Getty - Roald Bradstock holds the world record for throwing an iPod (154 yards), an egg (118 yards) and a goldfish (56 yards)

On the YouTube section of Roald Bradstock's website, you can see a clip of him throwing in the Olympic javelin final in Los Angeles in 1984. "He's had injuries," commentator Stuart Storey says of the javelin thrower-cum-artist who has come to be known as "the Olympic Picasso". "He has got a weak back."

Throughout his javelin career, Bradstock has been troubled by back problems. Unknown to many, he suffers from spina bifida. It was quite an achievement, then, for the Hertfordshire native to make the British team for those 1984 Olympic Games in LA and reach the final and finish seventh.

There has been quite a string of achievements since then, too – Olympic recognition for his art, the world record for throwing an iPod (154 yards) – but the supreme accomplishment could come down the road from his old family home in Broxbourne next summer, at the 2012 Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

At 49, Bradstock stands third in the British ranking lists for 2011 – behind two javelin throwers (James Campbell, 23, and Matthew Hunt, 20) who were not even born when he travelled to the 1984 Olympics as part of a British track-and-field team that included Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Daley Thompson. As Bradstock threw 74.73m at a meeting in Tucson, Arizona, a fortnight ago, his aim of making the 2012 Olympic trials next summer seems assured. His goal now is to make the British team for the 2012 Games, by which time he will have turned 50.

"I just look at it as another challenge," Bradstock said. "I was six when I was diagnosed with spina bifida. That was just a couple of months before the Mexico Olympics in 1968 and I remember watching Bob Beamon, Dick Fosbury and Al Oerter. They have been the inspiration for what I'm doing now.

"What I'm doing, I guess, kind of defies logic. It's uncharted territory as far as my age and the level I'm at. I have the advantage of experience but the price is the age.

"If you'd asked me a couple of weeks ago if I could make the team I would have said 'No, impossible'. Now, having thrown the 74.73m, I would say 'Improbable, but there's a possibility'. If I can put everything together and get a year's training behind me, I need a minimum of 79.50m, the Olympic B standard, and then to win the trials.

"I'm going to be 50 in April. I want to take that out of the equation as far as thinking, 'I can't do it because of my age'. What if I could do it? A 50-year-old in the Olympics? That would be a pretty good story."

It would indeed: another remarkable chapter in what has been one long tale of the unexpected by Roald, the Broxbourne boy who spent his student days in the United States and has settled near Atlanta. After the Los Angeles Olympics, he set a world best with the old-style javelin in 1985, throwing 91.40m, and made the British team for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, placing 25th. Bradstock then switched allegiance to the United States and was a reserve for the 1996 Games in Atlanta. As a full-time artist, he won the US Olympic art competition in 2000 and had his work exhibited at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Hence "the Olympic Picasso".

Last year, Bradstock made the decision to nail his colours back to the British mast, finishing eighth while suffering from injury at the national championships in Birmingham. He makes regular trips back to Blighty in his role as a legacy ambassador for the Youth Sport Trust, lecturing on art and sport at colleges around Britain.

The Olympic Picasso has also perfected the art of oddball record breaking. As well as the iPod mark, he holds the world records for throwing an egg (118 yards) and a goldfish (56 yards).

Javelin ace inspires children about London 2012 through art

Wednesday 6 July: Schoolchildren in Suffolk have taken part in an art class with a difference as Roald Bradstock, a Great Britain javelin thrower and former world record holder led an Olympic-themed art master class at Kirkley School in Lowestoft.
 
Roald is one of the Youth Sport Trust’s ambassadors for the Sports College Legacy Programme which inspires children to learn across a range of school subjects by using the Olympic and Paralympic Games to engage pupils. 

He joined a group of year 10 pupils at Kirkley School, worked with them to create their own Olympic and Paralympic themed artwork, offered advice on how sport and art can be combined in schools and demonstrated his own art skills.

The objective of the Sports College Legacy programme is to inspire those young people that are not involved in sport by linking London 2012 to an area of the curriculum in which they are already engaged; and to encourage those who are already active in sport to become more interested in other school subjects.

Speaking during his visit to the school, Roald said:

“Having the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics on our doorstep is a once in a lifetime opportunity to inspire a generation through sport.  In sport it is important to express yourself to maximise your performance and the same can be said for art.”

Nikola Ketteringham, Head of Art at Kirkley School, said:

“It is exciting that someone who has competed at the highest level in sport would give up their day to show pupils how sport can be used across a range of lessons and inspire our young people at school. It’s a really lovely way to wind down at the end of the school year.”

His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco kicks off his running shoes and pulls on a white jumpsuit. Just point him to the paint.

Handlers guide him to a giant canvas stretched taut on the coarse Florida grass. Winding up, he hurls a discus into a tri-color puddle of paint and the colours — and the crowds — explode.

This first splat! signals the official opening of the Art of the Olympians Museum in Fort Myers, Fla., with paintings, drawings, photos and sculpture by more than 30 Olympians.

The Prince, a bobsleigh competitor in five Winter Olympics and a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1985, is an influential fundraiser for the museum. In March, he was joined by 23 fellow Olympians to launch the museum, housed in the retrofitted City Pier building on the broad Caloosahatchee River downtown.

Olympians arrived from around the world — on their own dimes— to honour the memory of museum founder Al Oerter and bring a five-ringed Olympic spotlight to the athletes’ artistic work. They splash-painted with discuses on giant canvases just as Oerter did — he won four consecutive Gold Medals in the discus from 1956 to 1968.

Oerter’s paint-splattered shoes are showcased in the Art of the Olympians gallery, beside his wife Cathy’s old hand mixer that he appropriated for his artwork. As the sign says, he eventually had to buy her a new one.

Cathy Oerter was the first person Prince Albert hugged when he arrived on the riverside lawn. She and Fort Myers resident Liston Bochette III, a five-time decathlon and bobsleigh Olympian representing Puerto Rico, carried on Oerter’s dream of an Olympians’ art museum after his death in 2007.

Oerter’s own fiery “Ignition,” a discus-flung burst of reds, orange and yellow, glows on the wall near his spattered shoes, brushes and mixer.

While the athletes are certainly not mandated to create around Olympic themes, many gravitate to the sporting worlds they know best.

In a coloured pencil drawing, Bochette evokes the spirit of the man who created the modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

The mustachioed baron peers out from the scarlet tongues of the Olympic flame.

Gold medallist figure skater Peggy Fleming presents a dark abstract of The Dancer, a pensive woman with arms akimbo. Australian swimmer Shane Gould, winner of five medals at the 1972 Olympics, photographs above and below the water line.

She captured a swimmer in mid-stroke with Bearded Lady, and children’s little legs treading water in Hanging Out Wadeye NT.

Gould was one of the artists in the first Art of the Olympians at Fort Myers’ Alliance of the Arts, held in conjunction with the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy.

That exhibit went on to New York City with shows at the National Arts Club, the New York Athletic Club and the United Nations.

Following the museum’s progress “has really stimulated my photography,” Gould said at the opening, “and helped me interpret what it means to be an Olympian.”

Sculptor Larry Young, the only American to medal in long-distance walking — he took home the Bronze Medal in 1968 and 1972 — has been making bronzes for the past 25 years. His minimalist sculptures freeze the fierce grace of gymnasts in a split-second.

While all the competitors focused on the Olympians motto “Swifter, Higher, Stronger,” artistically it’s long jumper Kader Klouchi of France who captures speed and momentum best. His acrylics nearly race off the canvas, with a kayaker, dancer, sailor and cyclist hurtling to spectacular finishes.

“It’s just like doing our best in sport,” said Klouchi, who competed in Barcelona in 1992.

“This is the same way to express yourself.”

Yet not all Olympians wanted to focus on the athletic facet of their lives.

“I shied away from sports subjects at first,” confided javelin thrower Roald Bradstock.

“I would do landscapes, and when I showed my work, I’d put the landscapes in the front of the booth and Record Breakers in the back.” He gestured to the sharp-stroked charcoal of two runners charging neck to neck.

“People came through and said ‘This is your best work — why is it in the back?’ I decided that sports express who I am. I am blessed to have two passions and two skills, and able to combine them.”

Bradstock, who just “smashed the U.K. Master record” in trials, is the only one of the 24 Olympians at the opening still competing. Now a resident of Atlanta, he hopes to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, near his Hertfordshire birthplace.

During the 2006 Art of the Olympians show in Fort Myers, “We talked about having a home,” he recalled, “and with Al Oerter and Liston Bochette here, it made sense to be in Fort Myers.

“It’s a wonderful building and a wonderful location,” he said, looking out the gallery picture windows to the dark Caloosahatchee. “It’s key to have a home to work from internationally.”

The new museum is just part of the artistic expression blossoming along the antique brick streets of Fort Myers. Three new art galleries have opened since January 2011, and hundreds of people jam these sidewalks the first Friday of the month for Art Walk, a cordial meet-and-greet meander in and out of restaurants, shops and gallery doors.

Howl Gallery and Tattoo goes in for a West Coast Pop and comic book vibe, while painter David Acevedo of Puerto Rico sprinkles his own abstracts among other artists’ work at his daas gallery.

Art for ACT Gallery, owned and operated by Abuse Counseling and Treatment, Inc., raises money to counter domestic violence and sexual assault from its storefront gallery, a vintage space of plank floors and brick walls.

Down First Street, where cattle were once herded on their way to Cuba and South America, one of the city’s largest temples to the arts is getting a new lease on life.

Now the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, the 1933 Fort Myers post office has had a long, checkered history, with a federal courthouse moving in after the mail moved out. Then, in 1998, the county built a new courthouse, “and they turned off the lights, locked the doors and didn’t tell anyone that the roof leaked,” said Jim Griffith, a violist with the Naples Philharmonic and saviour of the post office.

“The building was melting, things were growing in here — it was pathetic.”

What Griffith saw beyond the moss was a lofty-ceilinged space that would work for music, dance, theatre and art. The city agreed to rent it for $1 a year for 99 years. More than half way through its $5 million campaign, the work in progress drew 65,000 visitors in 2010, its first year.

On a recent Art Walk at the Davis Art Center, artist Regan Hutchinson festooned her sister Carmen as Rebirth Earth, an environmental piece about the natural world represented by Carmen’s floral crown and belt triumphing over human pollution, manifest in the model’s plastic-and-newspaper dress.

The Art Walk crowd fills the old post office with wine-fuelled chatter and genuine interest in young, fresh visions.

It’s like John Stilling, an American rower who earned the Silver Medal in the 1984 Olympics, said at the opening ceremonies of the Art of the Olympians.

“Instead of learning to paint, I try to learn to reveal the art inside me. Let your spirit out and show it to the world.”

http://www.insidethegames.biz/blogs/6753-roald-bradstock-art-and-the-olympics

Roald Bradstock: Art and the Olympics

10 April 2009By Roald Bradstock - 10 April 2009


 As an artist and an athlete I find the recent discussion about the "The Cultural Olympiad" and its role in the Olympics very interesting. A journalist wrote in an article recently that "it" would "be a tiny side show" to the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012.

Unfortunately this is a point of view that many people may have, but what amuses me is that art and the arts is so intertwined with the Olympics that people cannot see it.

They are one and the same. Art and artistic ideas and concepts are all over the Olympics. Art has effected sports and the Olympics and vice versa. Art is the Olympics and the Olympics is ART!

When you look closely and think about it the connection between sport and the arts it becomes clearer. In fact, I would argue that one of the reasons the Olympics is so big is exactly because of the artistic and cultural aspect. The most obvious connection is the opening and closing ceremonies: the dancing, the music, and the fireworks - it is a show, a carefully choreographed show – it is theatre.

Look at sports like synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics and figure skating. Moving to music - isn't that dancing?When you start looking behind the scenes and see how athletes train, perform and reach peak fitness to get to the Olympic and Paralympic stage you see the synergy between sport and the arts.

Have you ever seen the training programme of a world class athlete: the structure, the detail that goes into it and the planning - is it that different from a carefully written manuscript or musical score? They both follow rules and have structure from beginning to end. They both have balance, rhythm and flow.

Almost every elite athlete uses visual aids like video to get valuable feedback to learn and improve. They are filmed and then they look, observe, study the angles, the positions of the body and look at the overall form of the body in motion and the sequencing and timing of body parts as they move through space. It is interesting to note that it was an artist, a British photographer called Edwuard Muybridge, who revolutionized how we "see" a figure in motion back in the 19th century.

His photographic sequences of people and animals running, jumping and throwing changed the art world forever and also the sporting world. Modern day video software technology such as Dartfish is the modern day hi-tech version which is now used by 90 per cent of the Olympic sporting organizations in the United States alone.

Repetition is another strong link between the art world and the sporting world. The only way to improve is to practice, to repeat a movement, an exercise, a skill, over and over and over again. When you see an athlete crossing a finish line winning Olympic gold you see the end result just as when you look at a great masterpiece by Rembrandt. You just see the end result - perfection or almost perfection. But it took practice and repetition to get there - years and years of practice, repeating movements to improve skills.

Failure is yet another binding component of both the art world and the sporting world. To succeed you must fail and you must fail repeatedly. In my personal experience as an athlete and an artist I have learned to embrace failure. It seems to be a paradox, but it’s true. Think about it: to build strength you do more reps and lift heavier weight to the point of failure so you tear muscle down so it rebuilds stronger. In competition everyone has to lose, to fail sometime whether it’s just from having a bad day or getting injured.

In the art world mistakes used to be considered failure but in the last century mistakes and even accidents have become celebrated and even revered. Mistakes and errors are part of the process in both art and sport. It is human to be imperfect although Olympians and Paralympians are constantly trying to overcome and trying to reach - Perfection - the perfect "10" - something that has only been touched by a few.

You may think creativity plays little or no role in sports but just look at gymnastics and diving. Each Olympics the athletes are getting stronger, more athletic and more creative with their movements and their artistry. The envelope is always being pushed; the bar is always being raised. One more great and "creative" and historic athlete of note is 1968 Olympic high jump champion Dick Fosbury who created a new style of jumping called, appropriately, "The Fosbury Flop". My definition of a great artist is someone who can make you think, challenges the norm and can influence those that follow. He, in my view, is also one of the great artists of the 20th century. He changed his event and affected all that followed through his athletic creativity.

Artists are known for being creative and having great imaginations. What about top athletes? Don't they visualize? Isn't that using their imagination?

Are you starting to get the "picture”?

And let’s not forget the role photography plays in capturing great Olympic and Paralympics moments in time. Catching key moments in time like the photo of Bob Beamon in mid flight when he smashed the world long jump record and won Olympic gold. Look at his face, his expression, the height, the surroundings - I think this photograph is an artistic masterpiece capturing an athletic masterpiece. No wonder it launched a young British photographer Tony Duffy’s career.

So if you can't make it to one of the official Cultural Olympiad events in or around 2012 don't worry it will come to you in some form. The stage may be a swimming pool or a running track and the actors may look like athletes but don't be fooled art and the influence of art will be all around what you are seeing.

Roald Bradstock, who was born in Hertfordshire, represented Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in the javelin. He now lives in the United States and has increasingly concentrated on his art. In 2000 he won the United States Olympic Committee Sport Art Competition and then exhibited at the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne.  In 2003 he won the prestigious "International Sports Artist of the Year Award".  He is a founding member of the Olympic revival movement called "Art of the Olympians".  His artwork had been seen on ABC, NBC, CBS and been exhibited form the United Nations to Times Square.  In the last few years he has been dubbed the "Olympic Picasso" for his visionary ideas on how to combine sport and art with the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012. To view his work visit www.roaldbradstock.com.


Comments


The challenges given to the Architect should not be 4gotten. The
venue must be both functional and memorable...and there is no
time 4 a practice sesh
By Bez

10 April 2009 at 16:53pm

Good piece. Nice to see you acknowledging that culture plays an
important part in the Olympics. Well done.
By Patricia, Southend

11 April 2009 at 12:02pm

Clutching at straws mate,
I could use exactly the same rationale to align or justify train
spotting as an art form or a sport for that matter
By Paulmatosic

18 May 2009 at 08:21am

Peggy Fleming hosts Art of the Olympians documentary

• GravinaSmithMatteArnold
• Naples Daily News
• Posted September 21, 2010 at 3:27 p.m., updated September 21, 2010 at 3:27 p.m.

Ilene Safron, Main Sail Video Production

Peggy Fleming

The Art of the Olympians, began as a dream of Olympic gold medallist Al Oerter. He spent the last two years of his life organizing Art of the Olympians by collecting artwork in various mediums from Olympic athletes, lobbied for a permanent location in Fort Myers and worked in partnership with the United States Olympic Committee, which ultimately lead to an agreement for Art of the Olympians to display the U.S. Olympic rings at the facility.

His untimely death in 2007 would mean that Oerter, a four-time Olympic champion in the discus throw, would not see his dream come true … but it did.

Friday, Oct. 29 at 5:30 p.m. at Harborside Event Center in Fort Myers, Main Sail Video Productions with Art of the Olympians is hosting an Evening with Peggy Fleming in honor of the world premiere of the documentary, “Art of the Olympians.” The 30-minute film, by Emmy Award winning Photographer/Director Ilene Safron, documents the dreams of Oerter in his mission of uniting the sports and art world to uphold the virtues of excellence above winning.

“The Olympic champions portrayed in the film represent the best of the best who had the choice of living an honorable life or giving into the temptations offered to them,” says Safron. “It’s imperative that we share this story to recognize sports legends, that kids can look up to.” On hand to introduce the documentary will be Peggy Fleming, the 1968 Olympic gold medal figure skater and artist. Norman Bellingham, Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, will also attend the evening’s premiere showing.

Co-chairing the special event are Lee County Commissioner Tammy Hall and Pam Cronin, vice president of The Shell Factory & Nature Park.

“Al would have been so proud to watch all his efforts come to fruition,” says Hall. “We are honored to be the home of the Art of the Olympians Museum and Gallery, one of the few buildings in the world allowed to display the Olympic rings.”

Ticket prices are $20 for adults and $10 for students with ID, and include one free admission to the AOTO Museum and Gallery. All proceeds from the evening will benefit AOTO programming. Tickets may be purchased at AOTO at 1300 Hendry Street in Fort Myers or by calling 239-332-5055, and at Harborside Event Center located at 1375 Monroe Street in the Fort Myers River District or by calling 239-321-8111.

The Olympic Games from their inception have been a celebration of human capability. Art of the Olympians, a not for profit organization, emphasizes the importance of the ancient Olympic ideals of excellence in mind, body, and spirit through the fusion of art and sports. Through historic, artistic and educational exhibits, Art of the Olympians connects individuals to the passion, discipline and innovation of the Olympic world to encourage others to excel at their dreams. The Olympian Artists have the ability to express this because of their many years of well directed training for sport and the transfer of this discipline to their art. For more information, visit www.artoftheolympians.org.

This story is contributed by a member of the Naples community and is neither endorsed nor affiliated with Naples Daily News