Focus: Sporting heroes’ winning ways hold lessons for whole country

Published on Monday 8 September 2008 21:48

Interviews with Chris Hoy, Andy Murray and others reveal insights on success relevant to all walks of life, write KENNY KEMP and RICHARD ORR

CHRIS Hoy has had an avalanche of media coverage since his outstanding achievements at the Beijing Olympics. He has contributed to the warm, feel-good factor that enveloped our nation after the extraordinary haul of medals.

Now Andy Murray is getting in on the act, too, with his fabulous exploits in New York. Everyone, including the Prime Minister and the First Minister, wants a piece of Scotland’s successful sportsmen.

As the authors of Be A Winner, a Scottish book that comes out this week, we admit we’ve jumped onto the bandwagon too, but purely in the interests of our research: to find out what makes them winners, and if there are lessons for the rest of us who don’t yet have gold medals around our necks.

Thanks to Hoy and Murray, and dozens of other great Scottish athletes, we know there are plenty of lessons to learn from great sporting achievement.

We think their winning ways are capable of inspiring many Scots to become more positive and reach out for their own goals and personal bests, in sport and in life. That might be finishing a charity 10km race, running around the block, climbing a Munro, or simply achieving something that you considered impossible a few months previously.

Who are we? Well, we aren’t elite sports people, nor are we sports psychologists. We’re just two writers working for Winning Scotland Foundation, an organisation that is working to instil a winning culture in Scotland. What we have done is ask what being a winner is all about – and then try to make these pearls of wisdom accessible to young people in Scotland.

Back in January 2007, we travelled to interview Hoy at the Manchester velodrome. As journalists, we wanted to talk to him for a new website, www.inthewinningzone.com, which was set up and supported by leading business figures, Sir Bill Gammell and Professor Alistair Gray, and is now part of the Winning Scotland Foundation, a business-led charity.

Hoy was one of a number of people we talked to about their attitudes to winning. We were delighted that so many Scottish athletes were willing to give their time and their thoughts.

We’ve spoken to David Wilkie, Allan Wells, Liz McColgan, Gregor Tait, Judy Murray, Walter Smith, Katherine Grainger, John Collins and Shirley Robertson, among many others. All are great Scots who have been outstanding in their chosen fields. But there are plenty of other Scottish athletes with incredible stories to tell, including our swimmers, triathletes, golfers, shooters and rowers. They too are inspirational.

From the website, the idea was to produce a book distilling the essence of the interviews. We wanted to put a face on who a typical Scottish winner might be. So back in early 2007, we singled out Hoy as someone special.

Here was an active sportsman at his peak. He had Beijing in his sights – and talked about London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 – even after his own Athens gold-medal event had been spiked. He was everything we expected. He was polite, answered our questions, and he gave us his time.

But we could see his raw determination to succeed, his willingness to work harder than any of his rivals to reach his goals, and a steely resolve to compete with the best in the world. Hoy is not willing to accept second best.

For Hoy, we coined the acronym “I am” – which for us is Inspiration, Ambition and Motivation. We couldn’t think of anyone better than Hoy to represent these three key traits of winning.

We proceeded with the book – thinking that Hoy might do well in Beijing, and that he deserved to do well. But there are no guarantees in sport. Even if Hoy had missed out on the medals in Beijing, he would still have represented our model of a complete winner.

In Be A Winner we talk about Hoy as outstanding. Yes, he had the sporting talent and ability, but that was never enough to take him to the top. He also had that “Braveheart” spirit, of never giving up, so beloved of our Scottish football and rugby teams.

But that isn’t enough either. He also had a work ethic that was awesome. He went through the pain barrier to become the best in the world.

We had no idea Hoy and Murray would be quite so successful. And we are proud and delighted for both of them. They deserve all the riches from their scintillating and powerful performances.

There are so many messages for the rest of us living in Scotland. We want Scots to become more positive – to set goals and aim for them. You don’t have to be superhuman, you just need the will and the desire. That doesn’t just apply to sport. It is relevant to career, education, business, family, health; anything in life.

Be A Winner isn’t just about Chris Hoy or Andy Murray. There are many other fantastic Scots who have something worth hearing about.

Take Mark Beaumont, the round-the-world cyclist. He travelled 18,000 miles, at roughly 100 miles a day for 194 days. Aside from the sheer physical strain of riding a bike for ten hours a day, Beaumont dared to do it. He is just a normal guy, not a professional sportsman, just a young Scot with amazing self-belief and determination. While his friends were pottering around, he was taking action on the grandest scale. He wasn’t doing it for the glory or the accolades.

Beaumont told us: “You have to enjoy the journey and what you are doing. That’s something that’s slightly missed in our society.

“People go into careers to get the lifestyle they want, as opposed to wanting to do the job: they see where they want to be but sometimes hate the journey which gets them to that place. You have to be in it for the journey.”

Be A Winner aims to help more Scots reach their goals, making Scotland a nation of healthy, happy, positive thinkers and doers – a nation of winners.

&#149 Be A Winner, Achieve Your Goals with Scotland’s Sporting Heroes, by Richard Orr and Kenny Kemp, in partnership with the Winning Scotland Foundation, is published by Mainstream this week, 9.99.