BBC BREAKFAST WITH FROST HOSTED BY ANNE MACKENZIE INTERVIEW
KAREN PICKERING, MBE DARREN CAMPBELL, CHRISTIAN MALCOLM, LINFORD CHRISTIE AUGUST 6th, 2000

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used

ANNE MACKENZIE
Now the world's best athletes are warming up and dreaming of gold medal glory at the Olympics in Sydney next month. In a moment I'll be speaking to some of Britain's hopefuls, but first our sports correspondent Neil Bennett takes a look at our chances in the Sydney 2000 games.

[FILM CLIP]

ANNE MACKENZIE
Neil Bennett reporting there. Well as promised, and as featured in that film, I'm joined by a host of Olympic competitors and stars. Darren Campbell and Christian Malcolm, their coach Linford Christie, and champion swimmer Karen Pickering. Good morning to you all. Darren, now you've had a very successful year 2000, it must be rather nice going into the Olympic trials knowing you're the fastest man in Britain this year.

DARREN CAMPBELL
Yeah, I'm quite confident at the moment. I think it's a confident thing - confidence thing - the fact that I've beaten the majority of the top, my top rivals, and I'm really confident.

ANNE MACKENZIE
How does it feel, though, for an athlete, being this close to the Olympics - is it a kind of a mixture of anticipation and terror?

DARREN CAMPBELL
Yeah, I'm starting to dream about the final now, whereas before it wasn't really on my mind, but at the moment it's on the forefront.

ANNE MACKENZIE
You're pretty sure that you're going to come back with something - assuming you get there of course ¿ we're jumping the gun a bit there ¿

DARREN CAMPBELL
Yeah, yeah. I'm extremely positive that once I make the final that I can come home with a medal.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Well Christian, you've won gold in national competitions twice this year, as I understand it - you must be feeling pretty certain that you're going to get to the Olympics, are you?

CHRISTIAN MALCOLM
It's been a good season for me so far, and the way things have progressed it's gone well for me, but the way the trials go, it's up and down, everyone's in to win it, so I am confident at the moment.

ANNE MACKENZIE
This will be your first Olympic, is it as special for athletes as it is for the public, I mean is it just one more, you know, highlight of the kind of circuit of events that you do, or is really as special to you as it is to everybody else?

CHRISTIAN MALCOLM
Oh it's a big thing, you know, to be at the Olympics is, you know, every child's dream and I remember sitting there in '92 watching Linford run, and then I said to myself I'd love to go there and watch and I've got a chance to go there and run, so hopefully I can take advantage.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Linford, all motivational talk aside, do you really think that we have a chance of coming back with track and field gold - because that's what people seem to judge everything by.

LINFORD CHRISTIE
Well yes I do think so and I think all athletes have to believe that. It's no point in going to any championships feeling that you're going to come second or third. You know my, my motto is if you aim for third you'll get fourth, if you aim for second you get third, if you aim for first then you never know what you're going to get, so you've always got to believe that you're the best out there and, you know, you're the best in your country, you've earned your right to be at a major championships so you have to go out there believing that you're going to win.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Is the ability there though? I mean where would you say we stand the best chance of getting gold?

LINFORD CHRISTIE
Well I mean I think in the men's hundred it's wide open, and also in the 200. You know, there's no Michael Johnson, no Maurice Green - not that I think they were going to, you know, be in there anyway - but, I mean we've got a very good chance there. We've also - I mean we've got the relay - the four by 100 relay, I think we've got a very good chances again, you know, we're not sure on the American quartet, our quartets have been doing really well. I think the only places we'll really struggle is maybe in the women's sprints. You know, maybe the one and two, but, you know, saying that, I mean the girls are young and, you know, they need experience and, to be honest, I don't really think the, the sport is doing enough for them. You know, and enough for a lot of our athletes. I mean, we've got Annie Norman back doing - not in this country - but in other countries doing meetings and we've had so many British athletes who could not get on the circuit, you know, or run in those, you know small meetings that Annie's put on, but I mean I think regardless whether we, you know, we need to find more meetings, we need to fill the lanes that we've got here with British athletes and also we need to, instead of helping foreign athletes to beat British athletes, we need to help British athletes to beat foreign athletes and that's the only way we're going to have chances of winning medals.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Well we'll come back to that in just a second but I just want to bring in Karen, as the only swimmer here. The last Olympic gold for a British woman, I'm told, was 1960. Now you've really found your form recently, but they say that this will be your last chance of Olympic gold - are you going to make it?

KAREN PICKERING
Like, like Linford, you have to go in believing that you've got a chance and, you know, the last couple of years, especially this year has gone really well for me, so I'm feeling confident going into the games and I think probably I'm in the best shape coming into these Olympics than I have been for the previous two, so, you know, I'm feeling good about it, yeah.

ANNE MACKENZIE
The Princess Royal was talking about the fearsome responsibility that you all face because after the appalling summer of sport for Britain everybody's expecting all of you to do well at the Olympics, but she also said that the nation shouldn't expect too much. Is that the problem, that we do expect too much from British athletes?

KAREN PICKERING
I think a lot of the problem is that we're only really remembered every four years, and suddenly there's all this pressure on us to perform and everyone's got great expectations but as soon as the plane lands when we come back from the games, we're kind of forgotten and we don't get as much support as maybe we need and then four years later everyone's expecting these great performances again. So I think possibly we need a bit more help in between, but I think, you know, that things are looking good, the swimming team especially is, is looking really good at the moment, so, you know, I feel positive about it.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Linford, do we expect too much? Should we expect we do the best that we can within quite a small nation, should we somehow expect that we're going to be world beating.

LINFORD CHRISTIE
Yeah I mean I think we do expect - well it's not that we - I think, you know, there's a lot of pressure put on the athletes by, I say, the media. You know, because they, they're the people really who judge the athletes. The public, I think a lot of them are just happy you go out and you do your best, which is the way it should be. But there's, you know, when you come back, if you don't perform, then, you know, you're all over the papers and everything else. And I think that's what the, the kind of pressure the athletes feel, and that's what they, they've got to go to the games with that in mind when it's really not needed. And also, I mean, it's all about funding. You realise that there - to send an athlete to the Olympic Games - that money still has to be raised, you know, except by funding, it's not really, and it's still taxed by the government. You know, and then the first people to come and congratulate you is, you know, you do well, that it's a politician. So therefore they, you know, they've got to sort themselves out. And it's like that, you know, football is self-sufficient, athletes and, in the athletics and swimming, you know, nearly grass roots sports still need support and, you know, they don't need a politician to come and tell you 'yes, you've done really well', they, you need the support before that ¿

ANNE MACKENZIE
I want to ask you just briefly, while you're here, about the situation that's facing you, your - you have an arbitration panel I think about allegations of using drugs. Now you've been cleared by the British Athletics Association but you still have this international arbitration hanging over your head. What happens if you lose?

LINFORD CHRISTIE
Well what can I do? To be honest with you, you know my, my main concern is that the British, the British Federation found me innocent - totally exonerated and, you know that's, that's really what I am concerned with. You know, I can't control the way the IAA think and everything but -

ANNE MACKENZIE
But you're such a role model - the role model - for young athletes. It must really be extremely upsetting for you, internationally apart from anything else, to have a ¿

LINFORD CHRISTIE
Well I mean the only, the only way, the only reason why it upsets me is because I've worked very hard and I've never taken any drugs at all. I've worked very hard and, you know, I've had a career in sport, 20 years, and if I didn't take drugs, you know, when I was at the peak of my career, why, when I'm like 39 or 38, would I want to take drugs when I really don't need to.

ANNE MACKENZIE
There have been a number of athletes who've been accused of using this drug nandrolene most have said they're innocent - is it your belief that this drug can't be tested for conclusively?

LINFORD CHRISTIE
Well I mean I think there is, I think there is a problem and, you know, I, honest, I mean there are cheats in our sport and if I said there weren't cheats in our sport then I'd be lying - there are cheats. But I thought the testing system was there to protect the innocent and, you know, the IAA are saying well virtually that their testing procedure is infallible. We all make mistakes. And, yeah, there is a lot of mistakes here and until they know enough about it then I, you know, I really do believe that they need to put the thing on hold, do a lot more tests, you know, to really find out, because we have got a problem and not all, not all the athletes, you know, who have tested positive nandrolene, you know, are cheating. A lot of them are innocent.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Does it worry you as young athletes the damage that's been done to the sport by all the scandals over drugs? The uncertainty as well, of whether the tests are actually accurate or not?

DARREN CAMPBELL
Yeah I think that's, that's the problem. It's not, it's not so much the actual drugs, it's the fact that there seems to be a problem and at this moment in time there doesn't seem to be any solution, and that's the biggest worry.

ANNE MACKENZIE
It does seem to be very, very confusing to the public, doesn't it, that nobody really seems to know, you know, who to believe - the athletes or the authorities - you constantly see these situations were athletes are accused and then found innocent. It's just unbelievably confusing.

DARREN CAMPBELL
Yeah, as I say, it's because nobody knows actually what's going on. You know I heard of a case the other day where the, the actual tester just threw in the graph and said this person was positive when clearly they weren't. So, you know, when you're hearing stories like that and now we're trying to achieve Olympic dreams, it doesn't help you feel confident about being tested.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Just before we go, Karen, a rather less emotive dilemma for facing sport, the body suit which improves performance. Is it meant to be about athletics equipment, is it fair?

KAREN PICKERING
Yes it's fair, I mean, and all the time sport progresses. You know, when they first stopped wearing wool swimsuits and moved on to Lycra, you'd be saying that's not fair. And the first person who wore goggles - well that was an advantage. So, I mean there's always going to be technical advancement and this is one that's been made and a lot of the companies have brought out similar suits - they are available to everybody - and I think it's just about if you, if you like it and you're comfortable in it, you know, I think it's a good idea.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Christian, do you wear a body suit?

CHRISTIAN MALCOLM
(LAUGHTER) ¿

ANNE MACKENZIE
If you won, though, wearing a body suit because it increased your time slightly and your opponents didn't wear body suits or didn't have access to such a good one, you know is it really the spirit of athletics?

CHRISTIAN MALCOLM
As long as it's legal.

ANNE MACKENZIE
Okay, Karen, gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

ENDS