DH: Hi, welcome to Keep On Pushing radio. I am your host, Devon Harris and yeah, you know what we do here. Yeah, man, we share ideas and insights that are going to challenge you and inspire you to keep on pushing and live your best life. So if you’re interested in that, you know you’re in the right place. So again, welcome. Welcome to Keep On Pushing radio.
In 1985 our guest today became the first British javelin thrower to break 90 meters…..the 90-meter barrier with the old rule javelin and with that throw, he set a Commonwealth record. In 1986, he became the first man in the world to surpass the 80-meter barrier with the new rule javelin. He threw a world record 81.7 meters and the following year in 1987 he even improved on that record. He has represented Great Britain in two Olympic Games, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and as well as the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea and in 1992, he was named as an alternate to the British Olympic team.
Interestingly enough, in 1996, he was named as an alternate to the US Olympic team. In fact, he has competed in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 US Olympic Trials. And then for his eighth Olympic Trials, he competed in 2012 in the UK Olympic Trials as well, where he finished second. In addition to his well-documented and simply tremendous athletic talent, our guest is also an artist, in fact, he is known as the Olympic Picasso. In 2000, he competed in the US Olympic Committee Sports Art Competition in the painting division and won a gold medal for his work entitled “Struggle for Perfection”. That piece went on as part of an international exhibition at the International Olympic Committee Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland as part of the 2000 Sydney Olympic cultural events. In early 2000, our guest became a founding member of an Olympic revival movement known as Art of the Olympians. In 2010, he was appointed Legacy Ambassador in the UK for the youth sports trust 2012 sports college legacy program and in 2017, he was appointed to the Olympic culture inherited commission. He has such a long list of accomplishments and accolades. It will take us the entire time to list all of them. So, I’ll just break here and just eagerly welcome our guest, Roald Bradstock to Keep On Pushing. Roald, welcome to the show.
RB: Thank you, Devon. Thanks very much.
DH: Yeah, man. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time to come out. When we think of Olympians, Roald, we think of someone who has developed a passion for sports in general and for a particular discipline and then they kind of pour their life, all their energies into becoming the best they can be at that discipline. I assume it’s the same for an artist as well. And you have developed a passion for both sports and art from a very early age. How did that come about for you?
RB: Well, to me, I mean, it was simultaneous where I was just always very interested in the arts and visual images and paintings and photographs and when I was four, five, six years old, I started making plasticine soldiers, plasticine men about four or five centimeters high. I made thousands of them and had these kinds of wars, these battles in my bedroom, took photographs and I wanted to be an artist, but it was at the same time where, again, this is ‘68 Mexico Olympics when I was watching the BBC…… watching the Olympics and I remember seeing the black and white TV screen in my parents’ kitchen. I remember seeing a javelin being thrown and hearing the crowd roar and I said, “that’s what I want to be, I want to be a javelin thrower” because I already knew at that time that I love throwing things. Throwing snowballs, throwing sticks and stones, breaking windows but there’s also the same time where I was diagnosed with spina bifida and told that I shouldn’t…… One, you will never go to Olympics, but I should avoid sports at all costs and anyone that knows me and knows that when they tell me that I can’t do something it’s more motivation for me to do it. And you being a fellow Olympian, one thing I know about, I mean, I’ve never met an Olympian that doesn’t have the same trait where we’re fighters and we push and whether it’s from within or from outside, people helping us. What motivates us is we push as athletes but then we also do that in other parts of our lives too.
DH: Interesting. As athletes, as Olympians, we push and I agree with you. Where do you think that trait comes from, Roald? For us to want to naturally push. Someone tells us we can’t do something and it’s almost a license, a green light to say, hey, go do it.
RB: Yup. Good question. I don’t know, but I know it’s definitely a character trait and maybe it’s in our DNA. I think it’s something that you can learn to some extent but I think there’s a lot of people I’ve met, especially Olympians, they have it. It’s just an ability they have. Now, they nurture it and they can re-tune in but, I think it is something that other people can learn and know how to….what inspires you, what are you passionate about? And when I’ve gone over the years doing various workshops or coaching seminars or whatever, I was trying to expand it beyond whether it’s art or the sport and just talk about…… questioning things and looking at your environment and what excites you, what makes you want to get up in the morning, whether it’s art or sport or accounting or just to find those things and in your life that you want to really pursue, but the key thing is then to take the steps to pursue it whether it’s going to be an athlete. I mean, I think the biggest thing I’ve seen over the years is, people, say, well, I want to be an Olympian or I want to do this, but then they don’t take the steps to do it. And you have to take the steps to get there, set the short and long-term goals, do the work and push forward, but you also have to embrace the fact that there are going to be failures and that’s just part of the process to succeed. And I think that’s one thing that again, the parents, I’ve got children of my own and is that I think we’re doing them a disservice and a lot of the culture, I think worldwide where we’re trying to protect the children so much from failing. And I think, and I think that’s a mistake and I think that’s one thing that sport teaches you is that there’s no one out there where they’ve broken a world record or won a gold medal that hasn’t failed at some point.
DH: So, you touched on some really good points here. Passion, finding that thing that is going to wake you up or have you wake up in the morning that you can pursue and then making sure that you’re taking the steps, going through the process to get there because a lot of people or too many people I think wake up not having a passion and so, therefore, have difficulty in finding a way to push past difficulties that life inevitably is going to through at us, but also this whole idea of failure Roald, you brought that up and I think it’s important and maybe there’s no better place to learn about failure, certainly, in our early lives than in sports and through sports. And I fear sometimes and I have young kids who are playing sports now and I understand the culture around the world now is that you participate and everybody gets a medal, everybody gets a participatory trophy and everybody is told that they did a great job. And I think the trick is to find a balance between not destroying self-esteem and building emotional resilience, don’t you think?
RB: Absolutely. Totally agree.
DH: Because what you find is that sooner or later they’re out of the house, they’re in the job world and you’re working in a company or you’re trying to run your own business and if you weren’t trained and if you hadn’t developed that emotional resilience and that ability to push as you so rightly said that you mentioned in your workshops, you try to teach people about the need to push in other areas of life as well. So, if they’re not learning that, then they’re going to have a hard time pushing forward in their businesses and in their careers. So you demonstrated that really early as you mentioned you were diagnosed with a spina bifida and you also were diagnosed with hydrocephalus. Before we touch on how that impacted, I guess, the decision in terms of the sports that you pursued, how did that impact you emotionally? Were you teased? I’m assuming you looked a little different when you were compared to the other kids when you were younger. Were you teased? How did all of that play out?
RB: It was interesting because here I’m now 57, closing in on my 58th birthday and what am I doing? 50 years on I’m doing artwork, I’m still throwing things, not just javelins but other objects and kind of looking back now is, I can look at that again, being an artist, I’d be very critical about when I’m doing a painting or I’ve got to….. I’m my own worst critic because I have to be. So I can look back at my life and what motivated me, why am I still throwing? There’s no money involved and there’s a lot of time, a lot of effort, it’s painful. So I looked at that and well, it goes back to, again, when I’m five, six years old being diagnosed and I can remember very clearly being in hospital and the doctors looking at an x-ray and then looking over at me and asking me to walk across the room and then walk back to my chair, sit down. Then they look back at the x-ray and then looked at my parents and again, I’m six years old, I can understand what they’re saying and they’re saying well, looking at this we don’t know why you can walk. You shouldn’t be able to. They’re looking at an x-ray of my spine. So for much of my early childhood, I was going to the hospital and getting regular x-rays and had a brain scan a couple of times….every three, six months. So it was a major part of my life. My father was also much older than my mother and he retired and he’s always kind of talking about death so I was very aware of time and about good health and then being told to avoid sports and I knew what I liked doing.
And it was really when I was watching the Mexico Olympics, I wanted to being an Olympian and I wanted to be a javelin thrower. And yes, I mean, I was teased. My head was almost basically fully grown when I was first diagnosed. The reason why my mother took me in….She was a nurse as my head was growing an inch a week in circumference for six weeks over the summer. And to notice how my head was kind of slumping forward. I’m trying to alleviate the pressure on my neck and so it looks a little bit different. I look like kind of Charlie Brown and I was called Charlie Brown and I was called TV head, you name it and it just emotionally scarred me, but again, it’s one of the things I went through. I know other people your children go through, but I look at it as again, so how do I learn that at such as a young age to turn something negative into a positive and to fuel me. So, as I went onto become a teenager and once I could do it, I could out throw everyone. Anyone and everyone. And then I knew I had to be careful because of my spine limitations. I knew it was going to be that tall because looking at my family no one’s very tall. So I knew I was going to have to be very smart and think about technique and training. So I developed a technique that was very unusual and people laughed at it and yet I went from 25 meters to 30 to 40 to 50. I kept improving and everyone kept telling me, well, you won’t throw any further than that. You won’t throw any further than that. I got my first international in 1979 and at my very first international in England competing for Great Britain they stopped the meet and everyone watched me throw and they had to make a decision whether what I was doing was legal because they’ve never seen anyone…
DH: Was that because of the technique you were using?
RB: Yes. And the technique I developed was, well, I call it a wrap. It’s like very rotational. And basically, the whole concept was because of my weak back, I had to basically lengthen the pole as long as possible to alleviate the stress on my body over a longer period of time. So on the one hand, it allowed me to have a really long pull to really maximize my distance, my potential and another time, the other benefit was it would reduce the strain in my back. The flip side of that is 40 years on, I’ve never had elbow or shoulder problems. I tore my meniscus a few years ago when I slipped getting out of the car, but I’ve never had any major injury and I’m still competing and everyone’s scratching their heads now because they don’t understand but I’m regarded as the nicest term is as an outlier but other people just call me a freak, a freak of nature. I throw gulf balls when I do my training and other stuff people don’t agree with and yet here I am.
DH: Yeah. So, yeah, I thought about this or should I say I wondered about it as I was reading and researching you. Spina bifida and yet you are a javelin thrower how that would impact your back. So, two things there is one, this diagnosis should have completely derailed and the chances of you going to the Olympics, especially in a throwing event, and I know when you’re younger you also did weight lifting and powerlifting, which would also suggest adverse effects for your back, but you were able to somehow come up with techniques that would allow you not just to do your event, but have longevity. What advice do you have for us mere mortals Roald who face situations like that, how do we get past those challenges?
RB: Well, I mean you’ve got to be critical of yourself and be realistic. I think the first thing again, as an artist to be trained as an artist the thing you learned and you’ve been taught is basically to question, to look at things. And it sounds very simple, but it’s something, it is so hard to do because we see things a certain way because of how we grew up, who we’re surrounded with, what people say, we have all these influences that affect us and our judgment. So to answer your question as far as you have a challenge, whatever, to me, it would be, first of all, you have to identify what the challenge or the issue is. Is it something that you believe or something else people keep telling you? And be honest with yourself because if you can do that, if you can identify it then you can address it and you can then take steps to work with it, work around it, but you have to know and have to be realistic. And if you don’t take that first step, then everything else is kind of moot, you’re kind of wasting your time. So, again, to me it’s about being, I want to be efficient with my time and when I do things, I hate doing things that dead end. I always wanted to do something that’s ongoing. So I never go into a wall directly I may go onto a hurdle or some kind of barrier, but I can find a way to then go under it, over it, around it or through it
DH: Sounds like keep on pushing to me. That’s exactly what I speak about. Finding a way to get over, under or around the obstacles that are standing in our way. Bob Marley sings about the fact that when one door is closed another is opened and again, I think that just so in sync with the keep on pushing message and in terms of what you have done because it appeared as if the doctors had closed a door for you but what you’re saying to us is, hey, be honest, evaluate your situation. The door is closed, but there must be another one open. So rather than settle for and bemoan your misfortune figure out how you can shift your thinking and hence your approach to get to where you want to go.
RB: And the absolute key is how you think and how you approach something because again, you’ve got a comfortable little voice in your head. It’s about what that voice says and how you respond to it. And to me, again, it’s so many things are just so straight…..I don’t want to say straightforward, but on the surface so obvious, but yet so many people don’t do it. And I’m kind of stunned those years when I say certain things I think is just so obvious to everyone and people are like, oh, I never thought of that. And again, it’s that we all have a certain point of view, we have certain life experiences and again, it’s how we view the world and kind of…we’re not here in isolation and all these things. Everything’s constantly moving around us and our bodies are constantly changing where they were from babies growing up to being adults to the aging process. And to me, it goes now again, what I learned from a young child to an adult and now can be embracing on the flip side where I’m now losing what I kind of built up and doing Masters…
DH: And when you say built up, do you mean built up physically?
RB: Yeah, I mean all the kind of putting money into the bank where you can kind of withdraw it and all sudden, now I’m on the flip side where the money I’ve had stowed up, all that work I’ve put into my body and stuff; now age is robbing me of that. And to me, the mindset is where the Masters is about embracing being alive and being healthy. And it’s very different, it’s a whole thing about, not only thinking about attitude and apart from embracing life that we’re all going to die and it’s just not being morbid or kind of negative people told me to that and it’s a fact, it’s nothing wrong with that. And what I’m doing now as an athlete is really embracing that. And every time I go out to throw or workout, it’s another day that I was able to do that. And I look back at so many people that I know now that are retiring or they’ve retired decades ago as an athlete are now retiring from work or people I know that might be the same age as me or younger that have died and it can be really depressing but to me, it’s kind of motivating and inspiring. It’s like, this is life. This is why life is valuable and really embracing what we have and don’t squander it because you don’t know how long we’re going to be here.
DH: So what you’re saying is that people who are going through their “midlife crisis” are kind of looking at all the things that they have lost. They used to be 18 to 21 and young and sprightly and be able to jump tall buildings in a single bound and now they can barely crawl out of bed because father time has taken its toll. And what they’re worried about is all the things they can’t do now as opposed to embracing all the things they can do and enjoying every day that they have, right?
RB: Yeah, absolutely.
DH: So, you’re four years old and you’re watching this guy throw a javelin on a grainy black and white TV in the Mexican Olympic Games and you fell in love with javelin and throwing things. Seemed like you got in trouble a little bit because you broke windows as you’ve mentioned. And even those, I’m guessing whippings did not deter you from throwing. But you really excelled at javelin and ended up on a scholarship across the pond to the US, when and where did that happen?
RB: That was back in ‘81. So that was when I was 19. Initially, the university contacted me in 1980. I was just out of high school and I’d thrown just out of 72 meters and they contacted me, they recruited me and then in about March of the following year they took back the offer and I opened up the season with 73 and pretty much every week, every meet I improved and go into 83 meters. This was as a junior, as a 19-year-old. So all of a sudden they came back to me and offered me the scholarship again and I always wanted it again. One of those things where it’s kind of visualization and the power of the mind, but taking those steps I always wanted to…. saw myself being in the US and I guess it’s from the movies and from American TV, I could get the freedom of the culture about pushing and trying new things wasn’t frowned upon in the US, it was something embraced and failing wasn’t something to be kind of laughed at, it was part of the process. And again, I don’t know if it was any one program, I just picked that up. So to me, I wanted to be in the US and I just figured that was going to be where I could really excel and I came over in ‘81 and again, that’s three years before……..My goal was obviously to make it to the Olympics, so by ‘84 Olympics, I’ve been in the US for three years. And I knew all the athletes, I knew the coaches and I was very comfortable in America and it just seemed very natural flow.
DH: You mentioned a really important word just now, visualization. Roald, talk to us a little bit just for a minute or so about visualization and the power it has to allow us, help us achieve our goals.
RB: Well, I know for a fact, from my experience that there wasn’t a single time when I’ve thrown well that I didn’t see it beforehand and I kind of describe it as watching TV, but it’s not, it’s like being in a TV and you basically, it’s like four-dimensional where you’re in the surroundings, but it’s also happening to you and you can sense what’s going to happen and it’s already happened and you’re basically looking at it and you’re reliving it. This is before I’ve done it and you’re kind of reliving what you just did and that excitement and stuff before you did it. I did that when I threw 70, 80, 90 when I threw my last couple of world records. I mean I just, I knew it beforehand and I even said it in my videos that are posted on Youtube. Okay, well record next throw then ran down and threw it. It’s like it came in clear and there wasn’t a shred of doubt wasn’t like 80 and 90%. So it came in 100% and that’s when competing and stuff you can make it, you’re in that zone. And then in between, when I sleep and other stuff, again, these moments where you just constantly think about things, what you want to do and you just keep thinking about it, then how am I going to do that? And you just get to a point where it’s already happened. It’s already happened in your mind and it’s not foreign to you. It’s something that you feel like you’ve already accomplished and then all you do is go out and take it.
DH: And that’s really important because I think we spend so much time thinking about….. visualizing all the things that we don’t want. And whether we are visualizing and thinking about the things we don’t want or the things we do want, it does become a self-fulfilling prophecy and so we have a choice, right? To just flip the switch then and think about and picture ourselves being, doing, having the things that we want and eventually having them come true.
RB: Yup. Absolutely.
DH: So one of the things I’ve noticed with many people, Roald, across many fields is that they’re one-hit wonders. And by that I mean, they get to the very top of their field, they really excel and then they kind of disappear. You, my friend, you have been at the top or near the top of your field for many decades. We spoke about your accomplishments back in the ‘80s, ‘85, ‘86, ‘87, as a junior leading into you being here in the US. Back in 2010, you broke 26 UK national age and age group records, you set three world records. As I mentioned earlier, you finished a second at the UK trials at, what? Age 50. Won a silver medal, in fact. You’re the oldest medalist in any event since 1936. And you just set another at age 57 earlier this year in May….another record in Florida. So you have demonstrated longevity. What is the secret and how do you advise….. the salesperson, the accountant, the nurse, the doctor, what advice would you give them to help them stay at the top of their game as well for such long periods?
RB: Well, again, what you’re doing is about being passionate and so that whatever you’re doing, it isn’t work. It isn’t something you have to think about or kind of try and motivate yourself to do or just it’s something that you want to do, you can’t wait to do it and it’s just something that is so much part of you that there’s no separation between you and whatever it is you’re doing, whether you’re an accountant or sales, it is who you are, so what I try to explain to them is the throw starts when you’re at the beginning of the runway…… it begins when the javelin starts moving. And then it goes all the way through to when you let go of it until, so to me, the throw is the actual job. You’re doing whatever, but it’s all the work that goes into launching that javelin…..into launching your career, that takes work and a lot of times people don’t see that. They don’t see what it takes. And we’ve all seen great athletes, I mean, people automatically think Olympians are elite athletes. Okay, I want to disagree with that because within that when you see the Michael Phelps or the Michael Jordan or the Usain Bolt’s, I mean, those superhuman athletes where why is it when they’re doing something, it looks so easy? Because they put the work in and it’s something where it looks effortless and again, like with great art where you become so skilled and you’ve done something so many times, you’ve visualized it and you’ve taken those things where it just becomes second nature. But again, it goes back to what we talked about before about being honest with who you are and about what excites you and what are you passionate about and what you want to do and then taking the steps to be successful at that. And I won’t say convincing because it kind of implies that you have to kind of try and motivate yourself, but put your mindset or create a mindset that you are successful and you’ve taken the steps to be successful and the result will be you’ll be successful.
DH: Yeah, indeed. So you just mentioned art. We know your athletic career has been well documented. So let’s talk a little bit about your other passion art. What inspires your art, first of all?
RB: Well, for me the challenge that I always had up until about 15, 20 years ago was, I looked at as the two parts of my life, sport, and art, as two separate entities. And it was really when I got involved in the Olympic Art Competition back in 2000 and I found out a little bit of Olympic history, about Pierre de Coubertin. He was the founder of the modern Olympics, was actually an athlete and an artist and did a bit more research and found out about these Olympic competitions, Art Competitions. And that his original vision was about promoting the two universal languages, sports and art and for various reasons the art got dropped mainly because at that time they had conditioned through 1912 to 1948. But at that time it was all about amateurism and they didn’t want professionals and they looked at artists as basically being professionals so, that was basically one reason why they dropped it. But what I found is, and again, it’s like kind of resetting the way I saw things was that the struggle I had was really passionate about art, really passionate about sport, my javelin throwing, my throwing and when I did a reset and I basically realized that the problem I was having wasn’t the fact that sport and art are different but that they’re the same. And once I had that epiphany, it’s like everything clicked and all of a sudden, I was avoiding doing anything to do sports as far as artwork because…
DH: Yeah, so, in what ways do you find them to be the same?
RB: Well, think about it. Again, let’s go back to visualization. And again, I looked at it as athletes are performers. They’re creative. I mean, look what I did. As an athlete, you have to be creative in developing and modifying, especially now, exercises to get around my limitations, my age. The techniques I’ve used and to me, I’m always looking for another way. Yeah, well, why not? I don’t accept anything at face value because I’m not going to have other people telling me what my limitations are. And I looked at it as an artist where there’s a kind of term, kind of philosophy in the art world about artists are usually well, the art world is like a hundred years of everyone else. So if you go back, with that in mind, let’s go back a hundred years and at that time there was abstraction and distortion with the cash flow and all the stuff going on and everyone was actually shocked. And you look at it now, what are we dealing with is about fake news and about the distortion of facts and reality and there’s information and I mean, to me they’re right. If you look at that, where it’s, the problem we’re having now in society is there’s just so much going on and we’re so overstimulated and there’s all this stuff going on. But again, I look at it as everyone agrees that sport is a universal language, right?
People also agree that art is a universal language, but no one has really put the two together. I mean, Pierre de Coubertin tried to do that and I think now that’s basically what I’m also really excited about being part of the IOC and the WOA and basically kind of bringing back this old concept, but no repackaged and now with social media and with the internet and now there are all these ways that we can communicate and express ourselves and look at it as artists…..I’m talking about painters and sculptors, but also singers and dancers and actors. I mean, what’s the difference between that and Usain Bolt runs down, whatever, and he goes into his pose? And he goes in, you know, and it’s emotional. It’s something we look at it as being actors on stage but the script isn’t written. We don’t know what the outcome’s going to be. So when we watch sports, whether it’s a game or whether it’s the Olympic Games, we’re watching to see, will they break a record? Who’s going to win? What’s the drama going to be? And so to me, it’s storytelling. And you look at the Olympics again when you got the medals, I mean, who designs the metals? You got all the flags, it’s designed its color. You’ve got the opening and closing ceremony. I mean, the biggest sporting event in the world is bookend by two theatrical productions, the Opening ceremony and the Closing ceremony. And on that there’s music, there’s theater, there’s drama, there are fireworks and lights.
DH: So, arts and sports together. So talk to us a little bit about that historical event back in Pyeongchang 2018 that you’re a part of.
RB: Yeah. So back in 2016, for the first time, they had several artists, non-Olympians being part of like an Olympic art project. So in 2017 is when I was appointed by Thomas Bach to the Olympic culture and heritage commission and sort of re-pushing for having Olympians art projects going forward and that’s what we did in Pyeongchang. I was fortunate enough to be the lead artist. We have two projects. One was done by a filmmaker and she did with another actor, this kind of little vignettes, Olympic village and kind of used Olympians on-site as kind of part of their filmmaking. The project I led was a large painting with 15 panels, one panel for each of the Olympic sports and when we put them together, they formed the Olympic Rings in kind of a big, large painting. And basically, the concepts brought in two other painters, Olympian artists. And we got 111 Olympians including Prince Albert’s Monaco and also President Bach, Olympic champions, 1976 in fencing, contributing to the painting. So 111 Olympian artists or Olympians from 39 countries collaborated on a piece of artwork and now the Olympic museum has that. I’m waiting, hopefully someday soon, sooner than later, it’ll be shown in the Olympic museum. But now the World Olympians Association, the WOA, formed a new Art Committee last year called Oly Arts, which I am now chairing and we’re now going to be part of the process going forward to help review and work on projects, Olympian led projects at all the future Olympic Games, including Tokyo next year.
DH: Yeah. How do you see your work in the arts and what you just described with the World Olympian Association, how do you see that trickling down to Olympic hopefuls and growing Olympism over the world?
RB: Well, again, going back to, I mean, basically I want to reach, I mean, the Olympics rightly so is a sporting event. So you’re going to have a lot of people that watch it and follow it because they’re, they like watching sports. When I see potential here is that through the arts and art projects that we could tap into and reach a whole new audience of people that are interested in the arts but not re sports. And on the flip side is that we can actually offer something to people that are interested in sports that never even thought about the arts so, it benefits both ways. The other part of the question, look at it as, for even current Olympians, former Olympians, but definitely, future Olympians we can really build this up and it’s something that people know about and basically, we become like the flagship kind of showing that there’s another side to Olympians and I’ll just say the arts are something very visual. And if we’re doing things that involve Olympians past, present that future Olympians will know about that so that part of the mindset and their goal should be if they have artistic talents and leanings that knows that they want to become an Olympian in the future but also, get involved with Olympian art projects that we’re going to be doing.
DH: Yeah. Awesome. So, the struggle for perfection, the title of the piece that won you gold, when I hear that term, to me it means or speaks to an athlete’s journey and the challenge that he or she may face as they strive to become their best and I’m assuming that would be the case for an artist as well. What inspired you? What was your thought process when you came up with that title?
RB: Okay, so basically I just have a quick story of this one. When I painted that again, it’s Olympic rings, expanded Olympic rings and again, the rings are symbolic of the continents and the colors are a symbol of the colors in the flags. So what I did basically is to expand that idea to include dozens and hundreds, even thousands of other rings to basically represent organizations, corporations, individuals, coaches, families, and how they all kind of interact with one another and again, using perspective and basically kind of showing, representing, past and present and future. And that was really the inspiration but while I was painting that and I was painting it in 1998. While I was painting that canvas the entire time, I was visualizing that painting hanging in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. I had no idea there was going to be a competition. I had no idea I was going to enter it. I had no idea, nothing. When I painted that that’s what I was thinking. The following year in ‘99, I went to my first big art festival, an outdoor festival in Atlanta, the Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park. And I sold that painting and I sold it to someone, I had no idea who this guy was and I delivered it the next day and he lived on top of this building that he happened to own and I looked out the window and he was right across from the Olympic Park. And I’m again just like, oh, you know, and started talking about the Olympics he goes well, I built that park and I just, yeah, I did exactly that. I just go, well it turns out this guy’s name was Herman Russell and he built not only Centennial Park, but also Atlanta Airport. I mean, he was a huge investor, but also a big art collector. And so, I actually hung this painting, the rings, in his bedroom overlooking Olympic Park, Centennial Olympic Park. Only then for a year later, because I entered the competition. The US Olympic Committee had this Art Competition the following year and it was submitted by slides. So, I just sent a whole bunch of slides in and the one slide that they liked and then ended up winning the competition was that painting. So I didn’t have to go through….. it was a lot of stuff I had to go through to get that painting back. To get it in that competition but it was well worth it. So two years after I painted that and the struggle for perfection, visualizing it hanging in the Olympic museum, it was hanging in the Olympic museum.
DH: So what does the struggle for perfection mean to you?
RB: Well for me, again, in the painting it was, I did all the circles freehand and it was how do you paint a circle freehand? It’s basically impossible, right? So again, it’s the athlete’s desire to reach perfection to reach their ultimate goal. And again, when you look at it in gymnastics you get a perfect 10. You’re scored in it, because in other sports, I mean, whether it’s bobsledding or it’s getting the fastest times….a little bit more fluid but to me, as an athlete, the struggle for perfection is about all that work you’ve got to put in, in training, but then also in competition to get that perfect run, jump, throw performance that will get you to where you want to be, which is on the podium and hope you’re on the top of the podium.
DH: So, are you saying then that perfection is achievable or do you see it as kind of fluid, as part of a process of being your best?
RB: Yeah. And again, it’s just like kind of life and death. If you really look at the big picture, you can never get perfection because perfection implies it can never be improved on. So I look at it as, it can be perfection temporarily or perfection for yourself at a moment in time, but again, just like with art, I mean, it is something we’re constantly building and improving on it. So, I throw 90 meters, someone throws a hundred meters, someone runs 10 seconds, some runs 9 second. So again, it’s something that I don’t believe we’re anywhere near ever being able to get to perfection. And I think it’s something that basically, we’re always reaching for but we’ll never get there. And part of the other part, I mean, the kind of the meaning of the struggle is the fact that knowing that and knowing that we’re reaching for something that we can never get to.
DH: We just have to keep on pushing as it were, huh?
RB: Yup. Yup.
DH: What else are you working on now, Roald? I know you’re training so talk to us about your training and your competition plans and then, just as importantly, what you’re working on the art side.
RB: Well, as far as training, I’m now like you said at the beginning in May, I came out and threw a world age record at 57 years old, but two months prior to that I actually tripped and fell and broke my arm in training. So I’d only been literally about three, four days out of the cast. And so after I did that, I started thinking about the Olympic Trials next year. And again, I look at it as kind of, I’ll say a pie in the sky or kind of talk about if that’s something even reachable? But then like the next day I had the people from the UK contacting me, wanting to know whether I threw that with an 800 gram or 700 gram because it’s a site by the javelin. But basically wanting to know if I was thinking about trying to compete at the trials next year, I said, come on, a 58-year-old coming for my ninth Olympic Trials, which I’ll be 22 months shy of my 60th birthday. So I just kind of laughed it off and all, yeah, wouldn’t it be great? And at that time I kind of gave them a stat as far as, I think the chance of that happening would be about one-thousandths. Well, six months on, I’d say that’s increased now to about 10%. I think there’s actually now, again, everything would have to go right. And to me, I’m just thinking about it, 58 years old at the ninth Olympic Trials, wouldn’t that be a story? And again, just thinking about the story aspect of that, anyway. Six months in, I’ve got another about three, four months of really hard training, I don’t know if my body can hold out, but that’s what I’m going for now. And again, got the World Masters. It’s in Toronto in July so I look at it as it’ll be on my way if by somehow I could get whatever’s needed to qualify and if not, I look at it as if I didn’t make it, is it worth trying to pursue? I think, absolutely. I think it’s something that excites me and when I talk to people, their mouths drop open. That’s when they think, oh, I didn’t know they had the Olympics for Masters. I’m like no, no, I’ll be competing with teenagers and I realized that…
DH: With your grandsons.
RB: Yeah, and again now and next year, the top British thrower was a 17-year-old, number one in the world under 18. And he wasn’t allowed to compete this year at the UK National Trials because they said he was too young.
DH: That’s interesting.
RB: Which is ridiculous. So, anyway…
DH: It is in my opinion too.
RB: So he’ll be competing next year at 18. I’ll be 58. I’m just thinking the storyline’s there of two generations, 40 years apart.
DH: Yeah. That would be a great story. You know, you spoke earlier about not allowing limitations to define what you can do and I think that would just epitomize that philosophy of not allowing limitations to define what you can do, for sure. How about on the art side, Roald, what are you working on?
RB: Well, the art side we’re chairing this WOA arts Committee that we’re taking in and reviewing ideas for projects we’re going to be doing in Tokyo. Right now we’ve planned on doing one in the Olympic village in Tokyo and one outside and we’re trying to get some ideas and again, the whole idea is to include people in the process and see what people can come up with but it’s going to be challenging as far as just the; what I learned with Pyeongchang was just how big the Olympics is. And the Winter Olympics is really, I mean, almost like half the size of the Summer. So there are a lot of challenges and a lot of bureaucracy but again, look at it as the sky’s the limit and again, whether it’s an athlete or an artist I always tell people who go, well I don’t know how you do this and I said, don’t worry about how you do something, come up with an idea. Worry about how to afterward, don’t limit yourself. As an athlete, you’re limited by your physical, your height, the physical limitations. What I like about the arts is there are no limitations. I mean, if you can think of something then to me, the next stage is okay, then how would you do it? And again, that’s something that a lot of people find challenging because they don’t want to embarrass themselves or fail and to me, I embrace that. I did it in Pyeongchang. I did it when I was introduced to the IOC session and all the IOC members at the end of the 132 IOC session. I was just up there, I felt so comfortable and I told them that my lifetime goal was to be an Olympian but my lifetime dream, was to be an Olympic artist. And what I want to do now with the art part is to really build it up and to involve as many Olympians, artists and Olympians that are involved in the arts and creative Olympians in projects both during the Olympics but then also doing stuff in between and doing various projects. Just like with the, I don’t know if you saw this a few weeks back. We just formed a partnership with the new United States Olympic and Paralympic museum.
DH: Wow, congrats. I haven’t seen that.
RB: Yeah. In Colorado Springs and I’m starting a new summer educational program next year. So, we’re going to do four different mediums kind of areas we’re going to bring in four different artists and it’s just something totally new. And what’s great with that is that, it’s Olympic and Paralympic and that’s another first, and again, as an artist and also an athlete, my motivation for doing things is being a trailblazer, being the first one out there, being one to kind of get other people involved and to change the way people see and look at things.
DH: Yeah. Do you have pieces for sale as well?
RB: Yes, actually right now, I’ve got my website, www.roaldbradstock.com, but I’m going to put up a new website hopefully by next summer. I’m actually in the midst of moving house, moving back to my old house with my art studio. But it’s a major project and I’ve got kind of two houses renovated and move and stuff like that. So between the moving and the training right now, and the other stuff I can’t actually get to do my own artwork, but again, I look at it as the bigger picture here what really excites me is about coming up with ideas and projects that get other people involved and collaborations. So, what I’m working on now is creating multiple platforms that will be used in the future and ongoing, both in the US and worldwide.
DH: Awesome. So, roaldbradstock.com that’s where they find you, that’s your website there, right?
RB: Yes.
DH: And they can email you directly from there or is there an email address?
RB: Yes, they can email me directly from there.
DH: All right. Awesome. So, Roald, I mean, you definitely epitomize this keep on pushing philosophy. Someone who did not allow whether it was your medical condition or your height to define your limits but rather chose to find a door that was open, chose to not see what was lost, but what you still have and what you can still gain and you’re still doing that today in your 50s. Not suffering any midlife crisis, but blazing new trails, not just as a javelin thrower, but as an artist and that my friend, I think epitomizes the keep on pushing philosophy. So, again, thank you so much for choosing to spend some time sharing your wisdom and experience with us on Keep on Pushing.
RB: You’re welcome.
