Mike Bushell

Mike Bushell presents the sport on BBC Breakfast and covers a wide range of different pursuits for the show. He has profiled and sampled nearly four hundred different sports and activities during his Saturday morning slot. This is believed to be a world record. He also holds the unusual world record, for crossing one mile of water in a large inflatable ball known as a zorb, or waterwalker for sport relief.

His Saturday slot on the programme started over fifteen years ago, with the aim being to prove there is a sport out there for everyone. He’s the sports guinea pig, going into bat on behalf of the beginner, trying to inspire others like him off the sofa at the weekend.

As well as profiling mainstream sports events, with the top stars, whether it be a game of tennis against Novak Djokovic, or trying to bowl out Alistair Cook, he has often featured different new initiatives by well-known sports which are trying to tempt in new participants, by becoming more accessible. These have included Rush Hockey, and Cage Cricket. Many of activities and sports he has featured, will be ones most people haven't heard of before. Whether it be nurdling, or tchouckball, or shin kicking, whip cracking, bog snorkelling, or even worm charming, they all have one thing in common: they bring people together, exercising, getting fitter, and gaining confidence. Mike wrote about his experiences discovering new sports in the book Bushell’s Best Bits.

Mike has vast experience of covering big sporting events, having reported, and presented on the Olympics, Paralympics, the Winter games, Football World Cups, Commonwealth Games, and Asian Games. He has reported on these for Breakfast, the BBC News Channel, and BBC World.

Alongside his sporting day job Mike has also competed in Celebrity Mastermind, and memorably in Strictly Come Dancing. He has always been a keen sportsman, having played football, cricket, and hockey at school. He also represented the county of Hertfordshire at Chess, but its cross country running that he really excelled in. As a teenager, he ran one hundred and seventy-five miles in six days, setting off from his new home in Yorkshire to his old one in Hertfordshire, to raise money for charity. Mike's other passion was in acting, after he was spotted by the National Youth Theatre. He spent four years there and a degree in theatre and television followed, but while trying to make ends meet as an actor, he broke into journalism on a local newspaper and the rest is history.