ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
The Head of the British Olympic Association has defended banning athletes found guilty of taking drugs. The World Doping Agency though says its ruling is illegal. Well Lord Moynihan, the Chairman of the British Olympic Association, joins me live from East Sussex, a very good morning to you Lord Moynihan, or Murnaghan I’ve always wanted to say! This issue of drugs, Britain is now the only national Olympic Committee to have an extra rule regarding drugs bans and athletes who have been banned in the past for that. Is this something that you will defend to the end?

LORD MOYNIHAN:
Yes, it will be because selection policies are a matter for individual national Olympic Committees and when I look out on a Sunday morning and see young people the length and breadth of this country enjoying sport, the parents putting time and effort in, the best of those young people going on ultimately to reach the pinnacle of their sporting lives, which is to represent their country, I want to make sure that those clean athletes are selected against other clean athletes and that their selection for the national team, for the pinnacle of their lives, is never overshadowed by the selection of an athlete who has knowingly cheated by a taking a cocktail of drugs to enhance their performance and deny that clean athlete of a chance of being on the British team.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But as you well know better than I do, that the likes of Dwayne Chambers in athletics and David Miller in cycling, they say we learnt our lessons, we served our bans, we’ve done the time, now we are fit and ready to compete again and speak out against drugs.

LORD MOYNIHAN:
I know they do but the reality is that the International body you talked about, WADA, has at the moment a policy which I disagree with fundamentally whereby somebody who has taken a cocktail of drugs is banned for just two years and if they get that timing right, it means that if in the first two years after London they are caught and banned for taking those drugs to cheat, they will make it to the next Games and the next Games and the next Games and I say to you, what about the clean athletes who are not selected because an athlete who has taken drugs gets that opportunity to represent the country? Those clean athletes get no redemption, those clean athletes are never selected in the future and our job surely is to support clean athletes, to make sure that these Games are for the clean athletes and those who have knowingly taken drugs to enhance their performance have no place. Very regrettably some of them are great athletes, some of them recognise the error of their ways but the reality is that they knowingly took drugs to deny clean athletes the right of selection and that is the worst offence anybody in sport can undertake. If you do it, and David Miller wrote very eloquently about it in his book, he knew at the time that he did it that he’d never be selected for Team GB again and 95% of British athletes after every Games in the 19 years when we’ve had this selection policy in place, after every Games, winter and summer, 95% say we back the British Olympic Association in their selection policy which favours clean athletes over those who have knowingly taken drugs.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
And are you convinced, moving on to the Games themselves, that these can be the cleanest ever? Because it is always said the technology from the cheats moves on.

LORD MOYNIHAN:
We have to event globally as the Olympic family, as the world of sport, we have to invest money to identify new techniques that are coming on to the market all the time. There is a lot of money in sport and a lot of people are willing, regrettably, to consider taking drugs in order to enhance their performance and benefit so this is a massive challenge and it is a challenge to sport for generations. It will never end, regrettably, but there is just that handful, that very small minority of people who are willing to cheat, will find new ways and we need to invest in new methods of detection.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Let me talk to you about legacy because I know you are concerned about that. You and I, I know, listened intently back in 2005 in Singapore when Lord Coe made an impassioned plea to the IOC about the legacy in terms of sporting achievements in the future, particularly for British children. Do you feel that that element of legacy hasn’t really happened?

LORD MOYNIHAN:
I think that’s right. I mean I think what Lord Coe and the organising committee have done in preparing for London 2012 is amazing, it is fantastic. I think what the government and what successive governments both past and present have done in terms of urban regeneration legacy is quite extraordinary for the East end of London but what worries me most at the moment is the sports legacy. We are not seeing a sea change in the provision for young people, able bodies and disabled, Olympic and non-Olympic, across the whole of the country to get involved in sport. We’re not seeing brand new measures that reach out to every school in this country for competitive school sport and a change in school sport policy. We are seeing declining participation in many of our great sports, we are seeing local authorities who are facing cuts in sports provision because it is a discretionary spend item at a time when they are looking to save money and at a time when they have to recognise that the mandatory elements are the first area which they need to protect. So across the board on sports legacy, we’ve got a long way to travel. Hugh Robertson, the minister, is doing a great job in very difficult circumstances but he needs the support of the Cabinet to say this is the time, once in lifetime, when we are going to host the Games, let us translate the extraordinary passion that Seb Coe spoke about, let’s talk about the inspiration that is touching every aspect of this country towards the Games and channel it into a new and major change in sports legacy so young people can have the opportunity to participate in more than two hours and can engage with the schools and get in more leagues and get involved for their health, for their education, for their own enjoyment in sport.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But right now, Lord Moynihan, looking forward to 2012, you don’t see much change then it seems in that astonishing statistic, I really was amazed when I read it, that in terms of British medal winners 50% of them went to private or public schools.

LORD MOYNIHAN:
Yes, to me that is a tragic reflection on the current state of sport. 7% of our kids go to independent schools and they are delivering over 50% of the medals. In football it’s different, 7% of kids from the independent sector go on to play professional sport so 93% come from the state sector kids of this country and that is what it should be for every sport and the only way we do that is we get the volunteers and the parents and the clubs and the local governing bodies to work together. They are the vehicle for change. We do it in football and across the country at the moment kids are playing football with parents as volunteers but we are not doing it in all sports and we need to do that and have a change in policy that gets money down to the clubs and to the governing bodies and to the local authorities to help those kids develop their talents, have a way of identifying their talents in whatever sport so that ultimately those talents can bring them to the top of the tree and to the great aspirations so many young people have of actually representing Team GB.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay, very few could disagree with that. Lord Moynihan, thank you very much for your time, Chairman of the BOA.