Hill & Knowlton

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games are over but the winter sport season goes on. Athletes, officials and fans could be forgiven for feeling a degree of event fatigue at this point in the season.

The first athletes to return to work were the ice hockey professionals of the NHL, who barely had time to pause for breath before resuming competition about 48 hours after the climactic gold medal match between Canada and the USA. Events to take place in the coming weeks include the World Figure Skating Championships, the World Allround Speed Skating Championships and numerous World Cups in such sports as biathlon and cross-country skiing.

For those athletes who have enjoyed success and are still hungry to compete, there is an opportunity to bask in adulation for a few more weeks. Some of those who missed out narrowly in Vancouver will be seeking revenge but others will struggle for motivation or perhaps even withdraw. Meanwhile, event organisers and rightsholders may find it difficult to attract media and public attention unless they have Olympic stars involved.

International sport is generally based around four year Olympic cycles partly because the profile of the Games is significantly higher than any of the individual World Championships. Several of the winter sports reduce their schedule in an Olympic season but they face a dilemma because they also want to maintain visibility and showcase their new heroes straight after the Games. Event bidders have learned that a championship held soon after the Olympic Games is likely to be missing some of the biggest names. In contrast, a major championship a year earlier is particularly appealing because all the leading contenders will want to show their best form and the event may count towards Olympic qualification. It may also be held as a test event in the Oympic venue.

In short, the post-Olympic anti-climax is an inevitable consequence of the four year cycle. There is no easy answer for athletes, federations and event organisers: if there are no more events after the Games then the sport is virtually forgotten until the next season; however, any events that do take place will seem lacking in one way or another. 

Homecoming parades and media attention will distract the most successful athletes, at least for a while. Those whose dreams did not come true will have more time to consider their return to the international competition circuit. Such is the harsh reality of international sport.

One of the intriguing stories of this year’s Australian Open tennis, which is getting underway in Melbourne, is the comeback of Belgian stars Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.

The 26 year-old Clijsters retired from tennis for two years, during which time she had a baby, before returning in spectacular form last summer to win the US Open. Henin, a year older, played her first competitive tournament for 18 months in Brisbane in the first week of January. Fittingly, Henin made it through to the final before losing a close match against Clijsters. Both women are former world number ones and Henin won the Australian Open in 2004. Few would bet against either of them winning more Grand Slams. 

The comeback is one of the classic narratives of sport, familiar particularly in individual sports such as boxing (Muhammad Ali is the most famous of many), but also sometimes in team sports (for example, Michael Jordan in basketball). Cyclist Lance Armstrong was a high profile returnee in 2009.

Motivations for returning to top-class sport vary: hunger for competition and the limelight; a sense of unfulfilled potential; recovery from injury; desire to prove the doubters wrong; a need for money. Success on comeback often seems to depend on age and fitness. Clijsters and Henin both have age on their side and their respective retirements were linked more to mental tiredness than creaking bodies. Justine Henin was surely influenced by the instant success her former rival enjoyed on her return to a women’s game that, apart from Caroline Wozniacki, is still dominated by the same players as it was five years ago. 

Some unfortunate athletes are deluded or return as a result of manipulation but for others comebacks can bring many benefits. Returning athletes sometimes gain sentimental support from fans who were less enthusiastic in their earlier career and players often talk about being more relaxed or level-headed after time away from the sport. For media, comebacks of course provide a great story. If either Kim Clijsters or Justine Henin reaches the semi-finals of this year’s Australian Open it will be much bigger news than it would have been five years ago.

For other significant comebacks this week, look out for 2006 Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko and former World Champion Stéphane Lambiel at the ISU European Figure Skating Championships in Estonia. Neither could resist the challenge of another Olympic campaign. Win or lose it will be a great story: the comeback is here to stay.

With the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games just a few weeks away, athletes in several winter sports are facing selection trials. After training and competing hard for many years, athletes have to overcome one last barrier to achieve the ambition of a lifetime.

The Olympic qualification process is necessarily complicated. The number of participants is generally capped for each discipline (for example, 12 men’s ice hockey teams, each with a squad of 23) to enable the international federations to schedule the competitions and the organising committee to plan accommodation and transport. Each international federation seeks to give the leading contenders a fair chance but they also allocate places to athletes from countries and regions where their sport is less developed. As a result, the fifth fastest skier from a leading country will often lose out to a lesser-ranked skier from another part of the world, who benefits from the qualification rules.

As sports and disciplines evolve, international federations try to adjust their quotas but, due to competing demands, there are sure to be some who are disappointed. Ahead of the Vancouver Games there has been a long and ultimately unsuccessful campaign by women ski jumpers to gain entry to Olympic competition for the first time. However, the campaign has not been in vain as there may well be a women’s ski jump competition in Sochi in 2014.  

For many of the sports and disciplines, including ice hockey, figure skating and short track, it is the national teams that secure qualifying places rather than individuals. Individual athletes may therefore  compete in national trials to claim one of the spots on the team. A few outstanding competitors have only to produce their regular form to qualify while many others chase that one last place in the squad, hoping for their best ever performance which will get them on the plane to Vancouver.

In a few cases these are high profile, televised events such as the AT&T US Figure Skating Championships which start on 14 January. More often, however, athletes’ dreams are fulfilled or broken at national championships or World Cup events in front of a sparse crowd, where only family, friends and fellow competitors realise what is at stake. “News in brief” entries in the sports media record the successful names but say little about those who missed out.

Even for those who qualify, there is a risk of injury in the tense final days and weeks of preparation: travelling at high speed over snow and ice involves inevitable dangers. A handful of athletes on the reserve list will ultimately benefit from the misfortune of others.

When you see athletes on the start line in Vancouver, remember the trials they have been through to get that far. And do spare a thought for those left behind.

This week marks the switch from the summer to the winter sport season in the UK. Rugby League, which successfully re-invented itself as a summer sport a few years ago, has had its showpiece end of season finale, the Carnegie Challenge cup. Meanwhile Durham have won the LV County Championship for the first time. The football season, naturally, has been underway for months. 

British sports fans may be less aware, however, that this time of year also sees the start of the Winter Sport season in the northern hemisphere. Yes, that’s right, snow and ice.

Ice hockey’s NHL opened up on 4 October and runs through to May. Leagues in Europe follow a similar timetable. The outdoor Winter Sport season follows a little later with the first significant alpine skiing events at the end of October.

Media coverage of ice hockey, skiing, skating and the rest is limited in the UK due to a combination of low awareness and a lack of British contenders. It’s a shame to miss out on some really compelling sport but I don’t expect to see a dramatic increase in coverage any time soon as geography and tradition pose significant barriers. And yet I can’t help thinking that there may be a sponsorship opportunity to be seized. 

Those British athletes with a medal chance at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games (now only a year and a half away) will receive more individual attention than each of the dozens of successful athletes in Beijing. If a sponsor out there is brave enough, the rewards could be considerable. Now is the time to act, while the media profile is low. Anyone for curling or skeleton bob?