Team GB achieved its greatest ever Olympics medal haul in Rio de Janeiro with 67, finishing second in the standings behind the United States.
During his free public talk at Anglia Ruskin’s Cambridge campus, Dr Ford, the Pre-Games Manager for the British Olympic Association (BOA), will discuss the planning and attention to detail that goes into preparing for the greatest sporting occasion on earth.
Dr James Johnstone, Head of the Department of Sport & Exercise Sciences at Anglia Ruskin, said: “This summer’s performance from Team GB was incredible and although the athletes bringing home the gold medals from Rio have rightly received adulation from the media and wider public, there was a huge team of experts behind the scenes who played a key role in the success.
“Team GB in Rio was probably the best-prepared set of sportspeople we’ve ever sent to the Olympics, and Dr Paul Ford played an instrumental role in this.
“Everything from accommodation to kits, training camps to diets, was managed in painstaking detail. Marginal gains in each of these areas made a huge difference overall, turning bronzes into silvers, and silvers into golds.
“Paul’s inside story of the work that went into preparing the team before they flew out to Brazil promises to be an illuminating experience.”
This is the 5th Excellence in Sport talk organised by the Department of Sport & Exercise Sciences at Anglia Ruskin. Previous speakers have included Jessica Ennis-Hill’s coach Toni Minichiello, commonwealth judo gold medallist and Anglia Ruskin student Danny Williams, cricket legend Graham Gooch and Southampton’s Director of Football Les Reed.
To book your place for the free public talk, which will include an audience Q&A, please visit http://rio2016.eventbrite.co.uk
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For more press information please contact:
Jon Green on t: 01245 68 4717, e: jon.green@anglia.ac.uk
Jamie Forsyth on t: 01245 68 4716, e: jamie.forsyth@anglia.ac.uk
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