The Olympic Council of Ireland hosted a conference at the new Tollymore Conference Centre in Newcastle Co Down, in collaboration with the Institutes of Sport (IIS and SINI) on the 9th,10th December 2010.
Over the two days a total of 50 performance staff from Performance leads , head coaches, science and medical support staff and institute service providers working within current sports programmes attended.
The conference was led by the OCI management team for London, Sonia O’Sullivan , Stephen Martin and Martin Burke. The agenda and content for the conference was agreed and run in collaboration with the Institutes of Sport (IIS,SINI) to assist National Federations in their preparations for London 2012.
Some of the key topics covered were as follows:
- Roles and responsibilities of organisations and their support for National Federations in preparation for London 2012
- Developing a high performance culture
- Peaking for major competitions
- Science and medical strategies for London
- Working as an inter and multi disciplined teams
The sessions were facilitated by OCI, Institute and National Federation staff. In particular Stephen Martin, Martin Burke, and the OCI medical and Science team of Dr Giles Warrington, Niamh Fitzpatrick, Phil Glasgow, and Rod McLoughlin. Institute of sport leads Phil Moore and Peter McCabe together with Chris Jones,Triathlon PD contributed their expertise.
Follow up meetings will now be held in January 2011 with the OCI,National Federations and ASICS to confirm clothing requirements for each sport.
The next OCI London 2012 conference is scheduled for Tollymore Mountain and Conference Centre in early April 2011. In the interim meetings with athletes at various opportunities over the next few months have been arranged . The first meeting was held at the National Boxing Stadium on December 11th when the high performance boxing squad and some individual athletes from Judo, Eventing and Taekwondo met to hear and discuss plans for London 2012 with Sonia O’Sullivan and Athlete Commission Chair Jamie Costin. In addition Stephen Martin met the Irish Hockey squad at their centralised training base at UCD on Monday 13th December to share his Olympic experineces and plans for London.
