Brits must learn from Jade's lesson, says Daley

9:47am Monday 14th July 2008

Decathlon legend Daley Thompson has told British athetics it can learn a lesson from the return to form of Herne Hill Harriers long-jump star Jade Johnson.

The 28-year-old jumped a personal best and Olympic qualifying distance 6.81metres at the European Cup final in June after being dumped from the sport's Lottery-funded world class performance programme in 2007.

And she added the National Championship title to her list of honours on Sunday beating Kelly Sotherton into second place, with a leap of 6.30m.

Central funding has long been criticised as making life too easy for the Britain's top athletes and is often quoted as a reason for the failure of some to fulfill their full potential.

Thompson won gold medals at the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics on the cusp of athletics' transiition from an amateur to professionall sport - famously training on Christmas Day to put him one step ahead of his rivals.

And the 49-year-old reckons Johnson's harsh lesson from the school of hard knocks is a good example of the current system's effectiveness at producing potential champions of the future.

"I think it is pretty difficult to strike a balance balance between giving people what they want and what they need," he said.

"They may need a car, but I would argue it isn't necesarry to give them a Mercedes.

"Things have probably been a bit too easy for British athletes in recent history and performances have suffered.

"If you get on the bottom rung you don't necessarily have the push to go as high as you possibly could. I think most sports have addresssed that now.

"Jade is a good example of that. She was swanning around as Britain's number one, she didn't perform for a couple of years, they took her money away and is she is now jumping better than she has ever done.

"That is proof the slightly harder and harsher way works."

Thompson's illustrious 10-year career saw him honoured with the OBE in 1983 before setting a world record points tally to claim gold at the 1984 Olympics - still the fourth best performance of all time.

He dominated his sport at time when it was moving towards professionalism, and the father-of-five insists the thought of being world number one was the secret to his success.

"I always wanted to get the best out of myself and to be the best," he added.

"I was fortunate we had just gone from an amateur sport to being professional and I was able to train seven days a week.

"I trained on Christmas Day and for me that wasn't a problem because I thought that was what everyone else was doing and I didn't want to get left behind.

"I always thought I was capable of being the world number one and that is just what I tried to be."

Thompson was speaking at the launch in Chiswick of Nestle's Go Free promotion designed to give families free access sports activities at 3,000 leisure centres across the country.

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