The EIS wishes Team GB’s Winter Olympic athletes the very best in South Korea

With the Opening Ceremony hours away and the British Olympic Association taking its largest ever delegation of 59 athletes to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the English Institute of Sport (EIS) would like to wish all the athletes chosen to represent Team GB the very best of luck in their respective events and sports.

The EIS has provided a wide-range of support to a number of winter sports in the PyeongChang Olympic cycle, including Short Track Speed Skating (STSS) and Skeleton, covering expertise in sport science, sport medicine, technology and engineering.

At the 2018 PyeongChang medal target launch in January, Nigel Walker, EIS National Director said: “The EIS has contributed in a really extensive way over the full four years. We’ve had over 30 practitioners working, embedded in a number of winter sports during the Winter Olympic four-year cycle.”

The EIS has been responsible for the overall management and delivery of the World Class Performance Programme (WCPP) for STSS, since June 2015 with the EIS overseeing the recruitment of a new Performance Director, Stewart Laing. The WCPP has since seen a period of unprecedented success which has seen athletes from the programme win 20 medals in 2017 from Star Class to the World Championships. This included Elise Christie becoming a triple world champion.

Nigel continued: “In the case of Short Track Speed Skating, since Stewart Laing, the Performance Director was appointed he has gone around in a really systematic and professional way, turning the sport into a World Class programme. You only have to look at the results in the last year or so to see that whatever Stewart is doing is working, and that’s what gives us confidence about Short Track’s chances heading into PyeongChang.”

Stewart confirmed: “Working with the EIS has allowed me as a Performance Director to be able to focus on the real things that matter and know that I have a fantastic team of sports scientists and practitioners which support me and the coaches. It enables us to develop a programme that is athlete and coach centred with a great team of sports scientists wrapped around it.  All of this working together is what enables Short Track to function so well as a World Class Programme.”

Liz Nicholl, UK Sport Chief Executive commented on the difference the support from the EIS has made to a number of winter sports saying: “The EIS plays a very significant role in the development of athletes in the UK’s high-performance system. The medical provision, sports physiology and psychology is just three of a number of critical components of the support team around each and every athlete.

“If you add to that the Performance Innovation team which the EIS leads on and these are the things which will make a difference between a gold and a silver, a silver and a bronze, and a bronze and fourth place. All of these services are provided by the EIS in partnership with the sports and without that support the World Class Programmes wouldn’t be succeeding to the extent to which they are now.”

More information about the work the EIS does with Short Track Speed Skating..

More information about the work the EIS does with Skeleton..