"It’s gone full circle – it’s crazy it’s happened that way,” says Lauren Smith, as she prepares for a Commonwealth Games in England some 20 years after the last. The two decades between them neatly connect one of Cumbria’s elite sporting careers.
“I was inspired from watching the Manchester Games,” adds the badminton star from Longtown, recalling 2002. “I was ten, and had a little autograph book. I was running around all excited, asking all of Team England for their autographs.
“Anthony Clark, who is now one of my coaches, gave me a signed picture of the team. Somewhere at home my mam’s probably got it hidden away – although it’s probably on show, knowing her…
“The fact that inspired me so much…it sticks out in my memory as something very, very special. I remember it really fondly.”
The little girl with the autograph book is now 30 and preparing for her third Commonwealth Games. After Glasgow in 2014 and the Gold Coast in 2018 comes Birmingham, and the chance for Smith to compete in front of a home crowd.
It is also the opportunity, she hopes, to fire the imagination of young fans in the way she was motivated back in the distant days of 2002.
“I’m very, very passionate about it,” she says, on the subject of promoting her sport. “I know I’m biased but I think badminton is a great sport, whether you’re pursuing it as a career or going to have bit of fun with your friends down at the leisure centre.
“It’s a good social sport. A lot of my closest friends I’ve met through badminton – friends I class as family, because I’ve known them from when I was young and my parents took me down to the club.
“It’s a great community. I would love to see more people getting involved. I try and get the word out on social media [Smith has 100,000 Instagram followers]. But in some ways the best thing I can do for badminton is play well at the Commonwealth Games, hopefully achieve something, and people will see that and maybe grab their attention and fire them.
“It’s a huge opportunity in that sense. I hope it’s a legacy of this Games, getting more people involved in sport. Badminton doesn’t get a huge amount of coverage in the mainstream media, so I would love for someone in 20 years’ time to say, ‘I remember watching Lauren Smith, and now I’m competing in the Commonwealth Games’.
“That would be really incredible.”
Smith, as she stresses, is a competitor as well as an ambassador. She has five medals from her first two Commonwealths and will be one of the senior members of the Team England squad aiming for success in Birmingham.
A gold medal, to cap the three silvers and bronzes she has from 2014 and 2018, is the dream.
“I’ve never gone into any competition in my entire life wanting to lose or not wanting to win gold,” says Smith, whose outings in Birmingham will include her regular mixed doubles pairing with on and off-court partner Marcus Ellis.
“I’m absolutely going out there to win. There will be some really tough opposition, and at the Commonwealth Games the schedule’s hard. There can be lot of surprises in a multi-sport event.
“Important although my aim is to bring home the gold, I take it match by match, really focused on managing myself, my body, recovery, preparation, and try not to view it as anything other than a normal tournament in some senses.
“Then it’s just knowing that if I do play my best, we go out there and put in our best performances, we can bring home the gold. At the end of the day, people on the other side of the net are trying to make sure you don’t do that.
“It’s a huge challenge but I really hope I can contribute to the medal table for Team England.”
Smith chats to the News & Star on “kitting out day”, when athletes have scheduled slots to receive their Team England gear. It is a landmark day in the build-up to the Games, which start next Thursday. “It’s one of the really exciting days – like kit Christmas,” she laughs.
“It's the time when it does start to feel very real, after so long preparing for it, gearing up, planning your tournament calendar around it.”
While Smith is excited, she also knows that staying on the emotional level is key at such a major event. This is something she also hopes to help impart to her younger team-mates who do not have her years of experience on this kind of stage.
“That plays a huge part,” she says. “I’m one of the older members of the team now, having been to two Commonwealth Games already. I’ve definitely got a lot of experience under my belt of what that looks like, and things that can…not necessarily throw you, but surprise you when you go into a multi-sport environment – being around other athletes, the excitement of that, different eating arrangements, little things which are different to a normal tournament.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to experience a lot, and have a lot of practice in how to thrive in those environments, to use the atmosphere to my advantage and make sure I don’t get overwhelmed or over-tired in those situations.
“Not only do I want to make sure I use that to best of my ability to get best out of myself, I also hope I can lead by example and be there for advice If any of the younger members of the team find it difficult or have any questions.
“It’s sort of a new role in that sense for me, but one I really hope I can step up to with the team.”
The home atmosphere is an obvious boon to Smith and her fellow Team England athletes, for a range of reasons.
“It’s an opportunity a lot of great athletes have never had and many people haven’t been able to experience,” she says. “One of my favourite events in the calendar is the Yonex All England in Birmingham, our one home event in front of our crowd. Our friends and family come and support, and the reason we love it is because it’s on home soil.
“Not only do we get to experience that in the Commonwealth Games, it’s as part of Team England, part of the bigger buzz around the team and the village hubs.”
The Games being in England is also a plus for Smith’s loyal supporters, including her family who are accustomed to late nights and bleary eyes when following the Cumbrian in major events worldwide.
“Something as simple as not having a time difference – like Tokyo [the last Olympics] – is great,” she says. “My family got up through the middle of the night to cheer me on on the TV, whereas this is going to be on the BBC during the day for people to tune in if they please.
“Again, it’s a huge opportunity not just for friends and family to watch, but also to get badminton out there to that wider audience. It’s a huge privilege from my point of view.”
Ensuring an athlete is reaching a peak for the big stage is a key part of preparation. Smith sounds confident in this respect, but also keen not to load too much mental pressure on the situation. A clear-minded approach is the best way.
“We made the decision to make sure we had six weeks' pure training leading up to the Games,” she says of the badminton squad's build-up. “We’re feeling physically really good – the best we’ve been all year.
“What we have to be conscious of, though, is that it’s a really tough schedule for badminton. With the team events, and individual, it’s very full-on. We’re just working hard to make sure we’re physically in a good place – and also enjoying being on court and playing.
“Sometimes you can put a bit too much pressure on situations, and get caught up in the nitty-gritty of things that need to be improved, and forget that when you feel good on that court and are enjoying it, you play your best.
“That’s a big part of the approach we’ve gone for – that we’re in a good head space.”
While Smith sounds comfortable in her mindset, the heat of competition draws nearer. “The team event groups are done, but the individual draw will be done quite a lot closer to the time, probably when we’re in Birmingham,” says Smith, who lives in Milton Keynes.
“In the team event we’ve got Singapore in our group, which is a really tricky draw. That’s a challenge for us early in the competition. But I’m excited to go out there and give that a go. With the individual draw, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Given the absence of spectators in the Tokyo Olympics, one of the many consequences of Covid-19, a major event in front of fans here in England will add even more to the summer sporting buzz. It is not, though, just from the stands where Smith will draw her motivation.
She is aware and appreciative of the support she and her fellow Cumbrian competitors receive from their home county. It is, she says, a fundamental part of her any time she steps on court.
“I use that support to really lift me,” she says. “I’ve always said that I put my character on court the way I am – I count myself as a real fighter, hard to beat, never give up, and I put that down to my Cumbrian grit, as I like to call it.
“So many people in Cumbria have helped me, directly or indirectly, get to where I am today. I haven’t in any stretch done this on my own. It takes an absolute army, and I’m really lucky to have been surrounded by good people when I was up there in Cumbria.
“I’m hugely thankful. I’m not only going out there for myself or Team England; I really want to go out there and make those people, and my family, friends – everyone that’s been involved – proud. And make Cumbria proud, of course.”
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