With just 57 days to go until the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the British Olympic Association (BOA) has announced the members of its Performance Services Team based at the Olympic Village in Stratford. The team will provide support to athletes from sports across the whole of Team GB.
This multi-disciplinary team brings together 24 highly experienced members from all four home countries, who have supported Team GB athletes at 22 Olympic Games, making their collective experience and knowledge of sports performance unrivalled in this country. It includes doctors, physiotherapists, sports scientists and a psychologist, all of whom will work to ensure Team GB is the best prepared British Olympic team in the history of the Games.
Performance Services Director Dave Reddin will lead the team. He has 20 years’ experience of working across a wide range of elite sports including professional football and perhaps most notably in rugby where he was the national fitness coach for 10 years and played a key role in the 2003 Rugby World Cup success. Dave’s first Olympic experience was the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Dr Ian McCurdie, who is the BOA’s Chief Medical Officer and has experience of working at four Olympic Games and two Commonwealth Games, will lead the medical team. He was the British Modern Pentathlon Team Doctor for seven years and also has experience of working in professional sports at elite level, including premiership football and tennis.
The Team GB Headquarters (HQ) Medical Officers will be responsible for providing medical support to all athletes in the Olympic Village, as well as supporting a number of team doctors. They will be attending training and competition venues and providing day-to-day health and welfare support to all athletes and support staff involved with Team GB.
The Physiotherapy team will be led by BOA Chief Physiotherapist, Caryl Becker. Caryl has worked at the BOA for 11 years and has experience of working at four Olympic and two Commonwealth Games across various sporting disciplines. Team GB’s HQ physiotherapists will work with sport physiotherapists and soft tissue therapists to provide support to all Team GB athletes. The HQ physiotherapy team includes the lead physiotherapists from the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Institutes of Sport, as well as the clinical lead physiotherapists from the English Institute of Sport (EIS).
BOA Head of Sports Science and Research, Dr Marco Cardinale, will lead the sports science support for Team GB, which includes the provision of monitoring and recovery solutions. In addition, the psychological well-being of the team will be supported by Dr Mark Bawden, lead sports psychologist at the EIS, and also to the England cricket team.
The 24 team members listed below are part of a larger Team GB Performance Services Team, which also includes a group of seven Performance Analysts led by Dr Stafford Murray, lead Performance Analyst for the EIS. Stafford has supported a number of sports through the last three Olympic cycles and is a veteran of four Commonwealth Games. Based at Team GB House, his team will use cutting edge technology to ensure the provision of performance critical information to coaches and support staff across Team GB.
A 17-strong Performance Services support team has also been assembled to support athletes at the Team GB preparation camp in Loughborough, which will be led by Victoria Underwood from the EIS, who is taking on the role of Head of Preparation Camp Performance Services.
The selected staff are, in alphabetical order: (Name, role, hometown)
Team GB Chef de Mission Andy Hunt said:
Team GB Performance Services Director Dave Reddin said:
Team GB Chief Medical Officer Ian McCurdie said:
Team GB Chief Physiotherapist Caryl Becker said:
“I remember being in Trafalgar Square when it was announced that London was to host the Olympic Games and from that point I dared to dream that I would be a part of it, as I suspect did all the rest of the team.