INSIDE THE HI-TECH HQ GIVING TEAM GB THE EDGE
A £1million lodge, immersive technology and British mattresses – all are playing crucial roles in Olympic preparations, reports Jeremy Wilson in Yokohama
It was five years ago, just as the rest of the Olympic world were firmly fixing their gaze on Rio de Janeiro, that the planning began in earnest. Discreet trips to Tokyo gradually accelerated, contacts were established, local intelligence was sourced and bookings were already being made.
It is a process that has only quickened as the months have ticked down to the stage today, with exactly one year until the historic opening ceremony in Tokyo, where Team GB can predict with some confidence that their squad of about 400 athletes will have never arrived at an Olympic Games better prepared.
The Daily Telegraph was granted full access earlier this month to Team GB’S pre-games preparatory camp in Yokohama, and to a £1million project to temporarily transform a local state school in the heart of the Olympic Park into their own bespoke performance lodge. “We think it will be the jewel in our crown,” says Mark England, Team GB’S chef de mission ahead of his sixth summer Olympics and Paralympics.
It has been a process that takes in everything from the most marginal of gains to the decisions that helped in Rio translate those 95 athletes with “top-six medal potential” into 27 golds, 23 silvers and 17 bronzes. “It is about giving everyone the best chance,” England says. “A 67 medal return was phenomenal – we hope to be in that position again, but it gets tougher.”
Innovations for next year include working with Deloitte to produce immersive technology so that even those athletes and staff who have not physically been in Japan will be able to gain a powerful visual, emotional and practical feel for what to expect.
There is also a plan to engage with the British Tokyo team of 1964 and some of the Team GB clothing next year will be inspired by designs that were worn by legends such as Ann Packer and Lynn Davies 56 years earlier.
First stop on our tour is the Yokohama International Pool, a
50-metre Fina-accredited facility, where British swimmers and divers will not only base themselves in the final weeks before entering the Olympic Village but can even use exclusively during the Games. As Adam Peaty strode past, British swimming performance director Chris Spice, who had the same role in England’s 2003 World Cupwinning team, explained how they were trialling everything from food, training times and transport to the light and pool temperature. “The fact we are 50 minutes on a train to the Olympic venue is magic,” Spice says. “It means we can stay longer and potentially also return between events. It gives an added option. Everything is manic and packed inside the Olympic environment – you don’t get any lanes to yourself and it’s hard to train with any precision.”
The swimmers were staying 20 minutes away in student accommodation at Keio University, where the British gymnasts had just arrived. They were treating their time in Japan as a dry run for next year and, in the days after a 12-hour flight and with an eight-hour time difference, had their sports scientists measuring every aspect of performance and physiology.
Like swimmers, gymnasts train both in the mornings and afternoons and their sport is necessarily time intensive. A 30-hour week out on the apparatus is not unusual, and they rarely miss a chance to develop their spectacular skills – or risk losing their feel – by taking time off unless they are injured.
“We are mirroring the timetable down to when it would be a medal day,” says James Thomas, the gymnastics performance director who has also worked previously in boxing, judo and wheelchair rugby. Such movement between sports is increasingly common within an Olympic structure in Great Britain which, especially post-london, does seem to have embedded a more cohesive “one team” culture than any other nation.
When we move on later that day to the Todoroki Stadium, a Diamond League-standard venue that will host our athletics, women’s football and rugby sevens teams, England expands on this philosophy. He was especially struck in Minsk earlier this summer for the European Games when a young British cyclist told him that she was particularly motivated by having her name on the Team GB medal board. “That was inspiring her – I’m not sure 20 years ago you would have that sentiment,” England says.
“It’s been documented the huge personal gain you have as part of a team rather than winning individually. We have four values underpinning performance: pride, unity, responsibility and respect. People are very proud to wear the Team GB jersey.”
It was certainly noticeable in Rio how people such as Sir Andy Murray and Justin Rose, from the multi-million-pound and largely individual worlds of tennis and golf, seemed so genuinely enthused by that team culture. A “home from home” philosophy will again be proactively created in the Olympic Village, right down to bringing mattresses from UK bed retailer Dreams to British tea and coffee-making facilities and creating an area, perhaps again with artificial turf and Union Jack deckchairs, where athletes can congregate. Team GB colours are coordinated daily and iconic Olympians such as Sir Ben Ainslie, Sir Chris Hoy and Dame Katherine Grainger will share their stories.
There is perhaps no sport in which it is more important to experience local conditions than sailing and at Hayama Port, 30 miles south of Tokyo, another dedicated hub of British athletes could be found. They included Hannah Mills, who will be going for a record-breaking third consecutive Olympic medal next year. The sailors spend weeks at a time living in a very quiet Japanese village and, while Mills admitted the tranquillity could become mentally testing, she knows it is crucial to gather detailed experience of the nuanced local weather and sea conditions.
‘This is a great oasis to finish off our most comprehensive model’ ‘We are mirroring the timetable to when it would be a medal day’
We finish our tour at the Odaiba School for children aged between five and 15, which will be transformed next year into a “performance lodge” that is actually closer to many of the venues than the Olympic Village. It has a
200 metres athletics track, an indoor swimming pool and two air-conditioned gymnasiums. Following Team GB’S arrival next year, complete with seven 40ft containers of equipment, there will also be a bespoke gym and boxing ring as well as medical and rehabilitation space and quiet areas to relax and refuel. Unlike the Olympic Village, where there will not be sufficient accreditations for a likely support staff of 800, Team GB will have the keys to the front door, so can provide a central base for athletes, staff and invited friends and family to congregate.
How they secured such a soughtafter base early in 2017 is instructive. Following consultation with the British Embassy, discussions with the school and local authority involved not just the cost, but how Team GB could create a lasting legacy.
Team GB athletes have since visited to show the Odaiba schoolchildren their medals and much of the training facilities and kit will be left for the residents.
“We are conscious of needing to be good guests and saw this as a great oasis to finish off the most comprehensive model we have ever delivered,” says Paul Ford, the deputy chef de mission. In 12 months, the meticulous planning will come to fruition. And rest assured, discreet trips to Paris, and perhaps soon even Los Angeles, are already under way.