New BMX Coach for Britain

Australian Grant White has been named as the new coach of the British BMX team, British Cycling announced.

White's main role will be to coach Shanaze Reade, Joey Gough, Kelvin Batey, Marcus Bloomfield and Liam Phillips in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics. He will start at the end of January, working with BMX programme manager, Keith Reynolds, the British team's sprint coaches, and the English Institute of Sport support staff...

bikeradar.com - 10th January 2008
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INJURED TAYLOR TO MISS BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIPS

Olympic silver medallist Leon Taylor is out of the British Diving Championships because of a hernia.

The City of Sheffield club member pulled out of this weekend's competition in Manchester after undergoing a series of tests on the injury.

Taylor said: "The decision to pull out of the nationals was made just before Christmas. I had meetings with the English Institute of Sport (EIS) and British Diving medical staff and we knew that if I continued it would get worse...

The Daily Mail - 2nd January 2008
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YULE COULD HAVE SILVER IN THE POST FOR CHRISTMAS

Tom Yule, the Scottish weight-lifter who chairs the athletes' commission which helped bring the Commonwealth Games to Glasgow, has learned he may be awarded a Commonwealth Games medal 19 months after the event.

Australia's questionable policy of signing competitors with medal potential from the former Soviet Union has back-fired spectacularly with the belated conviction of Armenian Aleksan Karapetyan, who won gold in the 94-kilo category for them at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March last year.

Karapetyan signed up under an Oz flag of convenience and collected thousands of dollars in grants, provoking uproar because this was denied to home Australian athletes. Yet it has transpired he was charged with a doping offence in the US, for using a stimulant nine months before the Commonwealth Games...

...Now the silver medallist, Simon Heffernan - ironically also Australian, and denied any support while funding was lavished on the incomer - hopes to be promoted to gold. The Scottish bronze medallist, Yule, would be promoted to silver, and a New Zealander to bronze...

...Yule, who was the only GB lifter at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, is attempting to qualify for Beijing next year. He has an honours degree from Oxford, and a Ph.d in biomechanics. He is strength coach at the English Institute of Sport at Loughborough, where he works with track and field athletes. He also has his eyes on the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi...

The Herald - by Doug Gillon - 8th December 2007
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FIRE AT SPORTS CENTRE

A fire broke out in Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre at 5am today, causing damage to the centre's cafe and offices...

RICHARD MIDGLEY has revealed the secret behind his soaraway success story on Tyneside after blazing a glory trail in black this season.

And the GB star insists his fitness and form is thanks to the French touch!

...But there is no need for constant cross-channel trips and pit-stops in Paris...

...because Midgley’s driving force is Tyneside-based fitness guru Duncan French...

...Based at Gateshead’s English Institute for Sport, French has guided Midgley through a potentially career-threatening knee problem...

The Sunday Sun - by Lynsey Richardson - 2nd December 2007
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WHY SIZE DOES MATTER

...So important a factor is body type that it is being used to identify potential champions for the London 2012 Olympics and beyond. In February, UK Sport and the EIS launched a talent identification scheme, called Sporting Giants, in which they urged potential athletes to come forward, providing they fulfilled the criteria of being tall (a minimum of 6ft 3in or 190cm for men, and 6ft or 180cm for women), young (between 16 and 25) and with some sort of sporty background...

The Times - by Peta Bee, 27th October 2007
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CANADA LAGS IN USE OF SPORTS SPECIALIST

Canada is "way behind" the rest of the world in recognizing the importance of fully integrating biomechanists into the sport system, says Dr. Allan Wrigley of the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific.

Wrigley, believed to be the only biomechanist working full-time in the sport field in Canada, says there needs to be a greater awareness among sport administrators, coaches and university programmers of the value of specialized sport biomechanical analysis.

"The [English Institute of Sport] are definitely the model of effective implementation of this, the Australians are pretty good, too," Wrigley said in an interview Monday after a presentation in Richmond at the second SPort INnovation (SPIN) Summit...

Vancouver Sun - by Gary Kingston, 25th September 2007
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POWELL 'WILL LOWER MARK FURTHUR'

Jamaican Asafa Powell will continue to beat his own 100m world record, says Dr Steve Ingham, lead physiologist for the English Institute of Sport.

Powell, 24, set a new mark of 9.74 seconds to better his previous best by 0.03secs in Italy on Sunday.

Ingham told BBC Sport: "My gut feeling is the physiology of Asafa Powell lends itself to lowering the world record because he has such an explosive start.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he is able to lower it below 9.7 seconds"...

BBC Sport online - 10th September 2007
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BECKHAM'S AIR MILES

The English Institute of Sport has warned that David Beckham's travel schedule will harm his performance and increase his chances of injury.

Ken van Someren, who is responsible for the health of Britain's elite athletes, said Beckham's frequent flying was a cause for serious concern.

"The problems are twofold: a reduced performance and an increased risk of injury," van Someren told BBC Sport...

BBC Sport online - 24th August 2007
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HOON HIGH AND MIGHTY

The former defence secretary Geoff Hoon's daughter is among the athletes with the potential to compete at London 2012 identified by UK Sport's "Sporting Giants" scheme, a programme for unusually tall competitors. The scheme was launched in conjunction with the English Institute of Sport to identify men over 6ft 3in and women over 5ft 11in who have the potential to excel in handball, volleyball and rowing...

The Guardian - 22nd August 2007
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BATH TEST FOR FUTURE STARS

Several potential rowing Olympians emerged from more than 200 people tested at the University of Bath by the Amateur Rowing Association's (ARA's) World Class Start Scheme, sponsored by Siemens, according to the manager of the sport's talent development programme, Peter Shakespear.The scheme aims to test tall people aged 16 to 25 who may have the qualities needed to succeed in the sport.

Bath's participants - just like the 500 tested already in Nottingham and Manchester and the hundreds more still to be tested at Gateshead and Bisham - all responded to a call through the media in February for 'Sporting Giants' orchestrated by UK Sport, who are helping with testing alongside the English Institute of Sport.

A place in future GB teams at world and Olympic level has been the catalyst for so many signing up...

The Bath Chronicle - 16th August 2007
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TALL PEOPLE WANTED FOR OLYMPIC TEST

GB Rowing, alongside UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport, are set to test 2,000 people aged between 16-25 who responded earlier this year to a national call for tall people' to come forward to try out for future Olympic Games.

The testing, starting on July 28, will include physical and aptitude tests and will take place on five different weekends around the country...

This is Wiltire Sport - 21st July 2007
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SWIMMING STAR PICKS UP HONORARY DEGREE

One of Britain's most successful swimmers has been awarded an honorary degree.

Karen Pickering MBE, who won four World Championship gold medals and 15 European Championship medals in her distinguished career, recieved the honour at Essex University...

East Anglian Daily Times - 19th July 2007
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WATFORD WIN FUTSAL CUP

The FA Futsal 5s Cup took place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield over the weekend and included a women's competition for the first time.

Watford beat Midland Combination side The New Saints (TNS) 2-0 after extra-time in the final...

Fair Game - The Women's Football Magazine, 9th July 2007
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GOLD MEDAL HOPEFULS WET BEHIND THE EARS

...this was no ordinary canoeing class. Incredibly, they were taking their first, tottering steps on the road to the 2012 London Olympics and, if everything goes to plan, a place on the medals podium.

The women, aged between 16 and 25, have all been hand picked to take part in UK Sport's Sprint Kayak Programme - a highly ambitious talent-identification project that aims to take a group of raw beginners with the right physical and psychological attributes and turn them into world-class canoeists in just five years...

..."We know they've got the basic characteristics that we're looking for, but this is really the trial period," said Natalie Dunman, talent identity co-ordinator for the English Institute of Sport.
"It's now a question of how they react to the training environment. They've made it to base camp, but they've now got to climb a mountain."...

The Daily Telegraph - by Simon Hunt, 8th July 2007
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