British Ice Hockey is a brand new organisation with a brand new, if not familiar, Performance Director with the “ultimate goal to be in the Olympics, 100%.” Jonathan Phillips is the former captain and with 116 caps, the most capped player in Great British history, but after a brief excursion following sporting retirement into education, he’s now back to oversee all the elite teams including the men, women and Para teams too. Described as the “heartbeat of the national team for two decades” having played in World Championships, Phillips set out his stall to help transform the game in this country, when talking to Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy. “In recent years, when I was a player, I remember we got down to the final qualifying round a couple of times. But it really is that step process. Our ultimate goal is to be in the Olympics, 100%. I think as a nation, we have to make sure that we're attacking each step.”

“This is one of those moments where there'll be great community pride, despite the fact that literally it's gone in a blink. You know, it washes past you in 30, 40 seconds. But the buildup to it, and I think the pride and engagement within communities across the 920 kilometre route, across the six stages next year in the UK, will be something so special. You know, we call it, it's a moment of opportunity for the UK that we'll probably never have again.”

“I think from my point of view, yeah, of course there's nervousness, and I think there should be it's a position of, real responsibility, you know, to try and help these young people make the most of the opportunity. But I think there’s a kind of, let's call it the operational nervousness” he told Great British Bosses podcast from Anything but FOOTY. “There's going to be things that are different from other events, but as you both know, these Olympic events are always incredibly well organised and tend to do an amazing job, and this will be no different. There will, without a doubt, be challenges along the way. That is always at these events, but on the whole, what actually happens when it needs to happen, and the competition is always fantastic.”

Jonny Brownlee doesn’t think they’ll be another set of ‘superpower’ brothers like him and Alistair in the sport anytime soon and admits when Ali retired he missed him. “When Alistair stopped the Olympic stuff after Rio, you know, I felt quite lonely. I felt like something was missing. And one of my biggest regrets in my career is not being able to perform at my best without Alistair there as well. So I think a lot of that was because I kind of lost that superpower. We lost that dominance over other people. A lot of people were already beaten if there was two of us on the start line. One because we were a team and secondly because they kind of, they realised that if one of us was on a bad day, one of us was going to still be on a good day. So they're never going to beat us both.”

“We love you, Michael. But, time to go. See you next year!” Not my words but the words of athletes Imani Lansiquot and Daryll Neita following their involvement in the Athlos meeting in London. It was the final event of a busy year of athletics – both for the athletes and for me. It was the busiest I have ever been working in the sport across radio, the online commentary feeds that I occasionally do and our Anything but Footy podcast. In some shape or form, and with most of them being on site at the actual events, this is how my 2026 athletics calendar looked.

With a technical mistake at the Milan Olympics and a so called illegal lift in the World Championships, 2026 hasn’t quite gone to plan for the pair - but they told us they’re now stronger than ever. 

“It was definitely rough many times, ups and downs, but the transformation that resulted from that is something that I've never experienced in my life” Lilah told us but “being able to have the mindset to draw out the lessons and what can be empowering about huge disappointments really can shape someone as a human, as an athlete and also just the strength of our bond. I think we're more inspired by our dreams and vision than we are discouraged by short-term disappointments.”Lewis said stopping their partnership never crossed his mind “we don't stop dreaming because we still believe it can be possible.”

“We're going for 2030. Highlighted. Absolutely.”

There’s a saying in Scotland that ‘People Make Glasgow’. Visit the city and you will see that phrase on various buildings and landmarks. It’s a very accurate description of the place.

Josh Kerr, Emma Finucane, Reuben Ward, Georgia Hunter Bell, Filip Nowacki and others helped make the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow a success, but it’s two people whose names I don’t even know who made our Commonwealth Games in Glasgow a success.

our focus is with talkSPORT. They are broadcasting the Commonwealth Games as an official broadcast partner for the first time in another historic moment for UK commercial radio. We have been working with the team at talkSPORT on the coverage ever since the deal was done. There will be a special programme every night from 7pm presented by Natalie Sawyer and Greg Rutherford. Nigel Adderley, Alfie Reynolds and Joe Shennan will be commentating across sports including cycling, boxing and swimming and talkSPORT will be hearing from experts including Molly Renshaw, Lewis Richardson and Georgia Holt.

Could ‘North of England 2040s Olympics’ do what the Northern Powerhouse and its various successor plans couldn’t do? Firstly, it’s great that the UK Government still sees the value of hosting major events and the study will not look at costs, benefits and the chances of success. So, putting aside cynicism about how we’ve yet to complete HS2 from Birmingham to London and now want to bring something to the country that would require mass transportation links from Hull to Liverpool and from Newcastle to Birmingham, taking in Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, let’s have some fun and look at what the North of England Olympics Games might look like. It's a handy guide for Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. I’m also including the Midlands because I think it makes sense for many reasons.

I was struck by one comment whilst reading plenty of articles and posts following the Government’s announcement they will be exploring a bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games focused on the north of England. The comment was from Dame Sarah Storey on LinkedIn. As I think Dame Sarah should be a key member of the new organising committee, I thought it was well worth considering. She highlighted how much of the coverage focused exclusively on the Olympics. She mentioned how London 2012 organisers got it right when always talking about both the Olympics and Paralympics or simply used the shorthand of ‘The Games’. 

The midday news bulletin leads with the history making news from the London Marathon. I get a message from the newsdesk simply saying ‘Going Big.’ Tigst Assefa has broken the World Record in the Women’s Race and Sebastian Sawe has not only done the same in the men’s race, but he’s also run it in less than two hours. A first in a competitive marathon environment without any controlled conditions. It’s the marathon equivalent of the four-minute mile barrier being broken by Roger Bannister.

On the day, Times Radio staged a hugely successful Boat Races broadcast. Visualised on YouTube, as well being broadcast on the radio, credit has to go to the whole team who embraced the event. Audience figures for Easter Saturday afternoon were up a quarter on their usual Saturday and everyone is now looking forward to next year when they have the contract again.Post-Olympic Blues. They were both light and dark.

In a time of dreadful personal circumstances, the Games delivered again and proved to be the perfect tonic and good for the soul. Whether it was the kindness of old friends and colleagues, the performance of Team GB or the atmosphere around a city and region celebrating what the Olympics meant, it certainly delivered.

Anything but Footy’s 2026 Fixture List!

Where is the same level of coverage for our rowers, paddlers, gymnasts, para-swimmers and para-athletes. It was good to see the World Road Cycling Championships follow the athletics onto BBC2 and it means I’m more hopeful than I was for coverage of the World Track Cycling Championships from Santiago. I think there’s a huge, missed opportunity for the broadcasters here. Technology allows for coverage to be done from the UK – both presentation and commentary, so in general terms it would make cheap telly. The broadcasters could even just take the host broadcast commentary and add a little bit of context around it as the BBC do with the Diamond League where the presenter simply sits in a voiceover booth and links between events.

Try and influence and change sport for the better - don’t create something else that’s worse, and goes against everything sport and the Olympics stands for - being first but fair. I hope Ben changes his mind. I hope someone offers him something else that could make him financially better. An athlete coming to the end of their career told me this week, they wanted to get into governance of sport. Help the next generation. Come on Ben, join them, earn a good living and create real change from the inside!

It’s a year now since I arrived back from Paris having spent nearly three weeks in the French capital working for talkSPORT covering the Olympic Games as an official rights-holding broadcaster. I was the first of the team to arrive in France and the last to leave. It’s been interesting how different John and I have reacted to our return from the Games. After catching up on some sleep and re-introducing ourselves to our families, John’s focus immediately turned to what to do next. Ultimately, Anything but Footy is a business and we needed new projects to bring in money. This was always going to be a struggle in a post-Olympic year for a company which specialises in making content about the Olympics and Paralympics.

This isn’t an article playing down Sarina and the team’s achievement but it’s a serious question to the FA as to whether we can look outside our safe English bubble and come together 3 years before LA 2028, and as four football associations sit down with Team GB, and ask Sarina to manage the team and go for gold in America - the home of the current champions! 

In this rare summer where there’s no international men’s football tournament (even Man City & Chelsea don’t want to play the club World Cup do they?) let’s hear more about sporting success, rather than potential European places!