Elite sport is a continuously demanding process. Performance Directors and coaches often tell me that for them the most important challenge is always the next one and this mindset has been reflected in the work of the England Institute of Sport (EIS) since the end of the Rio games where we have been intently focused on what we need to do to help our athletes achieve even better levels of performance.

It will be a massive challenge.

To achieve second place in the medal table at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio and win a combined total of 91 gold, 62 silver and 61 bronze medals was an amazing achievement.

It had become an axiom of elite sport to say that no nation could improve upon its medal tally in the Games after the one it hosted, so to overturn this at both the Olympics and Paralympics was astonishing.

The EIS worked with 93 per cent of the athletes that won a medal for Team GB and Paralympics GB in Rio and whilst it is satisfying to know that we made a contribution to this success, the time for looking back is over and our focus now is on the challenge in front of us.

We operate in an intensely competitive environment where doing the same things that made you successful in the past are no guarantee of maintaining this in the future.

We have to move-on and as part of our plans for the Tokyo cycle, the EIS has identified three major areas of priority where we believe the organisation can enhance and improve the level of support we deliver to coaches and athletes.

These priorities have been developed following extensive consultation with sports and are areas where they have specified they would like the EIS to assist.

To begin with we have simplified the way we work with sports. The range and diversity of expertise now contained in many of our multi-disciplinary teams has grown significantly in recent years so to simplify the interface between our teams and the sports we have created a single point of leadership and accountability across all the sports we work with. This will improve the performance planning process and enable us to ensure that every service we deliver is aligned to each sports’ model of ‘What it takes to win’ (WITTW). 

Following the success of the Performance Data Management System (PDMS) we developed in the Rio Cycle, the EIS is expanding our work in the area of Athlete Health.

Performance directors often tell me that reducing the number of days that GB athletes lose to injury has the potential to deliver significant performance benefits and our newly formed Athlete Health team will work with sports to provide injury and illness surveillance and analysis that can be used to inform individualised training programmes and medical plans. 

A third priority for the Tokyo cycle will be an even greater focus on Performance Innovation and the novel application of ideas to bring about performance benefits. 

This work will be delivered by the EIS’s Performance Innovation team (previously known as the Research & Innovation team) which will work closely with sports and front-line EIS practitioners to address specific performance issues or deploy technology and engineering to develop kit, equipment or new approaches to help athletes achieve improvements in performance.

Underpinning and enabling this will be a greater focus on the use of data and analytics in the next four years. In the EIS we have established a community of practice that accelerates the use of data-driven insights and we aim to use this to accelerate the adoption of data and analysis as tools to inform decisions that have the potential to improve performance. 

All of these priorities are focused on helping our athletes to emulate the achievements of London and Rio. However, in striving to be successful, there is widespread recognition across the high performance system that winning does not come at any cost and we have a duty of care to protect the wellbeing of our athletes.

The EIS has made significant progress in this area over a number of years and we have developed detailed policies and standards that cover a wide range of areas including: physical and mental health, lifestyle support, professional conduct and standards, safeguarding and protection and whistleblowing and confidential disclosure.

Building on this work and ensuring that we continue to deliver a duty of care and preserve the health and wellbeing of our athletes will be a significant priority for the EIS and our partners across the system in the Tokyo cycle. 

The journey to Tokyo officially begins tomorrow. It promises to be an exciting four years and there will be ups and downs along the way. 

Nothing worth achieving in life is ever easy, yet I am confident that through the excellence of our people, the backing of UK Sport, the National Lottery and the Exchequer, and all of our partners across the high performance system, we have the capability to help our athletes build on their achievements and deliver more medal success for the nation in Tokyo.