An interview with Tanni Grey-Thompson

Tanni’s career

Your sporting achievements are renowned – what do you consider to be your greatest sporting achievement?

It would have to be winning the 100m in my final Paralympics in Athens after I had completely messed up the 800m final, which was my strongest event. My team manager didn’t want me to do the 100m because it was my weakest event and he thought it was more risky and would detract from the other events that I was doing. We had some quite robust discussions about me competing over four distances (which I had done many times before) but I knew that it was likely to be my last games and I had competed over those distances at three other Paralympics. I was set a really hard qualification target for the 100m, which I met, so then I was able to do it.

Is competing at different distances difficult and is it more common in wheelchair racing than it is for runners?

Wheelchair racers are like cyclists, rather than runners, but we compete at athletics distances. The technology does have an impact on this. Once you reach your top speed it’s easier to maintain it because you are not using weight bearing muscles. You can also manipulate your heart rate in a way that a runner can’t by taking half a push break to lower your heart rate by five to six beats because you’re overcoming momentum not gravity. A runner can’t take half a stride length break. I competed in everything from 100m to marathons, and the vast majority of wheelchair racers will compete in a much wider variety of distances.

How did you stay motivated and focused during your career?

My goals changed quite a lot through my career. When I was younger it was just about making the team, then it was about trying to make a final and then trying to do well. Every year you had to improve to remain on the squad and there were always very specific things to focus on.

Journalists want to know what colour medals you are going to try and win. The team and the management need to know this because that is what funding is based on. What kept me going was those time, sports science or gym targets. If you hit those you have a chance of winning

I joke about it but my husband was an athlete as well. He was a cyclist and broke his back cycling so came into wheelchair racing and competed at two Paralympics, so actually mostly I wanted to beat him. He was good and I knew that if I was close to him I’d do well racing against women. That was a really positive focus for me because it’s really easy to focus on your rivals and get distracted.

What are the biggest challenges you faced in your career?

I was always really keen that disability sport was shown in a very positive way and we were treated as athletes not disabled people ‘having a go’. Disabled people are often treated in society as being brave and marvellous or ‘overcoming adversity’, but that is too binary. There is an idea from some that the life of disabled people is so bad that if you somehow play sport at a high level then you don’t have any other barriers.

I’ve definitely had more misogyny than ableism in sport though (but that is still there). Female athletes still get paid less than men and there is less media coverage, which I’m still working on and really keen to fight for as the differentiation is too much.

Paralympics

Which was your favourite Paralympic Games (to compete in or attend after you had retired) and why?

As a Paralympics, Barcelona [in 1992] was amazing as it was a huge step forward and really exciting, but London 2012 was just amazing. It was more than 20 years of my life as I was very loosely connected with Manchester’s bid for the 2000 Games. It was clear that if the UK was going to bid again it had to be London. I was part of the bid and delivery for London 2012 Games for 10 years and then sat on the London Legacy Development Corporation (Olympic Park) for a similar amount of time.

It was just incredible. From people saying we are not going to win it, then if we win it we won’t be able to build it, then if we build it no one will buy tickets and if anyone bothers to buy tickets it’s going to rain. There was all this kind of misery and then gradually more and more people started to believe we could do it and then the moment in Singapore winning it. I have never felt such emotion like it.

I remember going in on the first day of the athletics in the Paralympics, which is heats so normally not the most exciting, and a journalist called me on my way into the stadium to ask how many people were. I hadn’t seen how many people were in the Olympic Park at that point because I had come in through a different route but I remember walking through the security checkpoint and the park was just rammed with people and then going into the athletics and it was packed for the first session. That was incredible and the performances were just brilliant. Jonnie Peacock shushing 80,000 people! I was sitting next to Mike Costello from the BBC commentating on the race and he said that never in all his commentating had he ever experienced someone just going “shush” and 80,000 people silenced. An amazing moment.

Paris Games

What (if anything) do you think will be different about the Paris Games compared to other Games?

I think it’s going to be a really interesting Games as they have picked up some of the ideas from London about how they can use their iconic features like Versailles and the Eiffel Tower, which will be quite exciting. Also using the Seine for the opening ceremony will be really interesting with the athletes on the river, which I don’t think has been done before.

For British spectators, it will be really easy to get to and a good time difference, although I think Paris has struggled with some things it promised. It said it would make the Metro more accessible, which it hasn’t done. The athletes are preparing well and I expect the Games will be brilliant.

Legacy is always a tough one and is tough for everywhere, including London, but will be a challenge for Paris as well. The IOC and IPC need to think about the future of sports represented there too, in terms of new events (such as e-sports and gaming), travel and the environmental impact. There are big decisions the IOC and IPC need to take about the future of the Games and it feels like between Paris 2024 and LA 2028 we could see a big change in how the Games are delivered.

Trends, developments and challenges in (and for) sport

What do you think the greatest opportunities and barriers facing women in sport will be in the next ten years?

There are so many opportunities for women’s sport, especially around football. Look at the attendance figures for Arsenal women and what Man City are doing, for instance. I’ve said for many years that football can really lead the transformation of women’s sport because you have the brand, and a fan base to develop. It is not just about converting those who watch men’s football to the women’s game, it is about finding new fans.

You look at the final [of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023] when Mary Earps saved the penalty for England and the raw emotion. Women in sport are meant to be ‘lovely’ and we are meant to look beautiful but her shouting that expletive was just fab. It made it hard to show again but it was like ‘that emotion is allowed’ and it connected to a whole bunch of people. You now have the names and the role models coming through in women’s sport in a way you didn’t have 20 years ago so it’s a huge opportunity. The challenge will be if clubs and sports don’t grasp that. They are businesses, not altruistic organisations, but the danger is they don’t see the opportunity in front of them.

As much as women’s football can bring a lot of women into sport, there is a mismatch in sponsorship between it and other women’s sports that will mean women could be more likely to go into football than other sports, which could have an impact on those other sports. But if the other sports are smart, it could build the base of the pyramid in the way we haven’t seen before, so I see many more opportunities than negatives.

Councils across the UK are facing major budgeting issues leading to sports facilities being closed or poorly maintained. Other than more funding, what steps can be taken to try to increase (or at least maintain) participation in the sport?

It’s hard because on the back of Covid local authorities have massively struggled. Swimming pools, for example, are expensive to run and there has been a significant attempt to keep them open but that then takes money from elsewhere.

We have to view sport in a different way in terms of competitive sport but also the wider impact of physical activity. We need to look at it from a health prevention perspective. Local authorities come under huge pressure and they have to make quite short-term decisions but by closing leisure facilities they risk storing up problems for the future and we are already not a terribly healthy or active nation. We say we are a nation that loves sport but we are a nation that loves watching sport and we have to change how we encourage people to be physically active.

I sat on a select committee for a year looking at whether there should be a national plan for sport and the obvious answer is ‘yes’. We suggested that sport is taken out of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and put into the Department of Health and so then it is prevention focused. At the moment sport is a small part of a small department. The elite level sport would look after itself and it could do that really well within the Department of Health. It also has to start at school and we have to do things differently at primary school level with parents and kids, which is really important. No government has got a particular appetite to change it but at some point a government will have to think about a health bill.