Armstrong underestimates the opposition

Sportspeople as experienced as Lance Armstrong should never underestimate the opposition, yet the disgraced American cyclist and his advisors did just that ahead of last week’s sensational interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, for Armstrong has made something of a habit of it. Even after being exposed, Armstrong showed scant respect for those who doggedly pursued him and refused to accept his repeated denials of doping. Instead he attempted to destroy them, allegedly labeling the whistle-blowing wife of a team-mate a “whore” and issuing threats and lawsuits as he went. 

The Sunday Times’ sportswriter David Walsh was Armstrong’s most ardent and relentless accuser, and deserves to be celebrated by every journalist on the planet for the way he stood up for his story, all the while standing up to one of the biggest names in world sport. Armstrong presented himself as a hero to cancer sufferers as well as an athlete beyond reproach, yet his defensiveness in interviews, aggressive answers to awkward questions and name-calling (“troll” was his favoured word for Walsh, usually accompanied by profanity) were not the responses of an innocent man. 

One of The Emilia Group’s areas of expertise is crisis communications and although it’s an area that corporations tend to focus more on than athletes and sports organisations, those with sponsorships, funding and reputations to lose in sport would do well to look at Armstrong as a reminder that preparing for the worst is always sensible - especially if you have something very big to hide.

It’s not clear what Armstrong thought he was going to gain from the Oprah interview, given that the damage to his reputation became largely irrepairable the moment USANA’s mind-blowing report on his (and his team’s) doping landed on newsdesks around the world. Having committed to the questionable PR tactic of talking to Oprah -  presumably in the hope that he win the public over or gain some sympathy for his plight - Armstrong then prepared poorly and showed little obvious sign of remorse or contrition.

An example of this was when Winfrey asked him if he felt he ought to apologise to Walsh, whom he had villified both professionally and personally (according to Walsh, Armstrong stooped as low as to openly criticise Walsh’s reaction to losing his 12-year-old son). “Do you owe David Walsh an apology, who for 13 years has pursued this story, who wrote for The Sunday Times, who has now written books about your story and about this entire process?” asked Winfrey. There was a long pause before Armstrong said, somewhat unconvincingly, “I’d apologise to David.” Not “Yes of course”; not even the word “sorry”, just a hypothetical and therefore non-committal “I would...”

It’s not clear what Armstrong was expecting from Winfrey - perhaps a teary cuddle and some soft-balled questions - but what he got was a world class grilling that often left him looking flustered and bounced into evasive answers. In Winfrey’s words, she prepared “like I was studying for a test” and, like Walsh before her, undid Armstrong through persistence and attention to detail.

Harry J Enten recently cited some interesting research in his Guardian blog which bears out the suspicion that Armstrong has only managed to hurt his own standing even more by opting to do the interview. In October 2012, at the height of the revelations about Armstrong, 48% of Americans told pollsters that he should not get credit for any of his career accomplishments - including a bronze Olympic medal and seven Tour de France winner’s medals. By early January 2012, pre-Oprah that figure had fallen to 37% showing that the public were easing up slightly.  However the first post-Oprah polls showed that only 21% of Americans polled thought Armstrong could restore his reputation. 

In a further poll, again unearthed by Enten, only 17% of those polled thought that Armstrong was being truthful in his answers to Oprah. That cynicism will only increase as the news cycle rumbles on and more and more people around the world become familiar with both his crimes against sport and the way Armstrong behaved to those who defied him while he denied.

For a man who loved winning so much that he was willing to set aside morality, fairness, honesty and decency, Armstrong sure looks like a loser now.

Tweet in haste; repent at leisure

As a quick surf around our company website will tell you, the core of our business is helping athletes to understand the media and to use it to their advantage. 

As you can imagine, our virtual office is always buzzing when yet another story emerges of an sportsperson coming a cropper by tweeting first and thinking second. These case studies instantly get absorbed into the athlete media workshops that we we run for organisations like Tennis Australia, British Fencing and Tennis Europe so that we can use them constructively to help sportspeople understand that their Twitter account should be handled with care. 

There have been several high-profile examples of this recently in football - notably Ashley Cole’s now notorious description of the Football Association as a “#bunchoft**ts”. His England squad-mate Ryan Bertrand also got himself into the dangerous cycle of reaction and retraction when he tweeted an angry response to suggestions that he was missing England duty because of a sore throat rather than something more serious. 

Having worked closely with athletes and seen first-hand how much distraction, stress and - in some cases - distress these media hiccups can cause, our initial reaction is always somewhat sympathetic. Of course all athletes are responsible for what they say and do in the public domain but those who have missed out on the sort of media workshops that we run can sometimes find themselves exposed in the big, wide, media world without a real understanding of what is expected of them.

Sportspeople making ill-advised comments and paying the consquences is not a social media phenomenon, but the advent of these intimate, instant forms of communication means that the line between what is said in private and what is said in public is getting harder for athletes to define. 

If our media sessions have a message, it’s that sportspeople - just like politicians, actors and anyone with a significant profile - must understand the difference between their public persona and their private self. That is not to say that they must create a facade or be somehow ‘two-faced’; instead it means presenting themselves in the best possible light. This is important for attracting, representing and keep sponsors; for promoting their sport and for acting as a role model to young sports fans. 

Some athletes are more comfortable than others with being in a public eye but these days it is an inescapable part of the job of being a professional sportsperson. That’s why organisations which take a proactive approach to media training tend to save themselves and their athletes a lot of trouble further down the track. By preparing sportspeople for life in the public eye, they are investing in a long-term safeguard for the reputation of their sport. No media/PR team at a governing body or management company wants to have to deal with the fall-out from an athlete saying or tweeting something ill-advised. 

Some might say that the difference between thinking something (or saying it to a close friend) and tweeting or speaking about it to a journalist should be obvious. Surely it’s a matter of common sense? That may be true if, like most non-athletes, you have been in a workplace or been through the experience of saying something rash to your boss but that is not the world of young sportspeople. If they have been training and competing from a young age, most have not ever worked 9-5 or attended school regularly. Their time is often spent around coaches and other athletes, sometimes in a cosseted world which revolves around them and their sport and does not necessary help them develop an understanding of how the outside world might see them. 

It can, therefore, come as a shock when they find themselves and what they say being discussed and judged by that outside world but such shocks can be avoided with a few short sessions and a bit of expert advice ahead of time. Organisations which prepare their athletes for life in the public eye might well be saving themselves from having to prepare for an an #epicfail later on.

If you want to discuss our media workshops further, drop us an email at info@theemiliagroup.com and let's talk about how we can help you or your athletes.

Not for the faint-hearted - The Olympic and Paralympic Mixed Zone

An Olympic or Paralympic Mixed Zone is not a place for the faint-hearted, whether you are an interviewer, an athlete or someone whose job it is to somehow manage the series of post-competition interviews that happen there.

The Mixed Zone often looks like little more than a series of fences or unprepossessing barriers, usually located directly next to the field of play. It is often the first place an athlete goes within seconds of the biggest moments of their career. 

There, as they cope with the emotional, physical and mental aftermath of competition, sports people are introduced to a line of broadcasters and then written press. They conduct a series of interviews, each of which is timed at roughly a minute to 90 seconds. Short, sharp, raw and full of feeling, these ‘flash’ interviews can showcase athletes at their best and their worst.

Both Faye and I have been lucky enough to have spent most of this past summer in Mixed Zones at various events and witnessed first-hand many of London 2012’s most accomplished performers giving their post-event interviews. It has been fascinating to watch those who used those magical 90 seconds to enhance their reputation, engage with the global audience and grab a place in the public consciousness - and those who did not.

Double Olympic Gold medallist Laura Trott is a good example of someone who made the most of her moment in the Velodrome Mixed Zone. Given her engaging, smiling performances in those brief but important moments post- race, it’s no surprise to see Trott emerge from London 2012 as one of the country’s favourite new sports stars. Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis began the Olympics with very high profiles, but their media performances post-event certainly increased the impact of their impressive achievements on the field of play.

Others used their Mixed Zone moments less wisely. Every athlete that marched through without stopping (often, sadly, on the basis of poor advice from team members, coaches and even press attaches) missed an opportunity to connect with fans and potential sponsors. As they return to the real post-London 2012 world of reduced sports funding and the ever-more difficult search for sponsorship, they may regret rushing to chat to their family or coach when they could have spared a few moments en route to get some invaluable media exposure for themselves and their sport.

Oscar Pistorious came into the Paralympics as a much- loved and hugely respected athlete but he may regret denting his reputation with comments made in the Mixed Zone after he suffered a shock to defeat to Brazil’s Alain Oliviera in the T44 200-metre sprint. At the time, Pistorious possibly felt entirely justified in suggesting that Oliviera’s blades were of an unfair length (though the International Paralympic Committee refuted his claim) but he felt moved to apologise afterwards. Apology or not, those comments, made while he was still catching his breath and digesting defeat, could follow Pistorious for years to come.

As anyone familiar with The Emilia Group’s work will know, we are big advocates of preparing athletes for every different media scenario they might expect to face. Using our experiences from this summer and other major events we have worked, we are now putting together a series of workshops designed to help sportspeople understand how a Mixed Zone works and how to make the most of those important 90-second snatches of air-time. Elite sport - and you don’t get much more elite than the Olympics and Paralympics - is all about taking opportunities and for smart athletes, the Mixed Zone is full of those.

Eleanor Preston on media training for athletes

Sportspeople tend to be obsessive about every tiny detail as they prime themselves for major events. Each ounce of food is accounted for, every training exercise repeated and every minute of what is about to happen is visualised and prepared for. That is why we always find it puzzling that athletes are often so under-prepared for the media exposure that comes with top-level sport.

Imagine trying to cope with surging adrenalin and overwhelming feelings of either triumph or despair while being faced, at the same time, with a camera, or a huddle of strangers with notebooks and microphones.  This might be followed by press conference, where rows of unfamiliar faces compete to ask unpredictable and sometimes loaded questions. It is not surprising that many athletes are anxious before and during media interviews, yet they know that media exposure gives them an opportunity to connect with sponsors, and fans and bring a global audience to their sport. In our experience, sportspeople can sometimes miss those opportunities if they are too focused on trying not to say the wrong thing.

One of the reasons we love leading media workshops is that we will often see athletes visibly relax and become more confident in expressing themselves in the course of a session. Athletes, of course, are as much a mix of personalities as any other group of people - from the cocky ones playing class clown to hide their nerves, to the quiet ones who flinch when you ask them to step forward for a role-playing exercise. We’ve learned from experience how to deal with all sorts of characters.

It’s always satisfying to get to the end of a media training workshop knowing that you’ve helped everyone in the room learn how to present the best possible version of themselves and shine when their moment in the spotlight arrives. It’s more satisfying still when you stand at the back of a press conference or TV interview and watch them use what you’ve taught them for real, by nailing an awkward question or charming an inquisitor with a smile and well thought-out answer.  

Unlike some self-styled media training experts, we have both been in a sports media environment and around athletes for most of our working lives. I was a sports journalist and broadcaster for ten years and, like my colleague Faye Andrews, have subsequently helped guide athletes through interviews and photo opportunities at major sporting events like the Olympic Games, Wimbledon and the Commonwealth Games. Together we have media trained a wide range of different sportspeople across various sports and age groups. We believe that we know how to prepare them for the media situations they can expect to encounter – whether that is a chat with their local newspaper or a live BBC interview moments after they’ve won a gold medal.

In sport, a good performance – be it on the field of play or in the media – always begins with the right preparation.