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Natalie Dunman: Search for 2016 talent powers-up

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Natalie Dunman 27 October 2011

Natalie Dunman, Lead Talent Scientist at the English Institute of Sport

With little more than 300 days to go until the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games get under way, focusing on life after London might seem like the sporting equivalent of looking at the menu and then asking for the bill.

But for those of us in the UK Talent Team, our day-to-day activities are fixed on Rio 2016 and recruiting the next generation of athletes that will try to emulate the success we hope to see Great Britain achieve in London.

The UK Talent Team is a joint venture between UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport (EIS) and works with national governing bodies to support their talent identification and development activities.

It is a key part of the high-performance system and uses detailed analysis to identify and develop talent. In recent years, it has run a series of programmes to spot athletes with the capability to succeed in Olympic and Paralympic sports.

Our programmes often focus on attributes that can be transferred across sports and may entail a person switching from one discipline to another. One of our most successful examples of this was Sporting Giants, which, in 2008, identified someone who played hockey and did cross-country running to a high standard, yet demonstrated the physical attributes required for rowing. That person was Helen Glover (pictured, above right) and, after a successful transition into rowing, she recently won a silver medal at the 2011 World Championships in Bled, Slovenia.

Planning for 2016 is in full swing and, over three recent weekends, we have held assessment days for more than 300 athletes at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, Lee Valley Athletics Centre and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, as part of our new Power2Podium initiative.

Power2Podium aims to recruit athletes with speed and power, and assess their suitability for joining talent-development programmes in one of athletics, sprint canoeing, sprint cycling, weightlifting, skeleton, bobsleigh and rugby sevens.

Attendees at the assessment days have been selected after completion of an initial questionnaire and come from a range of speed- and power-based disciplines. The day consists of speed, power and strength tests to assess potential. The results are collected, analysed and benchmarked against the scores of athletes already in the talent pool for each of the seven sports.

Candidates that match or better the scores of those currently in the talent system will come into consideration for phase two and will be given the opportunity to take part in an assessment camp.

Three more assessment days are planned in Stirling, Leeds and Loughborough, and, by the end of October, we will have looked at more than 1,000 men and women, aged 15-26.

Olympic 200 metres silver medallist, Darren Campbell (pictured, below), attended the first assessment day at Crystal Palace and spent time talking to the candidates about his experiences of switching from football to athletics, what it takes to become an Olympian and the transformation in the level of support provided to athletes compared to when he started out.

Representatives from the seven Power2Podium sports have also attended. Ben Ryan, head coach of England Rugby Sevens, who came to Crystal Palace, told me: "Initiatives like Power2Podium are a great way of enhancing and complementing our existing talent-development programmes, and ensuring we leave no stone unturned. They give us the opportunity to assess athletes who may have all the physical attributes to succeed in our sport, it's just that they have never had the opportunity or the inclination to sample it."

Feedback from across the sports has been positive and an initial look at the test results for the first three assessment days indicate some of the candidates are delivering test results that match the scores of those already in the talent system.

The success of previous talent campaigns, which have produced 65 international medals at junior, U23 and senior level, including 13 at World Championships, give us every reason to be hopeful that Power2Podium will add to the haul.

Who knows? It could be that we have already uncovered - or are about to find - someone who will be standing on the podium at Rio 2016. Of course, when that moment comes, my colleagues and I in the UK Talent Team will already be focused on 2020!

This blog was first published on InsidetheGames.

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