VIDEO: Watch how boxing can be a force for good

Among all the egos, bureaucracy, questionable results, waning global interest, lack of credible heavyweights, cynicism, paper champions and distrust that surrounds the modern world of boxing, this short film – about a member of London’s Caris Boxing Club which mentors and helps young homeless people sleeping rough in the city – shows how the ‘purest’ sport can still be a true force for good. I challenge you not to be moved.

Why has British swimming stopped making waves?

Let’s dive straight in and acknowledge that British swimming is currently a shambles after another major global championship where the team’s performances and medal haul have been well below self-imposed targets and previous results. Why? Because the disappointment, soul-searching and staunch promises caused by the meagre three medals won at London 2012, were only able to transform themselves into a solitary bronze won on the last day at August’s FINA World Championships in Rome. Britain’s lowest medal tally for 15 years.

The decline is alarming and history shows it’s no temporary blip.

Until now, since the euphoria of winning eight medals – three of them gold – at the 2003 edition, British swimmers have always won at least three medals at the global showpiece. Which to an extent has helped gloss over and mask the frustration as to why this hasn’t been repeated at Olympics taking place during the same period when it’s REALLY mattered, where only seven medals have been won across three Games from 2004 to 2012.

But that veil, almost single-handedly worn by Rebecca Adlington of late until her premature retirement this year, has been well and truly blown away, especially when you consider recent British fortunes in the other major Olympic sports, athletics and cycling.

A straight comparison with the two-wheeled discipline, which continues to deliver a steady avalanche of history setting Olympic and world champions, Tour De France winners and Sport Personalities of the Year (three of the last five), would be brutal in the extreme. Yet the injury-hit British & NI athletics team, shorn of its star athlete in Jessica Ennis, was still able to muster six medals – three of them gold – at last month’s World Championships. Matching their London 2012 total and being just one shy of the seven garnered at the 2011 World Athletics Championships.

Or putting it another way UK athletics has delivered at least one Olympic champion at every Games since 2000. Swimming has only delivered just one since 1988.

Statistics are often called misleading but these facts paint a worrying picture. British swimming is in the doldrums, despite countless millions of funding and a talented, er, pool to choose from. Whom on the surface at least seem to lack the required mental toughness and will to win. Perhaps lessons can be learnt from England’s cricketers who had to adopt a tougher mental approach after years of defeats and torment in the mid and late nineties.

Success invariably comes in cycles and steps are being taken, which has seen another national performance director come and go. He at least had the sense to move this year’s national trials until later in the calendar and nearer the World Championships – like most other nations do – to stop the absurd handicap of asking our elite swimmers to hit peak form twice in one season. But it’s going to take a lot more hard work before British swimming can proudly hold its head above water again.