Record number of Olympic and Paralympic athletes apply for Personal Development funding

A record number of athletes have applied for the Personal Development Award (PDA), a programme offered by UK Sport and facilitated by the English Institute of Sport (EIS) Performance Lifestyle team to assist podium funded athletes with personal and professional development. 

Podium funding supports athletes with realistic medal winning capabilities at the next Olympic/Paralympic Games as part of UK Sport’s World Class Programme.

In the past 10 months, 321 eligible athletes have submitted applications for a variety of courses and personal development initiatives, seeing the budget for the programme increase from £100,000 to £140,000.

Oliver Cook, part of the GB Rowing Team and a World Championships gold medallist, said:

“The PDA has been a huge help with developing myself outside of the rowing team. I have used my PDA for a great range of different activities, from learning French and Arabic, to taking an online economic course, to gaining my PADI Scuba Diving certificate.

“The PDA has been really instrumental in helping me to be more of an all rounded athlete.”

Sophie Carrigill, Wheelchair Basketball player, said:

“Having recently completed my Psychology MSc, I found that the PDA funding allowed me to further educate myself in my chosen career path and gave me the additional support I needed to attend conferences and purchase textbooks to make the most of my academic experience.”

Jo Harrison, Head of Performance Lifestyle at the EIS, said:

“It’s fantastic to see so many athletes taking advantage of the funding available to help them develop as people and plan for life after competition. We want our athletes to develop more rounded identities, which can not only help them personally but also benefit their performances as well.

“Our #More2Me campaign is all about supporting athletes to improve sport-life balance and I’m thrilled to see that all the work we’re doing, in partnership with UK Sport’s Athlete Investment Team, is having such a positive impact and encouraging more and more athletes to take advantage of the opportunities available to them.”

Mark Kelly, Head of Sport and Athlete Investment at UK Sport said:

“The wellbeing and personal development of athletes is at the heart of everything we do and so it’s very encouraging to see the uptake of our Personal Development Awards. I’d urge all eligible athletes to take advantage of this programme and speak to their Performance Lifestyle Advisor to help create a balanced approach between their training and wider personal development.”

The funding period for the PDA runs from April to April, and already in 2019/20 more athletes have made applications (321) than the whole of the previous year (242). In January alone, 30 applications were received from 17 different sports.

Over £138,000 has been spent on personal development since April 2019, already more than the previous highest spending in a year (£113,161 in 2013/14).