People

London 2012 will be my tenth Olympic Games as a commentator. At the last nine Games I commentated for the BBC, but this year I'll be with the Olympic Broadcasting Services providing impartial coverage for broadcast organisations worldwide. I'll be in the stadium for every minute of the athletics, and media will be able to take a live broadcast from us or pick out the content that they want to use as part of their own programmes.

As an Olympian myself — I competed in the 110m hurdles in the 1968 Mexico Olympics — I know the feeling that athletes experience at the starting 
line and I get the same feeling when I prepare to commentate. There's an element of nervousness about it — there has to be for you to perform at 
your best. Despite the fact that we get into the commentary box an hour before broadcasting 
and test our equipment, in television things go wrong all the time. You can never be complacent and need to be able to adapt to situations quickly.

Your voice really tells the story and tells the viewer how important the race is. You'll be able to tell from the tone of my voice the difference between heats, semi-finals and finals. That said, sometimes the best commentary is no words at all because you let the pictures do the talking.

When speaking to a general audience you have 
to avoid using technical terminology. Ron Pickering and I always used to say, "You've got to say it so that Fred and Frieda at home can understand it." My favourite Olympic memory was in Mexico in 1968. I was close to the landing area when long jumper Bob Beamon jumped 8.90m and broke 
the world record. They had a Vernier scale on a metal runner alongside the long jump pit. The judge clunked it to the end but it didn't go far enough, so they had to stop the competition and get a non-stretchable tape and measure the distance precisely with that!

Interview: Ianthe Butt.

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