Andrea Nelson was a teenage sports drop-out statistic – something that’s stayed with her and influenced her career.
She was, she says, “the girl that dropped PE as soon as we got to fifth form. Actually, I never found a way to engage with organised sport, which is something that really inspires me in my job … not just in women’s sport, but in all the events I’ve done. For me, it wasn’t till I was 30 that I really discovered a love of taking part in sport.”
Now the woman whose career in sports began working on the 2012 London Olympics, and led to key roles delivering the 2015 FIFA U20 World Cup and the 2017 Rugby League World Cup, has ended up in the sport she truly loves – leading the organisation of the ICC Cricket World Cup being played around New Zealand at the end of next summer.
In the first part of our series, The Big Four, Nelson talks about the challenge of getting bums on seats, what the World Cup can do for society, how the year-long postponement has become a bonus and how the tournament now has an air of certainty about it. And she reveals her past as a radio disc jockey.
