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Talent Spotting in Berlin

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Matthew Crawcour 06 September 2006

Some of the UK’s key practitioners who have responsibility for identifying and promoting medal wining talent towards 2012, were in Germany at the weekend to catch up on the latest international best practice. It also provided an opportunity to begin sharing expertise and experiences across the UK’s own World Class Talent Identification programmes.

UK Sport’s Talent Identification Performance Consultant, Chelsea Warr invited World Class Olympic Development Managers from British Cycling, British Canoeing, British Equestrian, British Athletics and British Rowing to join her at a symposium being run by the International Council for Sports Science and Physical Education in Berlin. The session was also attended by Natalie Dunman from the English Institute of Sport, currently a Fast-Track Physiology intern, given that TID is as much about science as it is an art.

Gary Coltman (British Cycling), Anne Ferguson (British Canoeing) and Peter Shakespear (British Rowing) made the trip and not only found out what other leading sporting nations were up to, but also had a rare opportunity to compare notes and learn from each other’s experiences of unearthing and grooming talent for the World stage.

Chelsea Warr explained:

“The opportunity to attend the symposium and take along some of the UK’s leading Olympic TID Managers was too good to resist. It’s a chance for them to "peer" outside their own sport specific environments and see how they measure up to alternative thinking and practice on the World stage. In some cases, it provided the opportunity to confirm that aspects of their own programmes were actually on–track. At the same time we were able to start sharing in-house UK expertise and experiences across sports, so that lessons learned are captured and assist in fast-tracking our mission to deliver medals in 2012."

The Olympic Development Managers - with the support of their Performance Directors - needed little persuasion to make the trip. With only six years to go to the London Games, and perhaps less than 5 in real performance terms, all the UK’s Olympic and Paralympic sports are keen to start raising the level of sophistication by which future World Class talent is detected and developed.

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