A number of new appointments have been made to enhance the Centre of Excellence delivery and help British Judo achieve medal success.

Performance Director Nigel Donohue is extending his vision beyond Rio towards Tokyo as the Centre will also focus upon Podium Potential athletes and aspiring, ambitious juniors looking towards 2020.

He said: “There are several stages to success and we now have a six year plan in place to achieve success in Rio and Tokyo. We have a dynamic team in place now and we are looking forward to delivering the best possible service to enable them to have the best success for Rio. Teamwork is vital, and we have a fantastic team in place together with a brilliant Chairman and Chief Executive. As Performance Director, I am part of the team, and have a job to do as part of the team like everyone else. For the athletes, just being here will not make you world class, it is how you engage with the programme, then you can be world class.”

Some of the new staff include Gary Henderson who has has been appointed Performance Operations Manager, and will oversee all of the Centre’s day to day operations, the delivery of our new strategy, and engagement with external partners.

Performance Pathway Manager James Thomas joins us from being the Performance Director for Welsh Boxing, delivering the largest medal haul in over 40 years at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. His focus will be to work with the performance team, home nation programmes and the membership to put in place a pathway that will deliver sustained success for Great Britain at the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo and beyond.

Jason Laird British Judo’s Lead Physiotherapist works closely with athletes to ensure they receive the most appropriate medical care and rehabilitation. He is also working to profile all athletes to educate and advise them on how to prevent injury.

Allan McDonald joins us as the Lead Strength & Conditioning Coach and has been putting the athletes through their paces in the gym day in, day out. He is a former Judoka who worked with JudoScotland.

Louise Bloor from Rotherham is a Performance Nutritionist who currently splits her workload with British Diving. She is responsible for providing athletes with nutrional advice to enhance their performance. She has worked with Boxing in the past and has represented England in athletics at the Commonwealth Games as a member of the 4 x 100m women’s relay.

Ruth Barry is the English Institute of Sport Performance Lifestyle Advisor responsible for supporting athletes to maintain a lifestyle that complements their performance needs as elite athletes.

Chris Barry joins British Judo after working for Glasgow Warriors since 2010 as both a Performance Analyst and Sport Science Consultant. He has introduced a new video analysis coaching system into the dojo to assist coaches and athletes to analyse their performance and enhance their techniques.

Denny Roberts is our new Visually Impaired (VI) Talent Identification Officer. Denny will primarily be responsible for developing grass roots visually impaired judo, with an aim to propel players with potential into the VI performance programme. Denny has been working with Junior World VI Champion Christopher Skelley as well as in the past coaching Paralympic bronze medallist Ben Quilter.

Psychologist Andrew Cruickshank will shortly be joining us and helping players to access techniques to help them best perform and cope with the stresses of sporting life.

We also have Lauren Jackson supporting Allan as Strength and Conditioning Intern.