Memorandum submitted by the British Olympic
Association (BOA)
The British Olympic Association (BOA) is the
National Olympic Committee (NOC) for Great Britain and Northern
Ireland. It was formed in 1905 in the House of Commons, and at
that time consisted of seven National Governing Body members.
The BOA now includes as its members the 35 National Governing
Bodies of each Olympic sport.
The BOA is one of 205 NOCs currently recognised
by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOC's role is
to lead the promotion of Olympism in accordance with the Olympic
Charter. The Charter details the philosophy, aims and traditions
of the Olympic Movement. The IOC co-opts and elects its members
from among such persons as it considers qualified. Members of
the IOC are its representatives in their respective countries
and not delegates of their countries within the IOC.
The BOA's role is to prepare and lead Britain's
finest athletes at the summer, winter and youth Olympic Games.
In Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the BOA is responsible
for the development and protection of the Olympic Movement, whose
vision is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world
by educating youth through sport. The BOA provides services to
its membership including the delivery of extensive elite level
support services to Britain's Olympic athletes and their National
Governing Bodies throughout each Olympic cycle to assist them
in their preparations for, and performances at the Games. These
services are delivered in parallel to those provided by the Government
and the BOA works closely with the Minister for Sport to ensure
that both provide services to the Olympic Governing Bodies which
are complementary and not overlapping.
The BOA receives no government or lottery funding
and is completely dependent upon commercial sponsorship and fundraising
income. The impartiality this grants the BOA means that it can
speak freely as a strong independent voice for British Olympic
sport. This freedom and the independence of sports federations,
both international and domestic are enshrined in the Olympic Charter
and the BOA places a high priority on the autonomy of sport.
Great Britain is one of only five countries
which have always been represented at the summer Olympic Games
since 1896. Great Britain, France and Switzerland are the only
countries also to have been present at all Olympic Winter Games.
Great Britain has also played host to two Olympic Games in London:
in 1908 and 1948. In 2005, London was selected as the host city
for the 2012 Olympic Games.
As a result of London hosting the Games in 2012,
the BOA's commercial rights have been sold to the London Organising
Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG), to ensure LOCOG can generate
the revenue required to stage the Games. As such, the BOA cannot
raise funds through traditional sponsorship channels as it had
done previously and must now increase its fundraising activity
in order to make up the short fall generated by the additional
cost of undertaking the range of activities as a host nation National
Olympic Committee (NOC).
As outlined above, the BOA aims to maximise
Team GB performances at every Olympic Games by providing services
to governing bodies and their athletes throughout the four year
Olympic cycle. Notably, the BOA has always made it a priority
to create an exclusive training environment within a designated
Preparation Camp during the critical 2-3 weeks prior to the Games,
allowing Team GB athletes to prepare and acclimatise before entering
the Olympic Village. The BOA also provides athlete, coaching and
management training so that every competitor feels well-prepared
to deal with the unique Olympic environment. Every aspect of Team
GB's preparation is planned meticulously by the BOA to ensure
British athletes are given a world-leading chance of success.
The BOA operates various programmes which meet
the needs of Team GB athletes. These include an employment network
(OPEN) which helps athletes find careers and an extensive benefit
scheme (Olympic Passport Scheme) offering amongst other promotions,
access to national and local sports centres. Central to the BOA's
provision of training and preparation services is the British
Olympic Training Centre (OTC), set in the alpine village of Lofer,
Austria. The OTC allows British athletes, coaches and support
staff to train using world class specialist facilities for a range
of both winter and summer sports. Providing a "home-from-home"
for many athletes, the OTC has played a large part in Team GB's
success at the previous two Olympic Winter Games.
Aiming to maximise the performance and minimise
the time lost due to injury, the BOA operates the Olympic Medical
Institute (OMI), offering world class medical support to Team
GB athletes—whenever they need it. The OMI's highly experienced,
multi-disciplinary team provides both short-term and on-going
support to athletes in areas such as residential rehabilitation,
outpatient sports medicine and physiotherapy services, squad-based
sports physiology and cutting edge research developments. The
BOA's "athlete medical schemes" also provide comprehensive
medical cover for over 1,500 existing and potential Team GB athletes.
Six days after London was awarded the 2012 Olympic
Games during a conference called by the BOA, British Sport agreed
to set an aspirational target for Team GB to finish in fourth
place in the 2012 medal table. The BOA has had a succession of
outstanding performance personnel, Sir Clive Woodward being the
current Director of Elite Performance who is taking forward the
brief to analyse the ways in which the organisation could continue
to strengthen its services to the Olympic governing bodies and
their athletes in order to help reach the 2012 target. After a
year's research, the result has been the development of an "Elite
Performance Programme" which places the athlete and coach
at the centre of a support network made up of leading specialists
from areas including kinesiology, physiology, nutrition and performance
analysis. A unique communication and analysis system will ensure
the athlete receives 24/7 support from the network.
A trial on an amateur women's golfer has allowed
the BOA time to experiment and fine-tune the concept before offering
it to the Olympic sports. A pilot programme has begun with British
Judo and the BOA envisages around 30 athletes being involved in
the lead-up to 2012. The Programme will be made available to all
Olympic sports as a supplement and complement to their existing
World Class Performance Programmes. The decision on which athletes
are involved will be taken by the BOA and each Olympic sport's
Performance Director and ratified through UK Sport's "Mission
2012" monitoring process. Clive is a member of the Olympic
Expert Panel for "Mission 2012."
The programme is being offered as another service
the BOA delivers to the Olympic governing bodies and has the full
support of the Government and its elite sport agencies.
The Elite Performance Programme is centred on
world-leading specialists and a level of attention to individual
athletes which is unique throughout the world. As such, the Programme
will require significant resources which the BOA will seek from
corporate partners. The Programme is not dependent on either government
or lottery funding. The BOA is in discussion with various commercial
partners and is confident that their interest that the resource
requirements will be met.
The BOA believes that the addition of this latest
iteration of its Elite Performance Programme to the existing services
it offers Britain's Olympic sports will ensure Team GB has the
best chance of succeeding at London 2012 and beyond. To monitor
the performances of Britain's athletes in the lead-up to 2012,
the BOA produces an annual update entitled: Countdown to 2012
which ranks Team GB in a "relative Olympic medal table"
for that year. Copies of the publication from the previous two
years have been enclosed with this submission.
For the BOA, finishing in fourth place in 2012
will not be the only marker of a successful Olympic Games. The
true legacy of the London Games will be the development of world
class Olympic governing bodies. In this context the BOA developed
an initiative which partners FTSE companies with the National
Governing Bodies of Olympic sports to help improve the effectiveness
of their business delivery and performance. Each FTSE company
involved with the project provides skills and knowledge transfer
(as opposed to offering financial sponsorship) to a particular
sport in order to accelerate their organisational development,
and each company benefits through internal staff development and
motivation.
The FTSE-BOA initiative, a further service to
our membership, has delivered significant results with ten governing
bodies benefiting from valuable partnerships with some of the
world's leading business minds (further partnerships are due to
be announced in the near future). The BOA believes that sporting
organisations should be fully equipped with good governance, transparency
and in-house expertise in order to protect the autonomy of sport.
Sport is built on the work of volunteers and those coaches, clubs,
governing bodies and international federations who protect and
promote their interests. The BOA believes that autonomous governing
bodies are best placed to run their own sports and will continue
to provide services, assist, represent and support them to ensure
their independence and freedom to deliver elite performance is
protected and strengthened.
In its wider role as the host nation NOC, the
BOA plays a full part in the preparation for the Olympic Games
in London 2012; both through its membership as one of the four
members of the Olympic Board and through its Board representation
on LOCOG and the many related committees on which it serves. The
BOA seeks proactively to ensure the promulgation of Olympism and
Olympic ideals throughout the United Kingdom. It believes the
delivery of a fully funded Olympic sports legacy policy which
focuses on a substantial increase in the opportunity for everyone
to participate in sport and recreation is a critical component
of the delivery of the London 2012 Olympic Project.
November 2007
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