Last night, the latest Sport Industry Dining took place at Brigade Bar + Kitchen in Central London.
Sport Industry Dining is a series of exclusive dinners for Sport Industry Members, meeting four times a year at some of London’s most exclusive venues.
The prestigious series provides senior figures from leading brands, rights holders and agencies across the sport industry with the opportunity to network, socialise and hear from some of the most inspiring names in sport.
At the unique Brigade Bar + Kitchen, a social enterprise restaurant near London Bridge, BT Sport presenter Becky Ives took care of hosting duties once again.
Joining her for a Q&A was double-Olympic Gold medal winning swimmer Rebecca Adlington OBE, who took to the stage to tell her inspiring story to the group of senior figures from the likes of Liverpool FC, adidas, Spotify, Unilever, TikTok, IMG, SailGP and Sky Sports.
Speaking about the origins of her swimming success, Adlington explained her motivations behind getting into the sport.
“Nobody gets into swimming to become a world champion, especially when you are from the UK. Generally, swimming is just dominated by America, by Australia, by these other countries. Back when I started out, I hadn’t seen a British gold medallist. The last one before me was Anita Lonsbrough back in 1960, and I was only born in 1989, so I hadn’t seen anything.
“So, you just don’t get into swimming to become like an Olympic gold medallist. You just don’t expect that!”
The 400m and 800m freestyle specialist, who also boasts World Championship, European Championship and Commonwealth Games gold medals alongside her Olympic haul, joked about her decision to swim the longer distance.
“Trust me, if I could just do 25 meters, I definitely would. Me and Mark Foster wind each other up about it all the time. All he does is a quick slash and dash and get out and I’m like, this is unfair. But unfortunately, you don’t get to pick your event. It’s just whatever you are good at, it’s kind of whatever you get.”
The pinnacle of Adlington’s career was undoubtably the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she won two gold medals, and broke the 19-year-old world record of Janet Evans in the 800-metre final. Adlington was Britain’s first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, and the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908.
“I remember being literally wanting to throw up,” she said. “My coach just went, ‘Becky, just have fun with this one’ because nobody expected me to do anything and my goal was to just make the final.
“So, there was absolutely no expectation, no pressure on me at all. But it was four minutes of hell!”
Touching on the moment she realised she had sealed gold, alongside fellow British swimmer and best friend Joanne Jackson, Adlington said, “The only way you find out is that once you finish, you look at the scoreboard, but it’s so far away.
It was literally down the other end. So, I couldn’t work out whether the ‘one’ lined up to my name. So, there is a minute where Jo and I are looking at each other thinking ‘is that me or is that you?’ And then you start celebrating going ‘oh my god!’
“So, it was amazing that we hadn’t had any British swimmer winning Olympic medals in so long and then I won one with my best mate, which was the most insane thing ever,” she said of her gold and Jackson’s bronze.
Guests also got the chance to ask Adlington their own questions, with the conversation turning the sport of swimming in general and how it’s governance can be improved to ensure more Olympic medals for Great Britain in the future.
“If you don’t get the grassroots right, you’ll never get the elite side right,” Adlington emphasised.
Rebecca Adlington joins Ugo Monye, Molly Thompson-Smith, Alessia Russo, Hannah Cockcroft, Ellie Simmonds, Jermaine Jenas, Will Buxton, Alex Scott and Aimee Fuller on the list of Sport Industry Dining speakers, with more high-profile sportspeople lined up for upcoming Dining events.
Access to Sport Industry Dining can be gained by purchasing a Sport Industry Membership. In addition, the package offers tickets to Sport Industry Socials, tickets and entries to the FEVO Sport Industry Awards, and a number of other generous discounts and benefits.
Find out more here.
