Magic of the mile The Mile High Club might be notorious, but it's the Mile Club that is elitist. And Steve Cram is a fully paid-up member of a marvellous band of swaggering performers who have entertained us proudly down the years. "The mile is very special to the public," Cram told me. "Ever since the magic of Roger Bannister's first ever four-minute mile it has had a special place in the affections of so many. "It's a great little club and we get together every so often. We did it for the 50th anniversary of the Bannister mile. "It's nice to be around and to meet greats like Herb Elliott and Peter Snell." When Cram hit such a hot streak of form that he set three world records in the space of 19 days in 1985, one was the mile, of course, and it stood for almost nine years. "In America they still run a lot of mile races and Hicham El Guerrouj was telling me that in Morocco every athlete wants to run a four-minute mile. That's the magic of it all," he added. It's lights, Cramera, action now for TV's Steve Since Steve Cram retired from the track he has established himself as a distinguished broadcaster and sporting politician. Cram has been chairman of the English Institute of Sport since May of 2000 and is currently hell-bent on producing London's gold medallists of 20012. And the way forward, he firmly believes, is the path he trod as a fledgling athlete 28 years ago. "We have a £10.5m-a-year budget geared towards the London Olympics," Steve told me. "That's £60m-plus to be spent on all sports between now and 2012 on a medal programme. "It's the first time central government has given significant funding, and we'll be measured primarily by how well we do as a nation at the Games. "Athletics has been going down rather than up and we have to reverse that trend. "Six years may seem a long way off, but it isn't, and our 2012 competitors must already be in the system. "They need to be going to Beijing for the Olympic experience, just as I went to the Commonwealth Games of 1978 as a 17-year-old and the Olympics in Moscow. "That was the foundation for my later success. "Even for the Europeans later this summer we must pick only genuine medal hopes or young athletes of real potential who can gain invaluable experience." With his superstar background, Cram entered broadcasting in 1995 as an athletics commentator for Eurosport. He branched out to join Channel 4 in 1997 as presenter of British athletics and also co-presented their Planet Football programme. Steve went mainstream with the BBC in January of 1999, fronting the Winter Olympics as well as the summer jamboree, and he'll be at Gateshead for the Norwich Union British Grand Prix on June 11. | 
