Wednesday, 16 September 2015

Sport Strategy - Performance sport what needs to change

The government’s Sport Strategy consultation has asked for views on high performance sport I would like to add some ideas about a change in direction that might further increase our international success.

Some considerations:
  • All teams sports except Hockey had high performance funding withdrawn after 2012
  • Nearly 40% of GB medal winners in the last three Olympic Games have been public school educated yet under 6% of the school population is in public schools
  • GB have not won a “strength” (Weight-lifting, Wrestling, Athletic Throws) medal for many Olympic cycles
  • England Netball have received over the last number of four year cycles over £18 million for high performance and still stand as third in the world in the same top four as for the last 12 years.
  • Hockey are now winning European medals after four continuous cycles of funding
  • The talent pool of English performance coaches is regarded by many sports as poor
  • The UK Sport “no compromise” approach to funding has successfully funded sporting success but does not allow for long term investment in major world sports
  • For me high performance needs four elements;
  • Well-funded and support fit athletes/players
  • High quality coaches with high level technical and scientific support
  • High quality facilities
  • High level regular competition


So what needs to change? In some cases no a lot. The no compromise approach to funding by UK Sport has been a great success for sports that are generally individually based and in many cases a link between excellent aerobically strong athletes with excellent scientific support and world leading technology. I cannot and wouldn’t criticise the marginal gains approach of Sir Dave Brailsford he is the other key component excellent single minded leadership. So that approach should stay and continue to support the successful individually sports.

However further consideration should be given to increasing the success in team and strength sports. These need a different approach.

Hockey’s recent success of becoming European Champions has been through strong leadership, mature coaching and a squad that spans at least 15+ years. All of the players have been through a long term cycle of support where near certainty of funding has led to an ability to grow a system and adult squads that can accommodate injury and still maintain a high standard.

Yet funding was withdrawn from other team’s sports just when change was starting to make a difference. The difference with Olympic team sports is the world plays them not just the Commonwealth! Over 200 national teams entre qualifying competition for Football, Basketball, Volleyball (the indoor game) and Handball. Compare this to cycling or rowing and they do not appear to reach 100 countries entering. So government should think again about a long term funding programme for team sports so we can compete at the highest level consistently. 

Alongside this investment should be made to improve the quality of our best inter-club competition in those Olympic and potentially Commonwealth team sports. This in the main shouldn’t be left to the governing bodies to run and organise but could be a franchised regional operation based on the major urban areas. The franchises should adopt the American model and equalisation to make sure completion is regularly at a high level. Franchises should be funded through government and other commercial sources. However the scale of these franchises needs to be multiple sport covering Basketball, Volleyball, Handball and potentially Netball. The Netball super-league is a model that could work for a number of indoor team sports and by bringing four sports into one franchise the economies and benefits of scale should enable the franchises to flourish.

To gain success at international level coaches are essential and we have not developed enough quality English coaches who are able to commit to coaching at the performance level. Some radical changes are needed to how we develop coaches. UKCC has pushed coaches down a route of being great coaching session coaches but not able to coach a game and learn and deal with instant decision making that can positively change the game. 

Very little cross sport exchanges are entered into either. I made a point of watching the Netball at the Commonwealth games last year and was tearing what little hair I have out at the way on three occasions England appeared unable and unprepared to deal with the last two minutes of a game. 

Throwing away a potential gold medal game and then losing out in the Bronze medal game due to in my view poor coach preparation. Apparently they practiced closing out the game the day before for the first time. I learnt way back as a basketball coach you need to practice the last two minutes running all possible scenarios for at least 20 minutes of every two hour in season training session. Just o example of where cross sport cooperation could work. Sport Science should also play a part in generically developing coaches. So we need to change the coaching system for coaches to learn and experience coaching the game and not just coaching drills.

I would like to see a change to how we identify and nurture athletes for the strength sports. Prior to the Olympic Games UK Sport led a successful recruitment for tall people. Let’s try the same for strong people and start to build hubs focused on strength and then guide athletes into Weight-Lifting, Wrestling or field athletics. These are multi-medal Olympic sports and we should be taking an approach similar to the Chinese in focusing on these to move even further up the medal table.

This approach along with the investment in team sports should address the imbalance in the educational background of high performance athletes. It is an accepted norm in participation sport that disproportionate funding leads to a re-dressing of the social imbalance so why not take this same approach to performance athletes? “No compromise” is very effective but for those who have not been able through financial, educational establishment or family to get up the performance ladder. Yet many who are unable to fund this journey methods should be identified to support those from middle and working class homes to get into the performance funding process.

So the key messages for me are:
  • Continue with “no-compromise” for individual sports
  • Commit long term funding to Olympic team sports
  • Develop multisport performance competition hubs on a franchise basis
  • Invest in game based coach education programmes
  • Encourage sports to engage in cross sport collaborations
  • Identify a range of funding mechanisms to enable a broader base of athletes achieve international status





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