UK Sport

Talent initiative gives Britain's Paralympic potential a boost

Talent 2012: Paralympic Potential Ambassador Danielle Brown
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Jessica Whitehorn 24 March 2010

To mark 1000 days to go to the 2012 Paralympic Games, on 3 December last year, the UK Talent Team (UK Sport and the EIS) in partnership with ParalympicsGB, launched Talent 2012: Paralympic Potential, a nationwide search for undiscovered potential Paralympians, capable of winning medals for Great Britain at the home Games in London.

As identified via UK Sport’s Mission 2012 programme, there were still opportunities to fill talent gaps within Paralympic sports in time for success in London in 2012, and so Talent 2012: Paralympic Potential aimed to support the sports to work in partnership to do so in a proactive and targeted manner.

Ambassadors from various Paralympic sports, including British Cycling’s Paralympic Champion Sarah Storey and GB Rowing’s World Champion David Smith, challenged members of the British public with any form of impairment to rise to the Paralympic challenge and find out whether they too might have what it takes to make the winner’s podium in just over two year’s time.

Over 300 individuals applied to take part in several sport-specific and multi-sport testing days that took place across the country throughout January and February 2010, and over 200 of these individuals were invited for testing in at least one sport.

The single sport assessments have already resulted in 26 athletes being invited onto talent confirmation programmes with archery, athletics, boccia, cycling, judo, rowing and shooting.

‘Talent confirmation’ is an extended period of training and assessment where an athlete’s progress and talent characteristics are closely monitored by coaches in partnership with the UK Talent Team, in order to make final selections for the World Class Performance Programme. This will include examination of an athlete’s ‘coachability’, response to training stimuli and adaptation to the high performance environment, and could last from three to 12 months. In this case the confirmation period is likely to be closer to the former, given the short timescales the athletes will be working to for 2012.

In addition to the single sport days, ParalympicsGB also hosted multi-sport assessment days where sports including fencing, powerlifting and football tested the applicants. These multi-sports days were a continuation of ParalympicsGB’s successful talent programme, which will continue with a new focus on finding talented athletes for Sochi in 2014 and Rio in 2016. The sports are still making final selection decisions from these days.

Nik Diaper, Lead Talent ID Scientist for Paralympic Sport from the UK Talent Team, said: “The athletes we have identified are exactly what this campaign was all about. We knew there were talented individuals out there, taking part or even competing in a sport already that had no idea that they were eligible or good enough to represent Great Britain at the Paralympic Games in 2012.

“It’s fantastic that so many Paralympic sports have gained new talent from this project. We now look forward to monitoring and supporting their athletes’ progress while immersed in a world class training environment, in a sport they are best suited to, and, while it's a long journey ahead, we hope to see a number of them on the podium in 2012.”

Glynn Tromans, GB Boccia’s Talent Manager, said: “The Paralympic Potential talent search enabled GB Boccia to look below the surface of the sport and engage with players who were either off the radar of the Home Countries or who had never played before. This complemented our internal search, and we have been wholly impressed with the standard of players, suggesting boccia has greater strength in depth than was first anticipated. Significant numbers of young and emerging players are set to challenge the current standards.

“From various sources, we have selected nine players onto the confirmation programme, and while we realise that these numbers will diminish as we go through the process, those that successfully emerge at the other end will form a GB Boccia Fast Track Talent Squad and have every chance of being available for selection for the 2012 Games.”

Watch the Paralympic Potential Video.

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