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From Athlete to International Sport’s Leader: An Interview with Sir Philip Craven (Part 2)

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by Timothy Moots

Sir Philip Craven at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin 2014. Vladimir Putin stands in the background. (Image credit: Alexei Druzhinin/AP)

The first part of his interview explored the start of Sir Philip Craven’s life, from an athlete to sport’s leader, and the road to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. In part II, we discussed the Russian doping scandal that culminated at the Rio 2016 Games, to current affairs and world leadership today.

Rio 2016: Russian ‘medals over morals’

Philip had good working relations with the Russians and their national sport committees. Prior to the Sochi Winter Games, he had been awarded the Russian Order of Friendship 2009 during his work with the Russian Paralympic Committee. At Sochi, Philip recalls how the Games were a great success, and also delved into the inside politics of the organising committee. ‘The person who was really running the show at Sochi was Putin’s key man, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who is in fact a Ukrainian. He differed from Putin’s inner circle, who are all from St Petersburg.’ In his Closing Ceremony speech, Philip made reference to the progress Russia had made since their 1980 memo. ‘Now we are in a different time and things have changed. I wasn’t being critical. But it was made in the main stadium, to Putin and his inner circle.’ A week later, Philip was whisked back to Moscow for the Order of Honour in the Kremlin.

However, fast forward to the 18 July 2016, and two things came to the IPC’s attention on the same day. The first was on a conference call where the Rio Organising Committee said there was no money left for the Paralympics, it had all been spent on the Olympics. The second was the unfolding of the massive Russian state-sponsored doping scandal, that included athletes from the Olympics and Paralympics, many of whom were due to compete at the upcoming Games.

When the information first came out, Philip travelled to Rio for the Olympics as an IOC member. On 3 August 2016 there was an IPC board meeting, held virtually in the Bonn offices. ‘The Russian Paralympic Committee were called to give their side of the story, and the meeting lasted more than three hours, accompanied by lawyers.’ The Board reconvened again on the 5 August. For Philip, ‘this was the critical meeting where the IPC board took its unanimous decision that the Russian Paralympic Committee would be suspended immediately and thus the Russian para-athletes could not compete at the Rio Paralympic Games. They had contravened the basic principle of sport, fair play. And this wasn’t just me. It was most gratifying for me as President to see that every board member backed that decision. It gave me great strength.’

This was different to the International Olympic Committee. While the IPC instigated a blanket ban on the Russian athletes competing in the Paralympics, the International Olympic Committee had already decided, six days after the publication of the McLaren Report, this was a decision they would not be taking.

But was pressure applied on the International Paralympic Committee to not pursue a blanket ban? ‘Pressure was applied before the final vote was taken on the 5 and announced on the 7 August. And on the morning on the 7th before the press conference. Because of the unanimous support of the IPC board these efforts to change the IPC’s united position had no chance of success.’

The IPC’s decision was televised on the 7 August 2016. As Philip stated in the press conference, ‘the Russian government has catastrophically failed its Para athletes. Their medals over morals disgusts me.’ This was a decision not expected in Russia. Philip recalls how the Russian Minister of Sport Vitaly Mutko stated, ‘out of a clear blue sky came the IPC.’ For many, the decision taken by Sir Philip and the IPC showed the seriousness of the movement. Philip spent a lot of time in Rio meeting various national sports ministers after this announcement. What were their reactions to the IPC decision? He remarked that the majority were: ‘Thank God you’ve done that.’ This is how the world saw the IPC’s decision.

But in Philip’s opinion, why did the Russians compromise the principle of fair play? ‘National prestige wins out over sports integrity. But now we know that national prestige has suffered a heck of a hammering because of the original decision. If you do it illegally and against the spirit of sport, it doesn’t work out for you.’

Despite the controversy, the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal was not the biggest hurdle to the Paralympic Games. As Netflix’s Rising Phoenix examines, the biggest controversy turned out to be the Rio Organising Committee spending the pot saved for the Paralympics on the Olympics. ‘Let’s not think that all of Brazil was not good at organising the games, thank god they were! The fantastic Brazilian and non-Brazilian employees and volunteers, the international federations, and national committees all stepped up to the plate. It was just a poor decision made at the very top of the Rio Organising Committee that led to all the trouble”. As the documentary explores, and I urge you to watch, the Rio 2016 Games turned out to be a major success, the ‘People’s Games,’ as Sir Philip named them.

As Jonnie Peacock, the English sprint runner who won gold at the 100m T44 final in 10.90 seconds recalled, ‘the largest amount of people who went into the Olympic Park was not during the Olympics… it was during the Paralympics.’

Leadership today: ‘Paralympians don’t worry about what doesn’t work, they maximise what does.’

In 2017, Philip stood down as President of the IPC, having seen out his maximum four term limits. As a leader in his field on the world stage, it would be a missed opportunity if I did not turn the conversation to topics such as world leadership and the delayed Tokyo Games.

First, to his tenure at the IPC. Throughout our interview, teamwork is a core principle of Philip’s life and his career. He formed a great team with his wife Jocelyne, as he tells me ‘teams start with two.’ Also at the IPC, he developed this team of two with CEO, Xavier Gonzalez. ‘If the President and the CEO don’t click, then you can forget it.’ So, when I asked Philip what was he most proud of, he introduced his answer with the theme of teamwork, referencing the Rio Games. ‘There was no money left at Rio. The top of the IPC - Xavier, Andrew Parsons (then Vice-President at the IPC) and myself - had to sort out this major problem which was a total lack of money – otherwise, the Games would not take place. I was involved at the highest level with the federal government of Brazil in finding additional funding. However, not only had the organising committee spent all our money, but Brazil was going through political instability with the impeachment of the President of Brazil. So, we had to deal with a government that was in crisis mode. But what I had was an effective team, and we could all trust each other to pursue the tasks we had been assigned. Andrew Parsons with his knowledge both of the Brazilian political steam and its judicial structure was able to free up the transfer of the additional funding finally to both the IPC and the organising committee. Over the fifteen years that I had been president I had always strived to unite the movement, which it definitely wasn’t in 2001. The manner in which National Paralympic Committees, and the manner in which the Paralympic sports united with the IPC board and staff to ensure the success of the games along with a highly competent organising committee at the middle management and below level, filled me with great pride. When I left as president, I was aware we had reached that unity.’

As discussed in Part 1, Philip talked about one of the biggest challenges at the start of his presidency. Financially, this was the lack of money in the IPC coffers and sponsorship. I asked Philip if governments and large companies see the Paralympics as a platform to show off innovation and technological advantage to the world. He told me that as president, he wanted to attract partners because of the way the Paralympics projected sport. His intention was to build a foundation of what the IPC was as an organisation, and then attract others to ‘come together with likeminded ideas.’ However, building a brand takes time. It was only really during his second term 2005-2009, when the Paralympics started to attract commercial partners. But for Philip, he states ‘I think its deeper than that. I think some of the companies that are partners with the IPC see it far more that there is a great fit between the ethics and the principles of their company with the ethics and principles of the IPC. They are here as a company, not to just maximise the highest price they can possibly gain from that product they are producing but have thought about the products that society requires. They feel deep down that they have this partnership built on trust and on principles between the two organisations. That’s how I feel with several of the companies I have been involved with and getting them on board with the IPC. The bottom line is the Paralympics are definitely a platform for companies to show what they are about and what products they produce, but it is definitely important that they have aligned with the IPC to show how they desire to contribute to the betterment of society.’

The unity built over the last fifteen years and seen in Rio is essential in setting up the next Paralympic Games in Tokyo. The Games were originally supposed to have taken place on 24 July 2020, but because of the coronavirus outbreak, they were pushed back to 2021. The hosting of the Games is an important challenge for Japan, especially for the new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. As seen in Suga’s address to the United Nations, Suga stated his determination to host the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, putting it at the top of his agenda. I asked Philip what he thought were the biggest challenges in getting the Games going. ‘Well you have securing everything and keeping it available for the further year, this includes the training facilities and the same accommodation but also keeping on the organising committee for another year of employment. But then you have the massive question; can it take place anyway? It’s not going to be easy. But I firmly believe the Japanese organisers and the Japanese people deserve every effort from all over the world as these games deserve to take place and they need all the support we can give them.’

Next, we talked about how society can help further develop and support the movement. For Philip, we all had a part to play. He stated how not only governments but everyone should ‘work far harder with our national Paralympic committees and their national governments and show that there is a different way than just caring for people with impairments. We must through positive energy encourage as many people as possible to care for themselves. Through the vehicle of practising sport to a far more fulfilled life. They don’t have to be permanently involved in sport, but it gives them that self-confidence to get into the world and do what they do. We’re about showing the way to a far more active future. You make do with what is left and that is a hell a lot of stuff.’ Philip shared with me the game-changing advice he received from Donna Ritchie, the Aussie captain of the women’s wheelchair basketball team, in Sydney 2000. She said: ‘you maximise with what you’ve got, you don’t worry about what you haven’t got.’

With a wealth of leadership experience, I took the opportunity to ask Philip to reflect on what he thinks of world leaders today. ‘We don’t see much true leadership out there. There is no good in saying there is bad leadership. Leadership can’t be bad. If it’s bad, then that individual or group is not leading. One thing that struck me during COVID-19 is how women have demonstrated that they are far greater at leading than men, who have been incompetent. They’ve got the nation at their heart. We’ve seen women take the lead with the early decisions that have turned out to be right, whereas we’ve seen men mess around, these men who are supposed leaders, but rather have got rid of any competence within their team so they can have people follow their supposed lead. And what you end up with is the second or third raters.’

And what advice would he give aspiring leaders today? ‘Follow your spirit, follow your passion. Don’t let anybody deter you from your feeling for your freedom of thought and your freedom of action within the constraints of what is right for human society. There are certain controlling factors that have to be there otherwise we would be getting nowhere. But believe in yourselves, have a basic principle, learn life skills, learn to get on with people. Positive energy is the greatest energy source in the world. If you’re positive and work with others you can move mountains, and don’t let anybody say that you can’t. And if you feel that you are being controlled unfairly, then fight it. Sometimes you have to be clever about it because the people you are fighting have a bigger arsenal than you have, but you have to be careful, pick the right time to assault the bastion of what’s wrong. You have to fight for the bigger future. What is key here is when the shit hits the fan, you stick together, you work things out from the inside out. Don’t leave the party and try and lead from the outside.’

Having stolen Philip’s morning from him, his wife enters the room. A great opportunity to ask my final question. How would his wife describe him? Jocelyne replied ‘he believes in what he is doing and he does what he believes. He sticks to it and it doesn’t matter what people say to him—trust me. He will carry on.’

Philip breathes a sigh of relief.

Timothy Moots is a Senior Editor at Strife and a PhD Candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The author would like to thank Chris McBride for his continued friendship and support in reviewing his work.

From Athlete to International Sport’s Leader: An Interview with Sir Philip Craven (Part 1)

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by Timothy Moots

Sir Philip Craven (Image credit: Athletics.org)

Rising Phoenix, the brand-new Netflix documentary directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, combines a history of the Paralympic Games with the personal stories of several of its more famous athletes. The history focuses on the pioneering efforts of Dr. Ludwig Guttman, a neurologist who fled Nazi Germany because he was Jewish and spent the entirety of his life during and after the Second World War caring for British soldiers and advocating for the use of sports for patient rehabilitation. His tireless efforts brought the games to life in 1948, gave them meaning, and made them an official international event at the 1960 Rome Paralympic Games. The documentary is a masterclass of storytelling.

Interspersed with the historical telling of the Paralympics, the documentary tells the stories of Paralympians of the recent past. French long jumper Jean-Baptiste Alazie, who, as an infant, lost his right leg and his mother to a machete attack in Burundi. Italian fencer Beatrice ‘Bebe’ Vio, who despite losing both her hands and legs to meningitis competed for the Gold Medal in the Paralympic Games in Rio 2016 (No spoilers: watch the documentary). These stories, and those of the other participants, will leave you in tears. The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, and the former head of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Sir Philip Craven, offer some background on the behind-the-scenes work done on behalf of the Paralympics.

The desire to celebrate these individuals and the entire concept of the Paralympics, however, misses the same dark side that all sports face. While the build-up, organising, and sporting elements of the documentary revolve around the 2016 Rio Games, one controversy of the Games was entirely missing: the Russian doping scandal. In July 2016, weeks before the Olympic and Paralympic Games were due to commence, Professor Richard McLaren, a sports lawyer and member of an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) presented his report on allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russia. The McLaren Report concluded ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that Russian institutions including the Ministry of Sport and the Federal Security Service (the FSB) had ‘operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes’ within a ‘state-directed failsafe system.’[1] Largely as a result of the decisions taken from the top, the McLaren Report had different consequences for athletes competing in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cleared two-thirds of the Russian athletes to compete by the start of August, on 7 August 2016, Sir Philip Craven took to the stand at a now-famous press conference to announce that the International Paralympic Committee was to instigate a blanket ban on Russian athletes competing in the Paralympic Games.

This article focuses on an interview I carried out with Sir Philip, exploring the life and mindset of an athlete turned international sports leader. Under Sir Philip’s administration, the Paralympic Games were transformed into one of the largest sporting competitions in the world (in terms of ticket sales, the Paralympic Games is only behind the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games). The Paralympics has not been without international challenges, global controversy, and conflict. This interview explored Sir Philip’s life, his motivation, his time competing, to President of the International Paralympic Committee.

‘A First-Class honours in wheelchair basketball’

Sir Philip was born in Bolton in the North of England. He sticks to his northern roots, residing now in Cheshire, and as a Knight of the Realm, he maintains his straight-talking strong northern accent. ‘I have never lost my accent, when anybody tries to talk posh to me then I put it on even more. I’ve met a lot of people who would talk awfully like that, but as a result, my accent became broader.’

During his teenage years, he had been a keen swimmer, tennis, and cricket player (noticeable in our interview is Philip’s fierce English­­‑Aussie rivalry). At the age of 16, he had a rock-climbing accident. The year England won the FIFA World Cup in 1966, he discovered he had severed his spine and could probably no longer use his legs. For most of us, this would have been life-changing news. But for Philip, there was no dwelling on the past. Rather, ‘what’s next?’ was his response.

As he told it: ‘Within two or three days of my accident when I was lying in a hospital bed I saw wheelchair basketball being played outside. Something clicked inside. Nobody told me that I would be in a wheelchair, but that’s how it worked out. There was still sport and I always loved sport. With wheelchair basketball, I found a sport I loved playing. It was no effort to me, I would train with the stand-up basketball team at the University of Manchester, and I would absolutely kill my body in training. I used to do 70 sprints at eighty per cent up and down the court before I started doing free shots. I could hardly lift my arms after that, but that is the way to do it, that is what happened in a tournament.’

Philip’s motivation came from a love of sports, the desire to win when he was competing. For him, ‘if you lost, you learnt. There is always the next game. Even if you won a big tournament, there is always what’s next. And that is what my life has always been like. My wife can’t understand it.’ He had tried other sports, as a natural breaststroker he tried swimming, and as a cricketer, he could catch and throw anything, but he admits he wasn’t as good a batsman. But it was wheelchair basketball he fell in love with ‘like a duck to water.’ Before his first Paralympic Games in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1972, he completed his Geography degree at the University of Manchester, which he admits ‘really was a First-Class honours in wheelchair basketball.’

However, Great Britain never played France in the 1972 Games at Heidelberg. And, as the French had challenged the GB team with sporting chants of ‘we’re better than you,’ for any Englishman this had to result in a match. So, Philip and the team went out to St. Malo in September 1972 but letting the nation down, lost by two points. At that match he signed a contract to play for the Club Olympique de Kerpape in South Brittany, where he played for two seasons, winning the French league and cup two years on the run. On day two he met ‘a wonderful young French woman, Jocelyne. We had a pretty turbulent six months, but then we finally got our act together and she’s been my wife ever since for the last forty-six years.’ However, with no job prospects and wanting to avoid the pathway of a geography teacher, he applied for jobs back in Britain. In 1974, he took a management position at the Coal Board. ‘I chose the Coal Board because I thought they would give me the most time off to play international wheelchair basketball.’

For Philip, time at the Coal Board was a learning opportunity. He was interested in economic history, having studied it at school, learning about the miners and their struggle. He recalled ‘I was a management trainee, but I was certainly not on the side of the management, but the men.’

‘I believe in fighting for freedom. Freedom to do what you want. I suppose people look down on you because you’re in a wheelchair. They still do that by the way, not to me, but others. Perhaps they feel sorry for you and all that, but what they don’t realise is there is a fighting spirit there ready to fight their way out. And it doesn’t matter who you are, watch out if you get in the way.’

Competing as an athlete: ‘You can only reform an organisation from the inside’

From the perspective of an athlete, he saw first-hand the way countries organised the Paralympics. In Mexico in 1968, he recalled how the authorities just were not ready for the Games. In 1972 in Heidelberg, it was a great discovery for what the Paralympics were like. ‘The greatest thing I saw there was when the German TV came down one night to the gym and filmed an America player, Ed Owen. He was a great, great player. He was a polio so he could stand up… and when standing he was 6 ft. 8 standing. But sat down? He was head and shoulders above everyone else. He was shooting for around twenty minutes and it seemed like he never missed a shot. And I thought if he could do it, then so I can.’

Sir Philip Craven defends against Steve Owen (Image credit: Paralympics.org)

The inspiration paid off. Philip enjoyed a successful career as an athlete. He represented GB in wheelchair basketball at five Paralympic Games from 1972 to 1988. As well as competing in the Paralympics, he won several medals including the 1970 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games (Gold), the 1973 and 1975 World Championships (Gold; Bronze), the 1971, 1974, and 1993 European Championships (Gold; Gold; Silver) and the 1994 European Champions Cup (Gold).

But the Games were not without sporting tension. ‘There were plenty of bust-ups’—fights between players, in and out of teams. Nor were they without their controversies. In 1976, Philip and his teammate Gerry Kinsella were handed life bans in a letter from Sir Ludwig Gutman for playing wheelchair basketball. As explained to them in the letter, they had to learn to get on with the other players in the team. But what was causing the friction? Ultimately, Philip and Gerry were trying to reform the sport. ‘We were trying to reform the coaching which was absolutely pathetic. It was also getting the athlete’s voice into whichever sports organisation they were involved in.’ Although they played in the Toronto Games in 1976, they were isolated from the team, perhaps out of the coaches’ fear that they were fomenting revolution. This was a huge ban, as Philip and his teammate, Gerry, were the two of the most talented players on the team, taking GB to European Championships in 1971 and 1974 and the World Championships in 1973. The result of the disagreement and their exclusion led to the gutting of GB wheelchair basketball, which finished seventh at the 1977 European Championships. It was no surprise they were invited back to the team. But what led Philip back to the team? ‘I spoke with my wife, and the two of us agreed that the only way you can reform anything is from the inside. You can keep on firing shots from the outside, but they will never listen. But if you are on the inside, you can sort things out.’ Philip returned to international wheelchair basketball but his teammate Gerry, refusing to return unless he received an apology from Sir Lutwig Gutmann, never played again for GB.

The sport needed reform. And at this critical junction, if Philip hadn’t decided to return to try to reform from the inside, he believes ‘the athletes would have remained as patients in the minds of the medical doctors who basically ran the international and national sports movements.’

His memorable games produce all types of controversy from sport to international affairs.

‘1976 was a revolutionary time as we spoke about. But even when we got out to Toronto the coaching was so incompetent. Training sessions weren’t organised, you had to arrange it yourself. 1980 was a disaster from all points of view. The Paralympics were due to be in Russia, but the Russians sent a famous notification that the games can’t take place because they don’t have any disabled people, so how could they arrange them? I referred to that in the closing ceremony at the 2014 Winter Games in front of Putin. Instead, the Dutch stepped in and the Games took place in Arnhem. But the biggest problem in 1980 was that Dutch organisers got hold of this special soft surface that was being experimented with on basketball at the time. If you were 7 ft. and going for a dunk you would have a cushioned landing. But you couldn’t bloody well push your chairs on the surface! It absolutely killed you. In 1984 the games were at Stoke Mandeville. We beat the eventual gold medallists, France, but we lost to Japan. The biggest thrill to me was beating France.’ But who does his wife cheer on? ‘Well that’s an interesting story, but certainly for out of this interview.’

For every sports player competing on the international stage, it produces a number of rivalries, especially coupled with national pride. For Philip, “The team I always wanted to beat but only achieved it once was the USA. In the International Stoke Mandeville Games in ‘86. We beat the States in the semi-final and then lost the final to the Aussies. From the point of view of playing it was the States, but from the point of view of English and British pride, it would be Australia. I can’t stand losing to the Aussies”.

‘Teams start with two’: elected to the IPC

Philip was no stranger to sports administration. By the time he was standing for President at the IPC in 2001, he was the Performance Director for the GB’s Men’s wheelchair basketball team. But what called him to stand for president?

‘In May 2001 the International Paralympic Committee, now 12 years old, staged its first strategic planning conference in Kuala Lumpur. It was a very good conference, but the mission and the vision that was produced after the conference showed it had been written long before the conference had started. It didn’t include anything that had gone on; despite being the length of a chapter of a bloody book! So of course, I expressed my opinion to the Committee at the end of the conference. [I] had decided things needed to change.’

Returning from Kuala Lumpur, Philip immediately planned with his wife what they were going to do about it. Fortunately, their daughter had just finished university and his son was nearly finished. And this was vital for his decision to put his name down for the nominee as at the time there was no salary for President of the IPC. But as he and his wife said ‘we have to go for it to change things around.’ This was a position that required soul to be poured into it, and one that Philip felt he had to do.

But Philip was not the only potential candidate from Britain. He faced a challenge from another Brit, who not only worked for the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing St, he also had the backing of the Foreign Office. Quite the domestic support for an international position. Like all good British negotiations, Philip set up a discussion with the potential challenger in a pub. ‘He lived near Lincoln and I lived in Crewe, and we met in a pub in Lichfield and talked this through.’ After a couple of pints and deliberating on the future of the Paralympics, the challenger stood aside for Philip to go forward as the nominee by the British Paralympic Association.

Philip’s vision was vital for election to the IPC. He had written communications in several languages, ultimately about bringing far more national Paralympic committees into the Paralympics. Moreover, Philip stated, ‘as well as getting a fantastic wife when playing in France, I also learnt to speak French fluently, which was very important during my election to the IPC. I remember most, if not all, French-speaking African nations voted for me, which really tipped the balance.’ He added further that, ‘the one thing this election taught me was you can have all your information written down, translated into many languages, but don’t think people understand it the first time around. We must have sent it six, seven times to each national Paralympic committee, and it definitely had an effect.’ Philip defeated the other challengers, including one placed to stand to take the votes away from Philip.

Just to show how well received Philip’s election to the IPC was by certain members of the IPC board, he recounted a story starting 24 hours before the result: ‘Each of the four candidates for the position of president was given a single A4 sheet of paper itemising what would happen when the successful candidate had been elected. This was that the new president would be invited onto the stage by the outgoing president, would say a few positive words of endearment for the outgoing president’s previous twelve years of work, would be invited to sign the certificate awarding the outgoing president the Paralympic Order, and to remain on the stage until the outgoing president concluded the general assembly.’ Philip was never invited onto the stage.

Immediately into his first term as President, challenges had to be met. The Board had to build an international brand, and they had to start from the bottom. As in so many aspects of life, money was the biggest issue. ‘We needed cash. We needed to professionalise the organisation without losing the grassroots feel. I met the President of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge, who invited me to the Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City, Utah. I met Mitt Romney, who was the President of the Organising Committee, and we had a successful Games. But we never made any money from Salt Lake City. One key change to the IPC management line up happened after Salt Lake City. This was when, with IOC support, Xavier Gonzalez came to work for the IPC in June 2002 as Director of Paralympic Games straight from a similar position at the Salt Lake City Organising Committee. We had so much success going forward as teams start with two, and the president and the CEO formed a crucial team at the top. The way we were going to achieve this was from the Games, and hope sponsorship came after. Unfortunately, at Athens in 2004 where an income of one million dollars should have come into IPC coffers, this had to be spent on enhanced television coverage. Fortunately, Jacques Rogge of the IOC, came to our aid and offered the IPC a loan of one million dollars at zero interest, which permitted us to expand our organisation.’

From 2000-2003 the IOC signed with the IPC a three-part agreement, which ensured that the Paralympic Games would be organised by the same organising committee as that which staged the Olympic Games. The first Paralympic Games to benefit from this new agreement ‘one event, two games’ was Beijing in 2008. ‘This brought in the money we needed for the International Paralympic Committee to cover for the 4-year period. It was Beijing that allowed us to build our international brand.’

This breakthrough at Beijing had actually happened three years earlier, in November 2005 after Philip had been re-elected as President for the first time. Philip met with the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, in the Great Hall of the People for a meeting scheduled to last only 15 minutes. However, ‘it lasted three times that length with me and him speaking all the time. We talked about what parasport could do for society’ in China. Philip’s diplomacy paid off. After that meeting in February 2006, Hu Jintao, the President of China, declared that the Paralympics would be of equal splendour to the Olympics. Philip recalled: ‘we took off like a space rocket after that.’

For Philip, it was all about developing relationships and getting on with people. ‘During the Beijing games, I couldn’t speak a word to the President’s wife [Liu Yongqing], but we got on like a house on fire. We didn’t understand why, but it was just like that.’

The Road to London 2012

In 2005, London went to the finals in their bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, in competition against Paris, New York, Madrid, and Moscow. What took London to success in their bid against the other sporting city giants?

‘The election of the host city for 2012 took place in Singapore. And first of all, Tony Blair and his wife did an amazing job. They were out there for the majority of the time. They saw so many IOC members. What I think sealed it for London, and I said this to my wife who was rooting for Paris, was Seb Coe’s speech, and additional to that was a film produced by a small London company on how sport can inspire young people, and this compared favourably with the touristy videos produced by New York and Paris. Even after the dress rehearsal, I knew we had it.’[2] But this was not necessarily a done deal. True to the stereotype, the British bid stood firm underdogs against the titans. As the BBC reported in 2005, the two London “unknown film makers”, Daryl Goodrich and Caroline Rowland, will battle against Steven Spielberg and Luc Besson in a bid to win the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Nor was the bid given the easiest ride. London was given the ‘death slot,’ the presentation of their bid right after lunch. Philip recalls how New York and Moscow went before Lunch, with Paris and Madrid following London later in the afternoon. But true to Philip’s prediction, following the London bid ‘everyone was buzzing.’ He could safely declare to his wife ‘that we won it.’

One of Philip’s lasting memories from this time was the efforts of Lord Sebastian Coe. ‘He did a handwritten note to each IOC member written on House of Lords notepaper. He made the effort and took the trouble to do things in a very personable way. You only need to swing a few voters to get the outcome that we got.’

Channel 4 advert for the Paralympics Games (Image credit: Channel 4)

Fast forward to 2012. It is the opening night of the Paralympics and the atmosphere in London was electric. Channel 4 released an incredibly successful marketing campaign including TV adverts ‘Meet the Superhumans’. The Channel 4 marketing team had a great strategy that delivered a powerful message: Billboards appeared across London saying, ‘Thanks for the warm-up.’ It created a buzz in London, that in turn generated global attention.

Here I asked Philip to delve into the word ‘superhumans.’ It is a word we hear a lot in the UK. Did it demonstrate a breakthrough?

‘When Channel 4 came up with this. I wasn’t happy with the two words when they were brought into one. Because we’re not superhuman, we’re not greater than being human. We’re super, and we are human. We’re good people. And we happen to be athletes, or coaches. But Channel 4 stuck to superhumans as one word, and it was a fantastic success. It was an advert, an introduction to the Paralympics that was not just showed by Channel 4, but the BBC, ITV, SKY. It was a fantastic way of getting the British public to follow the Paralympics. It paid off.’

When asked about the London Games’ impact on the international stage, for Philip so many teams recalled back on London fondly. The Hungarians said to me ‘they competed with their national team, but they felt that they were back at home’. And this wasn’t with just the Paralympics, but also the Olympics too. The spectators weren’t completely partisan, they supported everybody. And that’s what we find at the Paralympics anyway. I was sat next to the Head of the Paralympic movement in China for the swimming, the same night Ellie Simmonds won one of her medals. He said to me, “there is something extra special here.” I have been to China around 18 times before the games, and for a Chinese man to say that, it takes a lot, especially as the Beijing Games were excellent’.

During the opening ceremony of the Games, Philip sat next to the Queen. Try as I might to discover the private conversations that occurred between the two, he joked: ‘I’ll find myself in the Tower if I share them with you!’

Sir Philip Craven MBE, Queen Elizabeth II, and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex look on during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics (Image credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images Europe)

Part II of this blog will be published on Wednesday 14 October

[1] McLaren Independent Investigation Report – Part 1https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/doping-control-process/mclaren-independent-investigation-report-part-i

[2] The Official London 2012 Olympic Games Bid Film “Inspiration”. https://vimeo.com/130599690

Timothy Moots is a Senior Editor at Strife and a PhD Candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

UK Government Policy in Facing the Coronavirus Threat: An Interview with Professor Calum Semple

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by Timothy Moots

As we are all acutely aware, on 24 March 2020 the Prime Minister announced restricted movement on the UK population to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. As students of war, we have much to learn from observing how governments respond to the pandemic. Like on the battlefield, public health officials today are grappling with how they defeat this potent adversary. Last week I was fortunate enough to get insights into the processes that helped develop UK strategy leading to the situation we are in today in an interview with a world expert on pandemics who is leading research into the battle against the coronavirus.

The expert I sat down with is Professor Calum Semple, Professor of Child Health and Outbreak Medicine at the University of Liverpool, and a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) to discuss his role in outbreak medicine, the coronavirus outbreak, and UK Government strategy.

TJM: What is your role in dealing with the coronavirus?

CS: I am the Chief Investigator on a study called Pandemic Influenza Community Assessment Tools, which is the process of getting data to validate triage tools in the community. I am also the Chief Investigator on the Clinical Characterisation Protocol, which is a much larger research project. It is a very different type of research as it feeds information into various government departments and agencies. It is not research conducted for a paper in six month’s time, rather Urgent Public Health Research is delivered now to inform policy decisions tomorrow.

This involves working out your data collection tools in advance and so when the outbreak happens the nurses and medics can collect information when it comes to the hospital, pass it back to the research team, update to data entry systems, and have an analysis which in an automatic fashion presents it to a dashboard for policymakers. This data can include anything from the length of stay of a patient in hospital to the proportion of patients under the age of 18. Upon uploaded by a nurse say in Devon, policymakers can get this data within 30 minutes allowing quick decisions made in real-time. This has never been done before. I am also a member of NERVTAG, an advisory group set up to advise the government on new and emerging respiratory viruses.

TJM: How did you come to specialise in outbreak medicine?

CS: The very first outbreak I was involved with was the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. This was during my PhD which was researching HIV. The outbreak evolved while I was working on the thesis, and this was my first experience of research taking a U-turn, which resulted in diverting resources and activity to focus on the pressing question at the current moment. This question was the need to identify a surrogate marker of drug efficacy and a surrogate marker of progression of the disease. This led to my PhD focusing on the development of quantitative viral load, which we patented and were the first people to publish on this. Today quantitative PCR for viral load is the most commonly used way of measuring disease progression and drug efficacy of HIV in the world.

The next outbreak was the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), which is a very regular and predictable outbreak every winter. However, I moved into influenza, where there was greater scope for public policy and public impact. Working as a government advisor on influenza and running multiple research projects, I learnt a lot about working in outbreak situations. It is no surprise that a lot of those involved had worked alongside or in the military. It provided better discipline in focusing not so much on the interesting science, but in an outbreak scenario what is the question that needs to be answered over the next two-three weeks which will change decisions about how we manage patients and implement policy decisions.

This brings me to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, which caused a lot of frustration in that we could not get our studies running as fast as we wanted. So, a group of us set up the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC). Our mantra was to prepare for the next outbreak. This was done by producing the counter-studies you would want to run in an outbreak situation, which turns out to be quite a shortlist. Here you may want to run a clinical characterisation study (the who; what; where; when; and why), a drug trial, a vaccine study, a study on triage. We designed protocols for studies that didn’t name a particular pathogen, as it didn’t matter what the pathogen was, but it did contain sampling schedules, data schedules, and from this we developed the protocols. From here we took it to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which was subsequently taken on by them, as it would enable rapid research for a fast-developing outbreak.

This meant that when the Ebola outbreak came, we were able to conduct the research in West Africa in a matter of weeks and this totally changed the paradigm. The same group was more than ready to set up the research during the coronavirus outbreak. As soon as we got wind that cases were likely to come to Britain, research protocols were activated to gather data and process the first admissions in the UK.

TJM: You previously worked on the Ebola epidemic. What made the Ebola so unique in its transmissibility?

CS: Regarding transmission, what happened in West Africa was part of a burial ritual called “laying out”. Once you would die, your friends and relatives would wash you down, dress you up, put you in a coffin and have a ceremony. It actually was still going on in Britain as recent as 30-40 years ago, and it is still a tradition in isolated parts of Europe where there are not enough undertakers to deal with the dead. In West Africa they take this very seriously.

But what complicated this in West Africa is the “secret society culture”. This is much more than the Masons in the UK. These societies are very important in where you go to school to getting your job and promotions at work. Often you will find that departments in organisations have a large number of members that are part of one secret society, whereas hospitals may have large numbers of members from other secret societies. Members of a secret society, who are typically your peers, will be involved in laying your body out. They will wash you down very carefully, with great care, love, and attention, and it is a very important part of the grieving process.

However, the exposure to the human body fluids meant that everyone who was involved in laying out the body was exposed to catching Ebola. What complicated things is if you were very important you might have over 200-300 people attend outside your house wanting to be involved in the process. The body fluids that had been washed down would be taken outside and distributed amongst the people – some people would dip their fingers in it, others would have it sprayed in faces – and this was a part of associating themselves with the deceased and their spirits. One example is we have one healer who died and at their funeral around 360 people contracted the virus from direct exposure to the body fluids. It was not limited to burial rituals, however. Other examples include in the hospital where you can catch it from a woman giving birth or someone vomiting. The virus spread very quickly and hit very hard.

TJM: What is the difference between the coronavirus and Ebola?

CS: Well Ebola is what we call a viral haemorrhagic fever. This is because the virus gives you a fever and it can make you bleed. But bleeding isn’t the most common symptom, it is actually vomiting and diarrhoea. Ebola can spread from blood, sweat, tears, diarrhoea, and lots of different body fluids. It does not have a clear respiratory spread and people don’t tend to cough and sneeze the virus up. For Ebola its actually profuse production of body fluids where the virus is and where it is coming from. Ebola is actually relatively easy to contain. Once you have identified someone who has been sick you can isolate and prevent contact.

Whereas with the coronavirus you cough, sneeze, and splutter. You do this for possibly 5-7 days before you take yourself out of society because you are feeling unwell or because you are recovering. People infected with coronavirus can walk around for 7 days incubating the virus and then have another 5 days where they have what is called a prodrome (an early symptom indicating the onset of a disease) and during that time remain active in the community spreading the virus, but not so sick that they take themselves to bed or get admitted to hospital. This makes the virus far more transmissible in a community. The virus survives on surfaces, in the house, outside. In dry air it survives for around fifteen minutes. Then people touch the surfaces, then touch their mouths, pick their noses, scratch their eyes. We all do this about twenty times an hour. This brings the virus to the respiratory tract where again it is perfectly suited to taking hold. It’s a very different virus to Ebola. And the transmissibility of corona is far greater than that of Ebola.

TJM: What have we learnt from military command and control structure that can be applied to Corona?

CS: A lot was learned from how the British Army and Relief Agencies interacted with society in Sierra Leone. The sort of planning instigated by the military created a very clear line of what needs to be delivered and what needs to be changed within the community, and it was absolutely critical to delivering rapid research and achieving rapid outcomes. It’s a very different method of patient management. You’re not just thinking about the individual patient – the individual patient is very important – what you’re thinking about is the message you are sending out in managing these patients. Do your messages encourage people in the community to come forward and seek appropriate healthcare, or will it encourage people to avoid the appropriate healthcare and seek traditional healers and ministries?

This is very much the same way in how you engage with the British public and pressing upon them the importance now of not going to the pub and staying at home. Because the reality is staying at home will saves lives. An issue is people thinking that the coronavirus does not affect them, and don’t immediately understand that going out and socialising will mean the virus will spread and people will die. This is because there will be fewer people around to care for people with other diseases. Car crashes, heart attacks, difficult pregnancies still happen. The reality is an overwhelming impact on health resources and general population health means that the doctors and nurses don’t have the scope to care for everyone they want to. This is just part of the medical aspect. If the approach was not taken you may end up with societal effects that have far greater secondary impact then we could have predicted and could have far more reaching impact than the health impact.

TJM: Is the UK really taking a different approach to other countries? If so why?

CS: The UK certainly did take a different approach in the lead up to the shutdown. I am quite pleased that we did not go for a kneejerk shutdown in the 3-4 weeks before we did. That period allowed a degree of calmness and preparation to go on at a very important stage. Where otherwise we could have had a huge, essentially, “phony war”. There was a phony war during the 2009 outbreak, where we saw a spike in GP attendances and health-seeking behaviour that arrived 3-4 weeks before the real flu arrived. This overwhelmed GPs who were prevented from doing their regular work and providing standard healthcare for those who needed it. The way the government policy managed information and society this time was far more sophisticated and prevented a phony war.

The careful considered management by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Professor Chris and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) Sir Patrick Vallance in the month leading up to the lockdown prevented the excessive health-seeking behaviour that could have caused an earlier overwhelming of GPs and A&E practitioners.

TJM: Do you think the government has done a good job so far?

CS: I think the government has done a good job in cautiously and systematically raising fear in a controlled manner, and this can be seen from the very careful messaging from the CMO and CSO. You can work this out from the press conferences and news clips, which were deliberately telling people about the severity of the crisis. It was realistic and conducted sensibly.

This approach got people to start stocking up – and yes some people were panic buying – but most people stocked up. Over the last 3 weeks of stocking up to the situation we are in now, it has made the lockdown a lot more manageable. Most people have filled their larders, and no one can say they weren’t warned about it. Supermarkets have been warned in advance and are able to cope with the disruptions in demand.

Think about how you manage and keep an army in readiness. There is a level of preparation, training, regular exercises to keep the army in readiness. Equipment, which is not used is checked, serviced to ensure it actually works. And this is the same for us. We have a stockpile of medication and a stockpile of masks, the equivalent to the beans and bullets in the depots.

TJM: Is “herd immunity” Government policy?

CS: It was never policy. It was an assumption by lots of speculators from the side-lines. I never saw a concept that we are going for herd immunity – this is not the case. The terminology used by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “flattening the sombrero”. It sounds rather crude, but it is not a bad way of explaining how you flatten an epidemic curve. It is unavoidable that we will get exposure. But what is going to cause greater societal disruption is a sharp spike in epidemic activity that will overwhelm services. And this is not just about health services but also national services. [The minutes of NERVTAG are publicly available.]

TJM: Were we really unprepared by not investing in ventilators?

CS: At what point in the last 100 years would you have predicted the global healthcare systems would have needed an extra X amount of ventilators? Even if you wanted to buy an extra hundred, rather than the 10,000 quoted in the press, it would have been impossible to predict this. Ventilators are not household items like microwaves, they are not made in mass in a factory, and nor are we able to go out and shop for them on the market. They are complicated sets of equipment that are bought on a well-resourced planned renewal project. At the same time, there is no way that any advisor to a government would say let us keep X amount of excessive numbers of ventilators in a warehouse, requiring them to be switched on every several months to check they work, service them, and replace parts. It is far beyond any policymaker’s capability to do that.

However, the irony to that is, that it would have been in our interests to do it with the economic effect on businesses over the next few months. If I was a politician, I would not have had warehouses with ventilators. But what we do have, are warehouses stocked with PPE, anti-biotics, anti-virals, which are essential and can be maintained.

TJM: What about PPE?

CS: Local supply issues. There are different types of PPE. Now the PPE you have for the higher risk procedure is different to the PPE for standard procedures. Human nature is to grab the one considered to give the highest level of protection regardless of whether you need that or not. Infections do not work that way. If you are not treating a patient needing to have their lungs washed out, or a tube put down their throat with your face twenty cm away from their mouth while doing it, then you do not need the protection offered by an FFP3 respirator with face shield. If you are doing simple straight forward care you will be fine with a face shield and standard mask.

But that’s not what people do they tend to grab respirator because they perceive it for greater protection. You don’t need a bulletproof vest to go down to the shops, you only need the bulletproof vest if bullets are flying. You only need the FFP3 masks for aerosol-generating procedures, where one gets up close and personal to the aerosols. But people pick these masks thinking it gives them greater protection. But it’s not, it is simply preventing someone who needs that mask from having it. We have kept a huge number of FFP3 masks in reserve for years, but at the current rate, they are being consumed too quickly as people are using them inappropriately. And this is a difficult message to get across.

There may be local supply cases, but the idea we are somehow negligent is very different. Junior doctors have been very good at communicating these shortfalls using the various social media tools to share this. At most places, we do have the equipment but it needs to be used appropriately. The right level of PPE needs to be used for the right circumstances.

TJM: In your experience, what kinds of communications are most effective when engaging populations and getting them to do things – rational or emotive?

CS: Are all people the same? Some people are young, some people are old, some work on emotion prompts, some people work on facts. The biggest mistake is that one communication strategy will work. Instead, what you need is a blend – everything from the Twitterati to the Radio 4 audience. Some people don’t listen to the radio, they rely on social media like Facebook and other sources. I think that clever messaging is blended. A lot of people like the CMO Professor Whitty, as he is seen as the nation’s doctor. But at the same time, he is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. He may be seen as a “pale male”. Is he going to engage a young ethnic minority male in a deprived inner-city London? Will he reach out to a single mother in Birkenhead?

The way you reach out to these parts of the population is through using a mix of social influences, various magazines, and social media apps like Instagram. This is a very different messaging style to what the Radio 4 generation is used to. The government needs to learn more sophisticated communication strategies that are involving social influencers to make sure its message is being read by all corners of the population. In my personal opinion there is a big scope for improvement. Public health messaging has to change, especially to adapt to this.

TJM: Finally, how can governments prepare themselves for pandemics?

CS: Set up advisory groups like the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group. The reason it is called that is that it does exactly what is say on the tin, advises on new and emerging respiratory virus threats. The group is tasked with questions such as what is coming, and if it is coming what it might look like, and how can we prepare. And it is exactly what we did.

Professor Calum Semple, Professor of Child Health and Outbreak Medicine at the University of Liverpool, and a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)

Timothy Moots is a Senior Editor at Strife and a PhD Candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.