Thompson On Director Of Sport Science Role

 

by James Skitt - 25.11.08

Last week the English Institute of Sport (EIS) announced the appointment of Professor Kevin Thompson to the role of Director of Sports Sciences, starting in January 2009.

Eis2win.co.uk spoke to Professor Thompson to find out more about his new role and how he views the development of Sport Science services at the EIS…

Q: What will your new role as Director of Sport Sciences entail?

KT: The role entails being the technical voice for science within the EIS national management team and leading the national science team in its mission to support and enhance the delivery and development of the EIS-wide science team.  It is critical that the national science team supports practitioners in their quest of gaining a performance impact with the athletes they support but do not duplicate the operational management structures that are operating.  We need to add value where it will give the best chance of improving a medal chance in London 2012 or performance at equivalent competitions for the English sports we support.   

Q: How do you see the development of EIS Sports Science services going forward?

KT: Firstly, I want to debrief the Beijing Olympic cycle and review current roles and responsibilities to determine where and how the national science team are strategically able to make the greatest performance impact with the time available.  Areas I am particularly keen to develop are: identifying models of best practice in terms of support delivery so these can be disseminated to further develop service provider practice across sports and enhance the operational understanding of EIS managers, constructing an on-line library of easily accessible resources, creating a college of experts and working closely with NGBs and UKSport to ensure high impact projects are being resourced as effectively as they can be with the networks and resources we have available.  Over the next two years we will also need to be horizon scanning to identify key individuals and technologies so they can be potentially trialed and introduced to impact on London 2012.

Q: As well as providing world class service delivery, how do you view the role of the EIS as innovators in Sports Science?

KT: World class delivery requires service providers to deliver the appropriate level of support at the appropriate time depending on the competition cycle of that sport, but also requires that the service provider is continuously reflecting and innovating for the development of the service they are providing and for their own personal development.  However having identified an innovation the skill is to determine, with key stakeholders, if and when the innovation should be developed, trialed and implemented given the potential risk and benefit to a performance impact.  I firmly believe that the EIS have already been innovating in terms of best practice with the sports they support but high performance sport never sleeps and so you need to keep innovating just to keep up.  I want to be confident that we are capturing innovations and cross pollinating amongst service providers and coaches so that benefits can be reaped efficiently across sports.  High performance sport attracts incredibly intelligent critical thinkers who are completely committed to gaining a performance impact for their sport.  The EIS National Science team will continually look at ways of supporting them and to do this we need to be aware who is doing what and how so that networks can be set-up to maximize the impact of an innovation.

Q: Some sports are already successfully embracing sports science - how do you plan to ensure we stay ahead of the game?

KT: I have been very fortunate in my previous role as Regional manager of the North East and North West EIS teams to lead and to learn from a highly successful team of service providers who supported some 20 Olympic medalists in Beijing and who work so closely on a daily basis with world leading high performance programmes such as British Cycling, Disability Swimming and England Squash.  The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games demonstrated that a large number of sports are not only accessing sport science but are also exploiting it effectively.  However I can assure you that EIS science staff are already discussing lessons learnt from Beijing with colleagues, coaches and athletes and are horizon scanning to stay ahead of the game.  I am already aware of a number of key areas we need to improve on and will no doubt become aware of others when I begin this new role. 

Q: What do you see as the key challenges in your new role?

KT: Well you ask at a time when a review of funding to sport and ourselves is nearing it’s climax and so the immediate challenge is to determine what this means for the EIS and to develop a strategy which embraces the resources we have going ahead with the intent of improving performance in London 2012.