In August 2012, I was taking pictures of the London Olympic Games
The feelgood factor was undeniable. The moment represented all that is good about sport.
Four years later and I was pictures at the Rio 2016 Games, but this time it all felt so very different.
The athletes have been playing on an uneven field
It's worse than we thought
I did fail the test
A new season but old controversies still follow in Team Sky's slipstream
For the first time, my trust in sport was being eroded, which made me think:
If this is happening to me, a sports photographer for 25 years,
invested in the traditions and love of the games.
Then what is happening to the next generation?
Look, I would rather that people watching sport feel complete comfort
that what they're watching is legitimate.
Seb Coe, the four-time gold medal winner and the man who brought the Olympics to London,
with a mantra of "inspire a generation" - now as the head of the IAAF, the governing body
for world athletics - he must not only rebuild trust and restore the integrity of his battered sport,
but also win over the digital-inspired generation.
To create a sport that has that trust, you need good leadership and you also need relevance.
The Seb Coe at the age of 15 or 16 is still going to athletics meetings and pretty much watching
the same format over the same length of time and I can't think of any other sport or frankly
any other organisation out there that has remained so inviolent from change
for that length of time.
There's got to be a relevance for what people are watching in the stadium.
It's around sports presentation.
You know, I noticed the other day, actually even at the Premier League
watching Chelsea against Stoke - that actually the player of the match was chosen on
social media by the fans in the stadium. So, that's actually the interaction that we need.
Twenty20 I think has done it well, I think rugby sevens has brought in a new audience.
Think differently - and actually the Australians did, they came to the table with Nitro -
it's not the universal panacea, but there are some clues there.
Nitro athletics was launched earlier this year, featuring Usain Bolt as both competitor
and investor. It was created to inspire fresh interest and break the mold of standard athletics
competitions and saw teams of 12 competing over a variety of new disciplines,
including mixed relays.
In the UK, the Night of the 10,000 PBs, held at the Parliament Hill track in
London is a similar innovation taking place now for the third year.
The one crucial asset that our sport has is that actually if you look at participation,
more people anywhere in the world, globally do what we do than any other sport.
What we've gotta do is to make sure that the people that are doing that actually feel an
affinity with what is also going on in the sport and yes, feel that this is a movement
that they want to be a part of and not a movement that is tainted. But, there is a lot more we
can do to be more relevant, more exciting and we've got to be brave about it.
Another sport in desperate need of reform is golf. The participation numbers have been plummeting.
We're all in the entertainment content business and sport is our platform, so golf is our platform.
There are so many things that are wonderful about our game, but we're not in 1940 now.
This is a time when things are changing rapidly and technology is driving consumption of content.
It is all about engagement and it's all about not being passive,
especially with the younger generation. They have one or two devices going
and they're watching multiple things or engaging with it
and we have to make that easier for them to experience our game.
This year has already seen two radically different events on the European Tour.
The World Super 6 is in Perth featuring a six-hole knockout match play format for the final round
and Golf Sixes was held in St Albans, with 16 teams of two each representing a country,
competing in matches played over just over half a dozen holes.
It's got a combination of energy, it's quick. I think the atmosphere and the attitude of the players is fantastic.
Other sports have tried to accommodate a quicker format and I think you know
it's about time you know that the golf is joined in as well you know.
You'd have speed golf, you'd have fitness golf, playing in a shorter format -
creating adventure golf at the golf courses.
Today I would like to challenge you to see if you can hit as many balls
into the washing machines as me.
Every single sport is looking to adapt to a changing society,
if you're not you're gonna fall behind.
No, this does not compute!
By a distance, sport has more to offer than the challenges that are currently confronting it.
We do something in society that no other area of society does. We connect with more people
in a more meaningful way than politicians, the church, financial institutions and internationally
we still have the ability to bring communities and countries together in the way
that no politician, no non-governmental organisation can do.
It is undeniable that traditional sport knows it has a problem to address. The plethora
of sports trying to tweak their formats is proof of that. But are shorter, faster games
necessarily more appealing to millennials? I have my doubts.
There is a lot more to be done than just foam hands and fireworks.