Time to unpick the threads of the sporting tapestry and create a new picture for the future.

And breathe! The Euros are over and the vicarious trauma of watching England has stopped. We can empty the recycling bin of cans, settle the account with Deliveroo and prepare to go again in a week’s time with the start of the Olympics in the Paris Games.

The Euros have pretty much dominated, nay saturated, the media both on the field of play and off.  Phil Foden aged 24 drifted in and out of play and kept the pundits busy. But, not to worry his son Ronnie Foden, aged 5, grabbed the headlines as a social media ‘influencer’ with 4m followers. You get my point? The ‘downside’ to that (for me at least) was that the build up to the Olympics just has not happened and here we are one week from the opening ceremony.

I was heavily involved in the back of house operations of British sport in the run up to the Rio Games (2016) as the CEO at the time of the British Athletes Commission. This gave me an insight into these last stages of Olympic (and Paralympic) selection from both the athletes and the National Governing Bodies’ perspective. Now very much on the outside I wonder what, if anything, has changed significantly for the better?

Of course its exceedingly difficult to find out. The athletes don’t want to speak out for fear of jeopardising their own selection chances and because their Lottery funding agreement makes it impossible to say anything that might be deemed detrimental to their sport – as seen by those managing the purse strings. If deselected athletes speak out (with nothing then to lose) they are just dismissed as bitter.

In the build up to Rio I got involved in many selection processes; anything from sitting as an independent on a selection panel (take a bow British Triathlon and British Rowing for example) to challenging the fairness of the selection policies. Trust me there were a lot of challenges because no one had ever done that before and many policies hadn’t changed in years. What I was interested in, on behalf of the BAC’s members, was fairness and transparency.

I had no qualms with the coaches using their discretion in selecting, as long as the athletes knew well in advance on what basis they would be applying their discretion and, if relevant, what weightings were given to the points under consideration.

So, that brings me to the UK Athletics selection process for Paris, where several athletes who had met the qualifying standards were not selected, as in the case of steeplechaser Phil Norman and others Phil Norman: Paris 2024 Olympic omission leaves runner ‘mentally exhausted’ – BBC Sport

After the Rio Games I was trusted by a great many athletes across Olympic and Paralympic sports who had sat on grievances for many months, sometimes years, for fear of deselection, the athletes felt that if they were seen to ‘speak out of turn or ‘off script’ then their place in the squad or team would be taken from them. The underlying cause was the ‘No Compromise’ culture created by UK Sport after the London Games which led to the focus of the sports and many of their coaches and Performance Directors on winning medals. To this journeyman competitor in sport the letters OLY or PLY after your name are the recognition of the ultimate meritocracy and all had stories to tell of their ‘journeys’ ad sacrificies to get to this the highest stage in their sports. But many of those selected who earned those letters felt they were second class as they hadn’t been on the podium and sadly lost to sport as future coaches, administrators because of their treatment and disenchancement with sport.

I was proud to be heavily involved in Tanni Grey Thompson’s review of Duty of Care in Sport for the government (published 2017) and the media focus around the culture of many Olympic and Paralympic sports after Rio UK Sport as change was needed. The high performance ‘quango’ UK Sport adopted a ‘Medals and more’ mantra without really defining, in my opinion, what the ‘and more’ stood for. Has this been effective and percolated through ‘The System’? Maybe not.

I was disappointed to see a post from representatives of the food brand John West on LinkedIn showing a photo at the kitting out of the Paralympics GB athletes under the strapline “Fuelling you to gold”. Several thoughts occur. Simplistically and in the real world, not everyone can be a gold medallist, but it suggests that this fixation lives on. Sadly. And I say sadly because there is such a lost opportunity there to recognise and promote the achievements of these extra – ordinary individuals who have refused to be defined by what their disability or condition prevents them from doing and developed super-strengths. This resilience and tenacity will take them way beyond their sporting careers and into how they lead their lives in what Cath Bishop calls ‘The Long Win’ of sport.

So, in part at least it remains all about the medals and the positioning of Team GB or Paralympics GB in the medal table. But surely the lessons from all those post Rio investigations have led to sustainable change in the culture of Olympic and Paralympic sport in the UK. As stated earlier it’s really hard to know because the system controls the narrative.  

However, the BBC carried a report about Paralympic medallist Maria Lyle retiring at 24. The report quoted Maria saying despite her success it had come at a ‘personal cost’ after being diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the sport, “due to experiences I have had while being in the sport”. Closer to home for me personally I know of an athlete involved in one of the sports that I helped to expose post Rio who is currently in long term care having attempted to take their own life as a result of the ongoing pervasive culture in that sport.

And what of those athletes who have been on the Talent Pathway since their teenage years and weren’t quite deemed good enough. Will they go four more years or will they be cast aside. What real impactful help will they get when they realise they have no structure to their daily routines anymore or that they have lost their identity as they are no longer a performance athlete? Will anyone care? Well I happen to know that Switch The Play will be Changing lives in sport | Switch The Play and I know because DOCIAsport is the charity’s Wellbeing Partner and I am working with them to develop and enhance the suite of products and services offered to athletes in transition.

I have always watched the Olympic and Paralympic Games since whenever and marvelled at the performances as a ‘window licker.’ The last time I did that was in 2012 when it was the members of the BAC that gave this country a feelgood factor (for a month.) Imagine my pride then when I became the CEO. But as their leader I had a duty to act on their collective behalf and that led me to pick at the threads of the tapestry the System has been ‘allowed’ to create without robust check and challenge. Its time the tapestry was sent to ‘The Repair Shop’ and for a new group of experts to help restore the picture. The cost of the repair could be funded by the new government who are already loo king at the faults made by their predecessors in other areas and could shine a similar light on the ‘high performance’ system of British Olympic and Paralympic sport and make it ‘high performance in terms of its contribution to Britain in 2024 and beyond.