Colin McIver 9th Dan was recognised for his services to judo at the UK Coaching Awards on Tuesday 1 December as he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Throughout his 47 years of involvement in judo Colin has worked and influence change across many aspects of judo in a creative, forward thinking manner. His working and volunteer life has spanned many areas: National Referee, Senior/Director Examiner (gradings), Club Coach, Scottish Coach/Manager, British National Coach, Manager and Performance Director (Los Angeles and Athens Olympic Games), CEO (JudoScotland), Technical Director (British Judo) and currently Community Delivery Manager (British Judo).

From an organisation point of view Colin also planned and organised the 1979 European Judo Championships (Edinburgh) and 1986 Commonwealth Games (Judo – Edinburgh).

During his times as British National Coach his team won many World Titles and Olympic medals through players like Craig Fallon, Karina Bryant, Neil Adams, Neil Eckersley, Densign Wight, Kerrith Brown and Elvis Gordon.

As CEO of JudoScotland and British Judo Technical Director he has supported many of Britain’s World Medallists and Olympians to ensure they have the judo and life skills to secure World, European and Commonwealth medals.

Scotland’s first World medallist Joyce Heron, first World champion Graeme Randall, World bronze medallists John Buchanan and Euan Burton, European champion Sarah Clark and David Somerville are just a number of players who have developed under Colin and have now gone on to coaching or development roles within judo and continue to contribute significantly to the sport.

On receiving the award McIver said:

“I’m obviously delighted and honoured to have received the award and really pleased that judo has been recognised. In general I’m really pleased to see coaches being recognised though I did find it interesting that I followed the young volunteer winner! There was a bit of an age gap..!

“It’s really pleasing to see how well players I’ve worked with do in their post-judo careers. It’s great to see them make success of their lives in judo and other areas such business and clearly judo has helped them be successful.”

The highly experienced coach also had some words for advice for anyone working in sport at the moment:

“Keep learning and keep moving forward. We need to embrace change and adopt new methods. The players coming through now are so different to how they were in the past, there are so many different challenges and distractions around them. We need to respect the traditions but also adapt with the times. And always remember that coaching is not about you.”