Jim McGovern
Main Page: Jim McGovern (Labour - Dundee West)Department Debates - View all Jim McGovern's debates with the Leader of the House
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Hugh Robertson
That campaign is often run mainly by Australians—or used to be, until they slipped down the test rankings. Personally, I think it is important that for any sport trying to join the Olympic mix it should be the height of an athlete’s career to win a gold medal. I think that that is the case for rugby sevens, but I would need persuading that the height of an international cricketer’s career would be to win an Olympic gold medal, rather than an International Cricket Council world cup.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
It has been brought to my attention that one of Britain’s greatest ever Olympians, Dick McTaggart, who was born and brought up just down the road from me in Dundee, who won a boxing gold medal in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and a bronze medal in Rome in 1960, and who also competed in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, has been told that if he wishes to attend the London Olympics he should put his name in a lottery, and that if he is lucky enough to have his name drawn out, he could buy a ticket for £250—and that might not even be for boxing; it might be for synchronised swimming. Will the Minister use his good offices to ensure that Mr McTaggart is invited as a VIP guest to the London Olympics?
Hugh Robertson
I am not sure how Mr McTaggart has managed to get himself into that situation. There are two things he ought to do almost straightaway. First, he should go to the national governing body for boxing in Great Britain, whose president is the former Sports Minister—that would be a very good start. If that fails, however, he should approach the Olympians organisation run by the British Olympic Association, which exists precisely to ensure that former members of the Olympic family can attend events.