On 14 March 2013, the Irish Sports Council (ISC) released its official debrief with regard to the 15 sports that sent athletes to the London 2012 Olympic Games. Researched and produced by KKP, it examines the performances of athletes and evaluates the effectiveness of the approach(es) adopted by each Olympic NGB in the run up to the Games.
KKP was tasked to review the performances of Irish athletes in London and the impact of pre-Games planning and preparation. This included scrutinising the interaction between key support agencies (the ISC, the Olympic Council of Ireland, the Irish Institute of Sport, Sport Northern Ireland and the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland) during the four-year lead up period to the Games.
Report compilation involved extensive consultation with senior personnel from Ireland’s high performance sports and linked support agencies. Representatives of NGBs in the 15 Olympic sports were interviewed, along with many athletes who competed at the Games.
In total, 140 people were consulted by the KKP team, including distance runner Fionnuala Britton, boxing medallists John Joe Nevin, Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan, equestrian bronze medallist Cian O’Connor and Peter Taylor, father and coach of gold medal winning Katie. We also interviewed the CEOs, performance directors and key coaches and support staff from each NGB.
The final report contained a series of generic and detailed sport-by-sport recommendations in respect of the improvement of NGB high performance programmes and governance processes. Reports also covered communications, sports science and sports medical support for elite athletes and relationships between high performance programmes and generic NGB governance.
John Eady: CEO of KKP who led the work added “detailed evaluations of this scale are among KKP’s core specialisations; we look forward to seeing Irish Olympic sport building on the recommendations made and moving forward successfully to Rio 2016”.
Contact: john.eady@kkp.co.uk
