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“To have the games in London is going to be something that’s fantastic, the chance to compete at the Olympics, particularly in your home city is going to be something that’s really quite special.”

 

My name’s Nathaniel Reilly O’Donnell and I’m a GB rower and I’m part of the men’s eight team. Preparations for the Olympics are going really well, two weeks ago I competed at the World Championships and I won a silver medal in the eight. So that puts us in fantastic position to win a medal and hopefully win the right coloured medal when it comes to the games. The Olympics is on the horizon and we’re ready to go.

To have the games in London is going to be something that’s fantastic, the chance to compete at the Olympics, particularly in your home city is going to be something that’s really quite special. There’s a lot of hurdles between now and then, there’s trials and things but at the minute I’m an Olympic seat, it’s my job to defend that position and reach further in to the team. But yeah I think it’s going to be pretty special and I want to be involved.

So I’m doing a work placement within the Legal department at O2. That came about through a partnership between O2 and the English Institute of Sport. So it was through the partnership there that the EIS was able to tell all of us athletes that O2 were looking for people that were capable and willing. And so I applied and was successful and so were about eight or nine other athletes. Since then I’ve been doing a bit of work here and there with O2 and it’s been really good, I’ve really enjoyed it.

I cover all sorts of different things, I have my own little projects. At the minute I’ve got a particular one considering intellectual property. While I’ve been part of the business I’ve been able to experience all the different sectors that O2 is part of and it’s been really good to see how a big, big company that’s got a big global footprint operates. And how different aspects of the business cover different areas, but are all joined up with the same sort of thinking and same perceptive.

So my average day starts at 7.30 on the water, then we’ll have another two sessions on top of that, so it’s generally a three session day. Which means I’ll get home at about 4.30, 5 o’clock which leaves little room to really make my way out to O2, but luckily we get an afternoon off in the week. So I’m able to come in and do my work then and keep tabs on what’s going on and being able to keep up to date with my projects.

So fitting my training and working with O2 together has been difficult, but O2 have been really supportive of that. They’ve really been there for me and laidback in terms of what they’ve expected from me to do. Fundamentally I’m an athlete and I have to perform and I have to do my training as prescribed. We train a lot, we train hard and we pride ourselves on the amount that we do. And so my training comes first and O2 has been really good at being able to fit round that.

I was always a big fan of what O2 did, particularly the stuff to do with the Dome and the academies and their different projects they have all over the world. And the sponsorship of sport was obviously pretty big with Arsenal and England and Ireland Rugby and so I’d never really quite experienced that side of O2. The way that they do business, the way that they like to do things right, their Think Big projects, they’re all things that I was never really aware of before and actually being part of the business I get to see how that all happens. And it’s a really quite positive thing for the community and something that actually O2 doesn’t shout about and it does a lot of good and it’s a company that operates in the manner that you kind of wish you could.

So do I imagine standing on the podium collecting a medal? Maybe once or twice but I try not to. I think of other aspects to do with the race, the final, things like crossing the finish line and being able to see everyone here and not beyond and past me. I try not to dwell on the output of what we do. I try to concern myself with how I'm going to get there because it’s going to be really competitive and if I make one small mistake and somebody’s going to take my place from me and I’m not going to be there. And things are too competitive for me to dream about something going forward. There are Olympic dreams, but there’s not really time or place for it in an athlete that’s 11 months before the games.