From Freddie Hunt to Chris Eubank Jr, the offspring of sports stars often end up competing, too. Is the name a help or a hindrance?

‘I knew absolutely nothing about cars’

Freddie Hunt, 29, is a professional racing driver. He is the son of 1976 Formula One world champion James Hunt.

When I was very small, I knew Dad had been world champion, but I didn’t know what that meant. I was probably in my early teens when I realised he’d been someone special. Friends’ fathers, who remembered him well, would get excited talking about him. To me, he was only ever just Dad.

I’d always had a need for speed. My nickname as a kid was Fearless Fred. I had constant bike crashes. There was only ever one speed for me: flat out. But I knew absolutely nothing about cars. When I was tiny, I went to a few grands prix with Dad, but I didn’t go to the races properly until after he died. Then, in 2006, I went to the Goodwood Festival of Speed as a spectator, and a friend suggested I jump in a Maserati and have a go. I’d never driven anything like it before, but I loved it.

I was playing professional polo at the time, but that wasn’t going well due to lack of money. All my horses were knackered. The day before Goodwood, I’d made a plan to sell them. Call it fate, if you like, but the next day I was in that racing car and knew it was what I wanted to do. I rang up Uncle Dave, Dad’s little brother who also raced, and asked him to help me. “Ring me back in a week if you’re still serious,” he said. So I did.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest James Hunt at the 1989 British Grand Prix with his sons Freddie, right, and Tom. Photograph: Courtesy of Freddie Hunt

I started racing in 2007, when I was 19, and was swamped by media and photographers because of Dad’s profile. It became quite overwhelming. In my first season, my qualifying sessions and races were a complete shambles. In testing, I was quick, but I couldn’t deliver that same standard in qualifying or racing. I’d put pressure on myself and would freeze up. In my first race, I took out five cars; Motorsport News loved that. The front page was Hunt The Shunt Jr.

My name has got me drives. But a name will get you only so far

My name has got me drives. Even if you’ve got the budget, you can’t usually just walk into a top team. But a name will get you only so far. It’s taken me a long way, but it’s running out of energy. I need to start delivering.

Unless you can do what Nico Rosberg and Damon Hill did by emulating their parents [and winning the title], you’re always going to have that comparison. That’s natural. If you want to pursue the same career, you’ve got to accept it. But the odds of getting to Formula One and becoming world champion like your father are really, really slim. When I first got into racing, the initial goal was to get to Formula One, but I didn’t realise what a hard task that was and how unlikely it would be. It took me three years to see it wasn’t going to happen, and shift my target to Le Mans, which is doable. It’s still a bloody tall order and will take an awful lot of money to get there.

I didn’t go into racing just because I could. I’m not a rich kid who doesn’t need to work. I need to make money from sponsors to put food on my table. And I don’t have many other options.

‘I told my dad I wanted to box. He said no’

Chris Eubank Jr, 27, has been a professional boxer since 2011. He currently holds the IBO super-middleweight title. He is the son of former world middleweight champion Chris Eubank.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Eubank Jr in the gym. Photograph: Shamil Tanna for the Guardian

When I was about 10 or 11, I went to a friend’s house for a sleepover. I was going through his dad’s VHS collection, and on the cover of one of the tapes was a picture of my dad with his boxing gloves. “Wow, what’s that?” I said. I opened it and put it in the player. It was his fight against Nigel Benn. It was a shock. I said to Dad, “So when you go out, you’re going off to punch people?”

When I was about 12, I told him I wanted to box. He said no. He stopped me going to the gym or working out. I was always heavily into sports at school: football, rugby, cricket, athletics, everything. “Pick one of those,” he said. “It’ll be so much easier. You can make money without having to be punched in the face.” He didn’t want me to go through the hardship and the sacrifice that he made to get to where he did.

My father telling me I couldn’t do this thing pushed me to want to try it even more. We used to have two houses in Hove right next to each other. We lived in one of them and the other had a gym with a boxing ring. As a kid, I would sneak over there when he wasn’t around, put on the gloves and hit the bag.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Eubank Jr with his father at school sports day in the mid-90s. Photograph: Courtesy of Chris Eubank Jr

In the end, I just wore him down. Lennox Lewis came over to the house one day. I was sitting in front of the heavyweight world champion, so I started talking about boxing. “Dad, let me do it. Let me try it.” Lennox fully got on my side and told my dad he couldn’t stop me, that it was like a parent telling their child they’re not allowed to learn how to drive because they didn’t want them to be involved in a car crash. That was one of the turning points in my father’s thought process.

My dad said, pick a sport where you can make money without having to be punched in the face

A few months later, I was in a gym for the first time. I must have been about 14 and walked in on my own. They asked me what my name was. “Chris Eubank Jr.” “Oh, wow. It’s great to have you here.” They were thinking that I must have had a lot of experience in boxing, so they put me in the ring with a kid who was about 17 or 18. I went in confident. I’d had street fights and scuffles in school, and I’d never lost. So I thought I knew everything about fighting. But he absolutely battered me.

I went home and thought, “I never want that to happen to me again.” I wasn’t used to losing. I decided to cut out all other sports and focus on boxing. I knew that was the only way I was going to get better.

Once he realised I was serious about it, Dad sent me to Vegas to train with some of the best fighters in the world. That’s where I really learned to fight. I went to the States because my name wasn’t such an issue there. I could fly under the radar. I won the Nevada State Golden Gloves in my fifth amateur fight and went on to represent Nevada and compete in the nationals. And my father wasn’t there. You can’t do the things I’ve done just because of a name.

‘It’s exciting to be within reach of her times’

Eilish McColgan, 26, is a middle-distance runner. She competed in both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, and is the Scottish record holder in the 3,000m steeplechase. She is the daughter of former 10,000m world champion Liz McColgan.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eilish McColgan. Photograph: Shamil Tanna for the Guardian

In my last year of primary school, I did a county cross-country race and afterwards loads and loads of people were crowding around my mum. I didn’t really understand why she was signing autographs and people were taking pictures of her. That was the first time I realised she was more than a fun runner. After that race, I was invited to the local running club. It felt like I’d been picked out. But my mum said that rather than joining the club near our house, I should join her old club, Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, because they had a proper track. It was so much fun. We used to run over the local golf course in the pitch black.

At that point I was doing high jump and long jump. The longest I was allowed to run was the 800m, which was the event I looked forward to the most. Mum said, “If you’re serious about it and stick with it, I might start coaching.” So she started up her own endurance squad in Dundee: kids of all ages doing all events from 800m up. I don’t think she’d thought about coaching until that point. It hadn’t crossed her mind. She’d been so caught up in her own athletics.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eilish McColgan wearing the gold medal her mother, Liz, had just won at the 1991 Tokyo world championships. Photograph: PA

Mum never sat me down and forced me to watch videos of her running. There really wasn’t anything in my childhood to show she was a professional athlete, other than the fact that she was out training all the time.

I'm not far off my mum in a lot of the distances now, to be honest

People would say, “Oh yes, your mum was world champion”, but you can’t put that into terms that make sense when you’re young. It was only when I started running myself that I realised how hard it was just to be the quickest in the east of Scotland, let alone the fastest person in the world.

This is the first year there have been comparisons between myself and my mum as athletes, because I’m starting to compete over the distances that she did. In the past, I always competed in the steeplechase, which was my dad’s event.

I’m not far off my mum in a lot of the distances now, to be honest. I’m something like two seconds off her times for the 1500m and less than five seconds over 5,000m. It’s exciting to be within reach of her. She always said I should run those kinds of times.

Would I encourage a future daughter of my own to run? That’s difficult. I do love the sport, but I know how hard it is. It’s given me so many opportunities: I’ve got to travel the world and met some of the most amazing people. But it has brought me some low moments with illness and injury. In my left foot alone, I’ve got seven screws and a metal plate.

And it’s difficult when people are cheating their way to the top. You’re working as hard as you can, doing everything correctly, and they’re taking the easy route to success. It’s then hard to encourage your kids to go along and do it as well. You can’t tell them not to take it up, although I’d probably sway them towards golf or tennis: there’s a lot more money to be made there.

‘I was sitting on ponies before I could walk’

Lissa Green, 28, is an international event rider. She is the daughter of former world champion eventer Lucinda Green and Olympic gold medallist for team eventing David Green.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lissa Green. Photograph: Shamil Tanna for the Guardian

As a kid, I remember being carted round different muddy fields each weekend. I thought it was great, a new adventure each time. There were the other children of eventers at each competition and we had our own gang. While I did miss out on friends’ birthday parties, it was soon all forgotten when I was submerged back into the world of horses.

Although I was sitting on ponies before I could walk, competitive riding was never expected. My parents wanted any drive in this direction to come from me. Although part of me wanted to do more with my riding, I was desperate to be recognised on my own terms, and the only way I could see this was with a career away from eventing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lissa Green with her mother Lucinda in 2002. Photograph: Courtesy of Lissa Green

I loved sport at school: the thrill of competition and pushing myself to improve never left. It’s something I think we are born with. I dreamed of athletics, netball, tennis, beach volleyball, even bobsledding after watching Cool Runnings. From her first-hand experience of how insular top-level sport can be, Mum encouraged me to try different things. I studied criminology at university, but my drive to compete on horses grew stronger, and I finally decided to bite the bullet and ride full-time.

With a name like mine, many people assumed I was on a fast track to the top

With a name like mine, people assumed I was on a fast track to the top. The reality was that I had to ride anything I could get my hands on, anything that was free – horses others didn’t want to ride and ones that weren’t capable of winning. Fortunately, this is a sport where your prime years aren’t your 20s, and although I have some great horses now, I really look forward to the day when I’m lucky enough to find that world-class animal. Experience is everything in eventing, and that is best gained during the tougher times.

Every sport is difficult and every competitor has to stay in peak condition, but in horse sports two of us need to stay fit and able to compete. With horses, the odds become so much longer.

I’m under zero illusions that I will ever match Mum’s incredible achievements: it would be like expecting Roger Federer’s kids to outperform him. I still have goals and dreams, and on a wildly ambitious day I would love to supersede her, but I’ve learned not to concentrate on her victories and focus on my own path.

‘Dad was in my history book at school’

Nicolas Roche, 32, is a professional road cyclist. He has twice been national champion, and has competed in numerous Grand Tour races with Team Sky and his current team, BMC. He is the son of former Tour de France winner Stephen Roche.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicolas Roche training in Monaco. Photograph: Rebecca Marshall for the Guardian

Cycling is intrusive. It invades your family life. Anyone who has a cyclist in the family – at any level, not just professional – will understand that.

Cycling was a big part of my childhood. When I was six or seven, I watched my dad at a criterium race with Miguel Indurain. I was shouting for Indurain and my dad asked why I wasn’t supporting him. I told him Indurain had won the Tour de France. I hadn’t realised Dad had won, too.

I only took up cycling when I was 12, after we moved back to Ireland from France. Dad told me about an underage race at an event, and asked if I wanted to give it a go. I ended up coming second. I loved it, but it was the last race of the season, so I had to be patient before I could race again. That Christmas, I got a bike from Santa and off I went.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicolas Roche in 1986, with (from left) his great‑grandfather, father Stephen and grandfather. Photograph: Courtesy of Nicolas Roche.

Dad didn’t want to get in the way and take away from what I was doing. Saying, “I’m going to a bike race – do you want to try it?” is very different from saying, “Do this, do that” and following me to races. That wouldn’t have been good for us. I’ve seen so many friends’ parents screaming from the side of the road. It’s nice, but not every weekend. It’s good to have your independence.

Ireland’s a small country and everywhere I went I was the son of Stephen Roche. I mean, Dad was in my history book when I was studying at school. He’s part of what is taught as modern Irish history.

My dad was the best in his time. I wasn’t going to beat him and I didn’t want to. It wasn’t a competition

I remember winning races when I was a junior and people saying that I won them only because I was his son and had the best bike. That was complete bullshit. I probably had the worst bike.

As a professional, for years all I got was, “You’re never going to be as good as your dad.” I didn’t care. My dad was the best in his time. If I was good enough to have fun and do my own thing, that was fine. I understood I wasn’t going to win the Tour de France like he did. I wasn’t going to beat him and I didn’t want to. It wasn’t a competition.

For years, when they’d introduce riders at races, it would be, “Here’s the guy who was 45th in the grand prix of his home town.” Then I’d come up to the podium. “Ah, Nicolas Roche, son of Stephen Roche.” They didn’t give a damn about my results, about how good or how bad I was.

My little brother gets it now. It’s even worse for him. He’s the son of Stephen Roche and the brother of Nicolas Roche.