Sport-by-sport - Canoeing
George Tatchell
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Venue Map
| Chairman | Brian Chapman | |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Executive | Paul Owen | |
| Performance Director | John Anderson |
Sport Profile
| Funding Award (2009-2013) | £16,176,700 |
| London 2012 Performance | 2 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze |
| Athletes on World Class Performance Programme | 52 |
| Past Performances | Olympic Games, Beijing, 2008: Gold (1) - Tim Brabants (K1 1000m); Silver (1) - David Florence (C1 slalom); Bronze (1) - Tim Brabants (K1 500m) |
| Press Officer | Katriona Bush |
| Press Officer tel | 07812 523 409 |
| Website | http://www.gbcanoeing.org.uk |
| National governing body | British Canoe Union |
"A special shout out to UK Lottery Funding and UK Sport for their support which enables me to train and compete at a world class level. They truly support athletes' ambitions and fund their dreams towards London 2012 and beyond."
Liam Heath
The introduction of the 200m sprint events has created a new opportunity which was quickly seized by the GB team, identifying athletes with the physiology that best suited this shorter, more explosive event.
Through UK Sport's Research and Innovation programme, K2 200m World silver medallists Liam Heath and Jon Schofield, have accessed a 270m indoor ship tank, a once-top secret military testing facility owned by QinetiQ in Gosport. At the facility they can accurately and reliably measure their performance progress after bouts of training with no outside influence from the elements.
UK Sport's innovation team has also worked with the sport to ensure their kit, equipment and coaching tools are cutting edge, including the development of bespoke slalom boats through Stuart Morris, a UK Sport funded researcher at the University of Nottingham.
Similarly UK Sport has also worked with Frazer Nash to develop a tablet based live tagging system that allows Performance Analysts to walk the course during an event or in training and annotate the performance as it happens, in order to rapidly feed-back information on their performance which can influence athletes' strategy within the competition.
Both the sprint and slalom programme have relocated to new homes in the current cycle, with the sprint team housed at Bisham Abbey, close to the Olympic course at Eton Dorney and surrounded by the English Institute of Sports's network of experts in sports science and medicine, and the slalom team now basing themselves at the Olympic Lee Valley White Water venue.
The GB Canoeing coaching team has benefitted from having members of the team on UK Sport's coach development programmes; Paul Ratcliffe (slalom), Steve Train (spint), Nick Smith (slalom), Ian Wynne (sprint), Paul Derby Dowman (sprint), Mark Ratcliffe (slalom) and Craig Morris (slalom). The UK Sport Coaching team has also worked with all off the GB Canoeing coaches over the past three years to set up an embedded range of coach development opportunities such as coaching clubs, visits to other sports, workshops, mentoring, strength and conditioning courses and personal video feedback all linked into the individual coaches' personal development plans.
Did You Know?
Sprint kayaker Angela Hannah was identified via an early UK Sport talent ID programme when she was competing at the British Indoor Rowing Championships for Loughborough University and Richard Jeffries was identified through Sporting Giants in 2007.
Selected athletes:
Slalom:
Lizzie Neave
David Florence
Richard Hounslow
Etienne Stott
Tim Baillie
Sprint:
Edward McKeever
Liam Heath
Jonathan Schofield
Tim Brabants
Richard Jeffries
Jessica Walker
Rachael Cawthorn
Angela Hannah
Louisa Sawers
Find out more about EIS support in Canoeing.
