Jill Douglas Quotes

At the other end of the scale I was there with a whole lot of young British athletes so I was getting to see them take their first steps on the international ladder. I'd like to think maybe in five years time I'll look back and I'll forget all about the lost luggage and I'll forget about the horrible hotel, but I'll remember these wonderful athletes stepping onto the track for the first time.

I was always interested in sport. My family are big sports' fans. We always had all the locals round watching big sporting events. I wasn't particularly sporty myself. I played a lot of hockey and rode, still do ride, but I just had a general interest in it. When I was given the opportunity to do sport stories I used to grab them.

I think it's something that you learn to deal with the more experienced you become. When I first presented live news, which was 12 years ago, I was very inexperienced and probably didn't deal with the pressure as well. I used to breathe very shallow when I was presenting and you could hear it in my voice and see it in my face.

If you've done your preparation and you know the team of people that you're working with, then it makes life an awful lot easier. I still get nervous all the time. I think the best thing to do is to take a deep breath, make it simple, know what you're talking about, don't try and be fancy, don't try and be clever and just enjoy the experience.

The more you get, the better you become' and therefore over the years you become more experienced and you learn how to deal with it. You know what can go wrong, and you also learn how to react if things go wrong.

TV depends very much on the pictures that you see on your television, and all the other things that come up on the screen, whether it be GFX, the studio or the pictures of the game.

As a presenter, while I might suddenly want to start talking about something completely different, I have to stick to what we've agreed in order for all these other people to get their bits into the programme. So you have to be quite disciplined.

Leading up to a live event you need to do your homework and go to bed early. Sometimes it's very tempting to go out with everybody else, They're all going to a party or going out for a nice meal and you think 'oh well I'd like to go', but sometimes you think 'no, if I'm going to be sitting in front of a camera under a light in everybody's home tomorrow I don't want big bags under my eyes and not really know what I'm talking about'.

If I had to pick one exact moment when we were live on air and something very, very special happened it was at the Athens Olympics. Chris Hoy won the Gold Medal in the kilometre time trial and that was incredible.

I really enjoy doing what I do. I enjoy seeing live sport performed at the highest level. What's wonderful about sport is that it involves everybody, everybody has an opinion.

As long as I'm working in sport, enjoying it and getting to see some wonderful sporting events, I'm quite happy. I don't want to be really famous. I don't want people to stop me in the street. I want to just enjoy the work, work with lovely people, work on good quality sport and get to experience some more of these amazing moments.

I don't know if other people have found it difficult relating to me, certainly that's not the feedback I've had. I don't think of myself particularly as a woman working in sport. I think of myself as a broadcaster, a journalist, and the right person for the job, regardless of whether I happen to be female or male.

I was in China this year and I spent three weeks there with no luggage, in a really not very nice place and without anything except my passport and my wallet. You're a long way from home and you've got no phone and you can't get in touch with anybody.

The lowlights... Sometimes you're away from home quite a lot, which can be difficult. It's not first class all the way, you don't stay in exotic hotels and have people running after you.

I didn't go to university. They offered me a job as a junior reporter and I went off to work for the Southern Reporter. They sent me to college to do my NCTJ, which is a professional exam for journalists, and I started work as a print journalist purely because I was just a pest. They couldn't think of anything other than giving me a job to stop me hanging around.

It's a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time, that's what I think. Obviously you need to be noticed by people to be given the opportunities, and I think you do have to work hard.

I worked very hard as a young journalist learning the trade and asking questions, understanding what a story is and being able to present that in a way that people would find interesting.

Whether you work in news, sport, politics, whatever, it's exactly the same; a story is a story, is a story. I consider myself first and foremost a journalist.

On the day of the game you get there quite early, about 10 o'clock for a 3 o'clock kick-off, because you do a little bit of filming early on. You need to meet the crew and they need to have time to get a cup of tea and all those things the crew like to do before they go out filming.

Try and maybe write a couple of articles for your local paper. Perhaps you need to go to college to learn some things that might help you on the way. If you've got enthusiasm, determination and you love your sport - why shouldn't you be doing my job?

You're there right through the match, thinking all the time, making it up as you go along. We don't have anybody write our scripts. You're basically presenting to the people watching at home off the top of your head.

You've given it some thought, you've tried to prepare as well as you can, but you're reacting to what you see so you can't really prepare that much. It's purely live broadcasting which is very nerve-wracking but hugely rewarding. The game finishes and eventually, maybe an hour later, you're all finished.

There are very few lows but lots and lots of highs. You're in an incredibly privileged position because you're able to go along to major sporting events and be ringside. You can see and hear everything.

You see history in the making and that is definitely the highlight. You get to meet these amazing sportsmen and women, and see them develop as individuals. You get to meet them when they're first coming into their sport. You watch them develop and you build up relationships with them.

I'm not a nosy person, but I'm always thinking 'I wonder why he did that? I wonder why this week he was this much better than last week?' I'm always wanting to ask questions of people. I think my advice would be get involved locally and see where it takes you.

Get involved and learn how to recognise a story happening in front of you. Learn how to ask questions and be curious. That's probably my biggest piece of advice.

I would say go for it because it is a fantastic job. It's a wonderful opportunity to go and get involved with sport at whatever level. What I would say is, if you can, go and work with your local radio station covering local sporting events.

I think whatever it is you decide to do in life, if you want to be the very best at it, you have to be able to make sacrifices. Not everybody can do that and I think it makes our sportsmen and women that little bit special.

They're [sportsmen] willing to give up a lot of other things that perhaps we all enjoy doing: eating and drinking and playing or whatever. They give up an awful lot to perform at the highest level.

You don't see what's gone before. A lot of that can be long, long boring hours in the gym, long, long hours on the track or, for the likes of Paula Radcliffe, long hours out on the road in the rain running and running.

I've learned that the effort sportsmen and women put in is incredible. Their commitment to their sport is phenomenal. Sometimes as a viewer, as a sports fan, you only see the end result.

I think because I came from a very strong news background and people were aware of me from that side of things, they appreciated me as a journalist. Maybe it was less difficult for me.

I'll have spent most of the day before the match doing some preparation. That's a little bit like studying for your exams. You need to know the personalities involved, what the stories are surrounding the game and how they've come into this game. You do a lot of preparation. I like to go in knowing more than I need.