Jamie Staff Interview

Interview: Jamie Staff

By Larry Hickmott

One of England's big hopes for a medal at the Commonwealth Games will be World Team Sprint Champion Jamie Staff. The former BMX World Champion who has also twice won a World Team Sprint championship as well as a World Keirin title, was in Sydney for the World Track Cup there last week which is where British Cycling caught up with him to see how things have been since he won his World Title last March in Los Angeles.

Jamie was in Sydney to try and get some World Championship sprint qualifying points for the GB team which he did after finishing eighth in the competition. "I wanted to race here because I missed the first two (World Track Cups) because I couldn't leave the country (green card issues in the US). Racing is my passion and the more races I do, the more settled and better I feel."

Talking about the Commonwealth Games which start this week, Jamie says he's looking forward to his second ride in the Games after doing the Manchester Games only a year or so after being given a place in the GB team following a long career in BMX. "It was a good experience in Manchester and before it, I had only done a handful of races so I went into that competition not knowing what to expect. In the end it was a lot of fun and I had a really good time."

"I did pretty good with a Silver and a Bronze and I think both the English and Scottish teams have got better since then so its going to be pretty hard. At least the Keirin is in it now and that will be my focus along with the Team Sprint and Sprint. I won't be doing the Kilo because after Melia had twins, I haven't had time to train properly for it. I'd like to have a go but to be honest there are already a couple of Aussies who will be focusing on it and then there's Jason (Queally), Chris (Hoy) and Craig (MacLean) so I just felt my focus would be better spent somewhere else.

"Plus it hurts doing the Kilo and I'm getting too old for that sort of pain!"

Asked how becoming father to twins has changed his life, Jamie replied "it's flipped my life upside down having one let alone two. Their names are Grace and Theodore and they are seven months old. The first three months was hell with us getting between three and five hours interrupted sleep a night which was stressful."

"The children have though brought Melia and me even closer together and the kids are just fantastic. Every parent warned us there is nothing like it and it's true. I'd die for my children and they bring me so much joy. I miss them already and I've only been away from home three days!

"They also make me crack up because they are so much fun. You can already see my wife's traits in them and mine as well which is pretty funny."

Life for Jamie has also changed in that prior to the Athens Olympics, he did spend a lot of time in England with the team away from his wife and that brought with it a stress on both his personal and working relationships. Since then he has been able to spend a lot of time at home training and looking after his young family. Talking to us about the change in his lifestyle, Jamie says "it is nice. After the Olympics, I didn't think it hurt me that bad but it did. I was pretty burnt from what happened and disappointed. I didn't touch my bike for a long time and Shane helped get me back on it and when I did, it re ignited the spark and I trained for ten weeks before I did the World Championships where we won the Team Sprint which was good."

"I then had a short break before resuming training prior to the birth of the twins. After that, I hardly touched the bike because it was so exhausting and I wasn't able to do anything in training that was productive. I slowly increased the training volume after that early period with the kids though and I have been able to train solidly for the last four months and I feel really good."

The training, Jamie explained, has been focused on the Keirin and the Team Sprint and he says of his Bronze medal in the Los Angeles World Track Cup that he was proud of that ride and tactically rode it very well. "I definitely feel more at home with the event."

Then harking back to his disqualification in the 2004 Olympics, Jamie says smiling, "My wife said to me 'have you ever read the rule book' and I said 'no', so she said "do me favour before the next Olympics, read the rule book!' So that is my next goal!"

Jamie like many in the sport lament the days when the sprint events were more physical and the commissaries were less involved in trying to tone down the bumping and barging on the track.

"I come from BMX where nearly anything goes apart from the really obvious ones and in talking to Jan Van Eijden and a few other guys who have been around a while and even they say its been tamed down lately. The commissaries are getting a lot stricter but as far as I am concerned, unless you do a dangerous move like Blachford did to me in LA, then bumping and barging is racing."

"I don't know why they don't paint lanes around the track and just say go. The crowd come to see some action and as long as no-one gets seriously hurt, there is no harm in it. Now everyone is commenting that the guys with the Kilo background are coming in and ruling sprinting because they can go to the front, wind it up and often you can't get around them. So it's kind of getting boring in some ways which is a shame."

BMX
One of the key changes recently for Jamie has been his addition to the GB BMX team to help develop the riders who can challenge for Olympic medals in 2008 and beyond. That will mean a return to the UK for him and his family so he can devote more time to BMX in the period outside the track season.

"As an aging athlete, you wonder what is going to happen after your career is over and the energy you put into thinking about that can take away from the here and now. Having the security for the next six years has definitely taken the pressure off me and I can focus more on the here and now."

"I explained to the GB team that if we're going to do anything with the BMX riders, we have to do it now and give them some help before the season starts. Dave (Brailsford, GB Performance Director) has been full on 100 per cent on for this programme and has hired me as a consultant up to Beijing where my role will involve writing training programmes and giving advice to the riders."

"When I move to the UK, I'll be able to give even more input as I'll be attending a lot more of the races in England, as well as writing the programs. I think I can offer a lot to them in helping them get their race head on. A lot of the English BMX riders don't have a lot of confidence in themselves which as a nation, we have always been like that. I am though really impressed with the level of racing I have seen."

"So I'm going to try and bring some confidence to the team."

"We also have Dale Holmes racing in the US and he's going to offer some help as well and we hired Geth Shooter who is an ex pro and someone I looked up to when I was a young kid. He's very passionate about the sport. So hopefully we can turn the sport around and try and get the whole nation behind us."

"I want us to just focus on the riders. Try and get everyone up to speed and improve their racing."

"I don't care about clips or no clips, tracks or facilities. I didn't have facilities when I was a kid but I still turned out alright. This is a dream come true for me first as an English BMXer making a living at that, then making a living on the track for GB and now putting back what I have learnt from my time being a BMXer as well as on the track with Team GB. I think I have so much to offer the BMX team and hopefully I can help the kids in BMX."

Good luck to Jamie in Melbourne.