 words. (more…)
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By Roald Bradstock – 26 May 2009
There has been a lot of discussion about the Cultural Olympiad and its importance leading up to and during the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics – getting people around the country involved in celebrating the 2012 London Games. But there isn’t any mention about the Cultural Paralympiad? You never hear of that, do you?
There is a simple explanation for that – there is no such thing. But maybe there should be. Maybe in 2012, or before, there should be another event added to the calender, a historic first: “The Cultural Paralympiad”. I believe it would help combine the Olympic and Paralympics by making them more “equal” – They are both huge international sporting events and they should have complimentary cultural programmes.
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By Roald Bradstock – 7 May 2009
Al Oerter winning 4 consecutive gold medals in the discus is a legendary accomplishment. Each time he competed he was never favourite to win and yet he rose up, overcoming adversity, to win again and again. He was a true competitor – the modern day discobolus – a modern day legend whose name and achievements have become synonymous with the modern Olympics
Oerter’s last Olympic competition was in Mexico City in 1968 – over 40 years ago – but his Olympic journey did not end there. It continued off the field until the day he died on October 1, 2007.
(more…)
By Roald Bradstock – 10 April 2009
As an artist and an athlete I find the recent discussion about the “The Cultural Olympiad” and its role in the Olympics very interesting. A journalist wrote in an article recently that “it” would “be a tiny side show” to the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012.
Unfortunately this is a point of view that many people may have, but what amuses me is that art and the arts is so intertwined with the Olympics that people cannot see it.
