I am a retired professor of sport and exercise science. My Fellowship was to study the development of working relationships between doctors, coaches, sports scientists, physiotherapists and the practitioners of sport. This study was extremely important in 1990, as British sport then lagged behind better prepared athletes around the globe who had centres of sporting excellence already established.

Part of the Fellowship was conducted in the USA, specifically at the University of Texas, University of Arizona, University of Oregon and the USA Olympic Training Centre at Colorado Springs. The second part was in Australia at the University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, University of Wollongong and the Australian Institute of Sport at Canberra.

As a double Olympian, international athletics coach and university sports lecturer, I wanted to help British elite sportsmen and sportswomen to have access to a centre of sporting excellence. Recommendations were made and in 1996 an Institute of Sport was established in Sheffield – and in the 2012 Olympics, Britain was a sporting superpower.