Diaper to join BPA as Head of Performance

The British Paralympic Association (BPA) has announced the appointment of Nik Diaper as its new Head of Performance.

Diaper, who joins from the English Institute of Sport (EIS) where he has worked for the past 13 years, most recently as Head of Sport Science and Medicine for Paralympic sport, will lead the BPA’s consideration of all aspects of preparation and Games time athlete performance support reporting directly to Director of Sport and Chef de Mission Penny Briscoe.

A key member of the ParalympicsGB science and medicine team at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and in particular Rio 2016, where he ran the in-village Performance centre, Diaper will also be Deputy Chef de Mission (Performance) for ParalympicsGB at Pyeongchang 2018.

“I’m delighted to be joining the BPA in the role of Head of Performance” Diaper says.

“Having worked closely in an EIS capacity with the BPA for the last 6 years I’m excited to form part of a team that is so passionate and committed to making the UK a world leading Paralympic nation on and off the field of play. I look forward to continuing to strengthen performance relationships with both winter and summer Paralympic sports, as well as system partners, to ensure the best prepared ParalympicsGB team at future Paralympic Games.”

EIS National Director Nigel Walker said: “Nik has made an enormous contribution to the EIS’ support of Paralympic sport over the past 13 years and is hugely respected within the high performance system. We look forward to retaining a very close working relationship with him at the BPA and wish him every success in this next chapter of his career.”

BPA Director of Sport Penny Briscoe said: “I’m thrilled that Nik is joining the BPA as our new Head of Performance. I first worked with Nik during the Athens 2004 Paralympic cycle and what has impressed me since then is his unerring passion and commitment to Paralympic sport. He has worked tirelessly, in a variety of roles, to make a performance difference over multiple Paralympic Games cycles and his skills and experience will, without doubt, further strengthen our world leading core team.”