Peter Keen has been daydreaming again.

That was my first reaction on learning that UK Sport's Director of Performance is standing down from his position in favour of a new special adviser's role that will leave him scope to mentor and coach high performers from outside sport as well as within.

My second reaction was that this was a good thing for the world at large, though not necessarily for British sport.

To elaborate: Keen, as surely everyone likely to be reading this must know by now, is the man who had more to do with Great Britain's astonishing performance at the Beijing 2008 Olympics (47 medals; fourth place in the medals table) than any other individual.

The systems he implemented ensured that Olympic and Paralympic sport's golden windfall of Lottery funding was not squandered.

The starting point for this achievement was to nurture a mindset in which elite performance programmes were, to use a phrase he employed during a long interview at his home shortly after Beijing, "unambiguously seeking excellence".

To aid benchmarking and comparisons, the necessary attributes of an elite sports programme were broken down into 32 discrete elements, with rewards meted out to individual sports dependent on performance and potential.

Cross-fertilisation is also key, with every effort made to spread relevant best practice from strong performers such as cycling and sailing to sports yet to contribute much to Britain's swelling stash of Olympic booty.


Keen was very relaxed during our time together – why wouldn't you be after such a spectacular vindication of your approach? – but he was clearly also extremely focused.

So it was surprising – and, therefore, memorable – when he started to talk about the importance of daydreaming.

"Since the early 90s I have just been willing to stare at the top of the mountain and ponder what it might be like to be there," he told me.

"I'm a good daydreamer.

"In fact, I'm a great advocate for making space in life to daydream...

"But the next step of making that of any use is to move from random daydreams to a clear vision, being able to genuinely visualise what that success might be and start to bring it to life.


"And if you can move from vision then to a series of goals, then you are starting to get somewhere."

The other somewhat unexpected thing I took away from what had been a very rich interview was the extent to which Keen's fascination with attaining excellence already superseded the confines of sport.

At different times during the conversation – to be honest, it was more like an extended tutorial – the former junior international pursuit cyclist alluded to flamenco dancing, Sandhurst, surgery, flying a plane, you name it...

I am not sure his thoughts were at that point fully formulated, but what he seemed to be suggesting is that the perceived limits of performance, endurance, consistency and excellence were not necessarily the same across these diverse areas of endeavour.

And, by implication, the standards of even the very best sports were not necessarily as high as those fully absorbed in them might genuinely believe.

This is where a train of thought regarding Sara Baras (pictured below), the flamenco dancer, led us:

"I don't think you need to be into dance to be completely blown away by what this woman can do," Keen said.


"Technically and emotionally.

"And she does it night after night after night...

"That is absolute mastery through discipline and hard work and training, which is no different to what I see [cyclist] Chris Hoy (pictured below) doing and it moves me in a similar way."

"So could sport port ideas in from the arts?" I asked.

"Absolutely, because I think [that] we think we're that tough in sport and we've got it that hard and we can't do any better.

"Actually, I think the level of immersion that is possible, the completeness of life to train in a rigorous way and to live it is far more possible in sport than we realise...

"The recent research that I'm able to read around the whole notion of talent and its emergence, not just in sport...more in just life in general – business, science, art, et cetera, it seems to be a particularly hot topic at the moment.

"Where are the great people?

"Where are those nations and organisations?

"What is this thing, talent?


"Most of the [interesting] literature that has tried to get [its] head around this keeps describing exceptional environments rather than exceptional people.

"There is clearly something going on in terms of a predisposition to be exceptional at something, but far more important is the 10,000 hours or whatever...of dedicated, deliberate, intentional practice that creates absolute mastery of a very domain-specific thing.

"Whether it's Sara Baras dancing or Chris Hoy sprinting."

It is my hunch that, just as Keen has overseen the application of an approach that first bore fruit in cycling to other sports, he would now like to spend more time comparing the notion of excellence and how it is attained in sport with other fields such as the arts, science and industry.

My further hunch is that whatever he concludes will be well worth hearing.

It goes without saying that we should wish him well in his new role.

He is an archetypal backroom figure, not even going to Beijing for the last Summer Games.

Yet his achievement in helping to transform Great Britain into a modern-day Olympic and Paralympic power is, for my money, every bit as great as those of England's World Cup-winning coaches Sir Alf Ramsey in football and Sir Clive Woodward in rugby.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times (FT) in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Follow David on Twitter here.