Bannister hopes Games help UK racial tolerance

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Britain's most revered athletes, Roger Bannister, said the success of the London Games had helped restore a sense of national pride and greater tolerance in multi-racial Britain.

The 2012 Olympics were held a year after riots swept through Tottenham in north London, initially sparked by the police shooting of a 29-year-old black man, and then spread to other cities across Britain.

Bannister, who won fame in 1954 by running the first sub-four-minute mile, said the Olympics and the success of British team had given people a reason to celebrate and come together.

"The Olympics have elevated national pride and made the modern society of Great Britain much more cohesive and more at ease with itself," Bannister told Reuters in a telephone interview on Sunday as the Games came to a close.

"This is due to the performance of those who now live in Britain but who were born abroad and have every reason to share that pride."

Bannister, 83, who ran for Britain in the 1952 Helsinki Games, hailed the success of double gold medallist Mo Farah, who was born in Somalia and moved to Britain aged eight.

After winning the 10,000 metres, Farah, 29, said he knew he had to do something special in London as this was his home. He went on to also win the 5000m before a rapturous crowd.

Heptathlete gold medallist Jessica Ennis, whose Jamaican father moved to England when he was 13, was the host nation's face of the London Games and cited as another great role model.

"This will encourage people to take up sport. People can see that Jessica Ennis can do it, that Mo Farah can do, and they will see that they themselves can do it," said Bannister.

TEARJERKER MOMENTS

A survey found 73 percent of Britons had expressed some cynicism about the Games before they began with concerns over costs as a double-dip recession hammers parts of the country.

But the poll for digital TV service Freeview found this negativity was eradicated as the event got underway and 78 percent of 2,000 respondents felt a sense of national pride on the back of the British team's success.

Team GB has won 29 gold medals, up from 19 at Beijing four years ago, putting it third in the medal-ranking table behind the United States and China.

Over four out of 10 people and over a third of men admitted crying tears of emotion during the Games with Ennis's victory in the heptathlon, Farah's 10,000m win and the opening ceremony cited as the most tear-jerking moments.

Bannister said the friendly attitude of 70,000 volunteers at the Games, the positive approach by soldiers in uniform running security, and the magnificent venues also added to the success.

"I am glad that those who were against the Games being held here and the people who were discouraging about the likely successful outcome have been proved wrong," he said.

Bannister said just as important was the legacy of the Games which included the regeneration of east London and moves to increase the level of sports participation across the country.

"The legacy is also partly Britons' feelings about their own country and the mixed population that now lives here," said Bannister, who went on to become a distinguished neurologist.

Government figures showed the number of UK residents born abroad hit 7.4 million in 2011, accounting for 12 percent of the population and up 2.2 million since 2004. One in four babies is now born to foreign-born mothers.

Bannister's links to sport have always continued and he was the first chairman of a National Sport Council in the 1970s and initiated the first testing for anabolic steroids in sport.

(editing by Michael Holden)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bannister-hopes-games-help-uk-racial-tolerance-165649813--spt.html

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