On the box: Victoria Pendleton: Cycling’s Golden Girl | Usain Bolt: The Fastest Man Alive | Twenty Twelve

By AIDAN SMITH
Published on 22/07/2012 00:10

THE first sportsman to get me excited about the Olympic Games was Bobby McGregor. While he was winning silver in Tokyo in the 100 metres freestyle, I was plunging (in pyjamas) to the bottom of a cooncil pool to retrieve a rubber brick for my intermediate swimming certificate, so it was dead easy for me to relate to him. But after that we didn’t hear much about the “Falkirk Flyer”.

The Games in 1964 were amateur, of course, and marketing opportunities – his autograph on those bricks, or his face on tubes of verruca cream – were almost nonexistent. Bobby’s Wikipedia entry runs to a mere three paragraphs but he’ll always have a place in my little, over-chlorinated heart.

Just look at Olympians today. Jessica Ennis’ midriff is a remarkable thing but I’m now officially sick of the sight of it, such has been the hard-selling of 2012’s most-glamorous. I keep thinking: what if she doesn’t win? After all that fuss and bother and hype and build-up? I want to say: “Enough Jess, put your tummy away! And your bottom because when we Google ‘Jessica Ennis’ the first option is ‘bum’!” But, to be fair to her, she didn’t ask to be the face, or any other body part, of London. And she’s cautioned those who think that all she has to do to win gold is turn up.

What if Usain Bolt false-starts? What if Victoria Pendleton falls off her bike? These two got the hour-long profile treatment last week and, as the films reminded us, such calamities have happened before. Both docs were interesting, but one definitely had the edge, mainly because it’s much more difficult being Victoria Pendleton than it is being ­Usain Bolt.

The subject of Victoria Pendleton: Cycling’s Golden Girl is ­referred to as “Queen Victoria” by the BBC’s regular man at the mic in the velodrome, featured often in the doc. His voice is quite incongruous: funny, cloggy, old-fashioned tones at odds with the sport’s sleek modernity. He reminds me of Sid Waddell, Mr Darts, who once exclaimed: “There’s only one word for that – magic darts.” When Pendleton won gold in Beijing there was only one word for it: “magic ­
pedals.” But right afterwards, her feelings weren’t of exhultation or even satisfaction but emptiness.

She’s a complex character and was frank in her self-analysis: “One of my biggest flaws is caring what other people think of me.” She’s always competed for others, not herself, first her dad, who never quite made it as a track cyclist, then the British team, and now the whole flag-waving nation. She feels “trapped” by the expectation. A recurring nightmare has her being chased, her unidentified pursuer sporting “2012” in big letters.

At an especially low point in her career, the psychologists were called in. Steve Peters remembered her first session and how she cried for two hours: “No self-confidence, no way of controlling impulsive thinking, no way of containing emotion, unassertive, can’t com­municate, the list went on.” Somehow, though, Pendleton has managed to keep the demons and an aggressive Aussie rival, Anna Meares, more or less in her slipstream to win five world titles. You’d think it would help that her fiancé is Scott Gardner, top sports scientist and key member of the coaching team, but the other coaches reacted badly when they found out about the relationship and Gardner had to quit. “Everyone was so angry,” said Pendleton. “They felt we’d betrayed them.” By this point the film may have seemed quite soapy but Pendleton was simply showing her human side, unusual among driven sports stars. Gardner has since rejoined the team and he said of her London prospects: “She needs to realise there are no aliens coming down the track.”

Aliens never get close to laying a scaly hand on Usain Bolt: The Fastest Man Alive. He runs – slow start as his 6ft 5ins unfurls, gold-soled stride in the mid-section that’s more like a succession of long-jump leaps, time before the line to waggle his arms, beat his chest and grin – and he wins. End of. Without the melodrama of the Pendleton film, this one had to rely on terrific race footage, nice shots of his sleepy home village, Sherwood Content in Jamaica, a peek inside the apartment he shares with pals who share his passion for dominoes and confirmation that he loves his mum.

Romance can be tricky in Olympic Year, as Pendleton knows and Sally Owen would surely concur. In Twenty Twelve, Owen (Olivia Coleman) hasn’t actually declared her love for her Games-organising boss, but at least she’s back as his PA to slice through “legacy”, “diversity”, “inclusivity” and all that rot, just as she would the lemon drizzle cake with which she keeps him sweet.

Victoria Pendleton: Cycling’s Golden Girl - BBC1, Wednesday, 9pm

Usain Bolt: The Fastest Man Alive - BBC1, Monday, 10.35pm

Twenty Twelve - BBC2, Tuesday, 10pm