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Olympic sport: How UK Sport is opening its doors to find Olympians of the future

UK Sport has its eyes firmly on future Olympic Games, with an ambitious new talent identification programme. Matthew Campelli reports

by Matthew Campelli | Published in Sports Management Aug 2016 issue 125
UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl presents the initiative to the media
UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl presents the initiative to the media

As the immediate attention of the sporting world turns to the Rio 2016 Olympics and millions of Brits tune in to cheer on the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Ellie Simmonds and Max Whitlock, a number of young sporting hopefuls will be taking in the action thinking, “that could be me next time”.

There’s never been a better – or more inclusive – time to aspire to become an Olympic athlete, according to the government’s elite sport funding partner, UK Sport.

To make its world-class programme accessible to a widest range of athletes possible, UK Sport has developed its talent identification programme – the biggest of which has been launched to coincide with the Rio Games. For the budding athlete, it involves a simple process of going onto the internet and signing up for an assessment day with UK Sport.

There’s no need to be involved with a club, or come through university or regional channels. All that is required is the right physiology, mindset and work ethic.

UK Sport says the opportunity to aspire to stand on a podium wearing an Olympic medal should not be denied to anyone – regardless of their place in society.

Looking to tokyo 2020
Sports Management visits the Lee Valley VeloPark in East London’s Olympic Village where so many great sporting memories were made by the likes of cyclists Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton. It is here that UK Sport has called a press conference to announce its latest – and largest scale – talent identification campaign, entitled #DiscoverYour.

The organisation is on the hunt for talented individuals in 20 disciplines in five strands (see box on page 55), capable of challenging for medals at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea and the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, Japan.

UK Sport is targeting 15-24 year-old athletes with the right physical and mental characteristics, while some young athletes will be transitioned into new sports which may suit their profiles better.

Liz Nicholl, chief executive of UK Sport, introduces the campaign alongside head of performance pathways Natalie Dunman as the “biggest talent campaign we’ve ever launched”.

“Other campaigns have been quite selective and targeted to one or two sports,” she adds. “This campaign is an open door to talent from whatever background, whatever the individual’s circumstances, whatever their sport. It’s a great opportunity for individuals to test out personal skills and ability and find themselves a great sport. Maybe they’re in the wrong sport.”

Potential Olympians should apply via the UK Sport website. They will then fill in an application form which will be assessed by coaches and scientists from the organisation and the sport science and medicine specialist the English Institute of Sport (EIS).

Following that, the participants will take part in a number of physical tests, depending on which discipline UK Sport is looking out for. Sports that are regarded as a priority are power-based sports such as cycling, skeleton and canoeing; parasports; fighting sports such as judo, taekwondo and women’s boxing; rowing; and freestyle snowboarding and skiing.

The assessment process
The heart of the velodrome is the testing centre for the first strand of the campaign – #DiscoverYour Power – which was launched in March by Hoy, who graced the venue to such great effect four years ago. Young athletes are running, taking part in bike simulations and other exercises as they are assessed as potential cyclists, skeleton competitors or canoeists. They will find out in a few months if they will be taken onto UK Sport’s world-class programme and, hopefully, subsequently transitioned into training for elite events.

Dunman talks Sports Management through some of the processes the athletes will go through to get to this stage. “A certain number of young athletes will be selected based on our criteria and they’ll go on to more in-depth assessments,” she explains.

“It will involve behavioural assessments, skill assessments and physical assessments – so we look at a whole holistic range of attributes each athlete has and then we expose them to the training environment they will ultimately come into.

“We usually run a series of camps, where athletes will come in for five or six days at a time. They’ll do some intensive training with some of our world-class coaches and start to see if they can learn the skill of whichever sport they want to go into.”

The process is repeated for around six months before a decision is made on the athlete’s potential.

While physical attributes are seemingly more apparent than psychological characteristics, UK Sport has devised a series of psychological constructs for each sport to see if athletes’ behaviour and motivations are compatible. A framework has been put in place in which athletes’ behaviours can be measured day-to-day to see if they have the drive to succeed in the world of brutal training regimes and media scrutiny. “We work with our performance lifestyle team which provides pastoral support and will interview each athlete as they come through the process,” adds Dunman.

“They’ll ask about family background and support networks. If we think someone can make it we’re very encouraging but, ultimately, it’s down to them. We provide a great package of support to make sure every athlete – from whatever background – can unlock their full potential.”

Dunman and Nicholl are keen to stress that the programme is “opening the door as far and wide as possible” in order for the demographic make-up of athletes funded by UK Sport can be as representative of the population as possible.

UK Sport’s annual report revealed that only 10 per cent of the 1,268 athletes it funded during 2015-16 were from a black, Asian or ethnic minority background (BAME) – down on the national average of 13 per cent of the population.

Nicholl says the barriers of entry to the scheme are very small and that there was “absolutely no question” BAME representation would rise with the implementation of campaigns such as #DiscoverYour.

“This is such an open opportunity,” says Nicholl. “The original talent identification selection process in sport in previous years had been about individuals who choose to participate in sport as they come up through a club, county or region, or rowing at university.

“Now sports are very open to the opportunity to reach out into much more diverse communities and the best way to do that is through a campaign which is public and that reaches a lot of social media.”

According to Dunman, 90 per cent of elite athletes come through the traditional model of club, university and region, but by the time Pyeongchang and Tokyo come around, that proportion may be a lot smaller.

Highlighting the successes of Olympic taekwondo bronze medallist Lutalo Muhammad and Winter Olympic skeleton gold medallist Lizzie Yarnold – both of whom came through UK Sport talent identification processes – Dunman says: “We know this works, that’s why we keep doing it. We know we have a great population of athletic talent out there and we know that we can keep finding more people to go on this journey and perform for our country on the world stage.”

#DiscoverYour

UK Sport’s ambitious campaign – which was launched in association with the English Institute of Sport and individual national governing bodies of sport – is made up of five strands with 20 different sports:

#DiscoverYour Power:
Cycling, skeleton, canoeing

#DiscoverYour ParaPotential:
All Paralympic sports

#DiscoverYour Fight:
Judo, taekwondo, women’s boxing

#DiscoverYour Giant:
Rowing

#DiscoverYour Freestyle:
Freestyle snowboarding and skiing

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