UK Sport & Sport England Recognise Coaching Talent

It was announced today that Maciej Wojtkowiak, Lead Talent and Assistant Senior Foil Coach, will be joining UK Sport’s Elite Coaching Apprenticeship Programme.  ECAP was launched in January 2010 and is an essential element of UK Sport’s ambitious strategy for high performance coach development.  It is targeted at emerging coaches already working in the high performance system, enabling them to not only have an enhanced impact in the short term, but also to become elite coaches of the future.

Speaking about his place on the programme, Maciej said; “I am extremely delighted to be accepted to such a fantastic development programme.  I am looking forward to working with the best coaches in the UK.  This will be a great experience and learning process for me and I believe this will benefit the whole of fencing in Britain.”

In addition to this, Ian Williams, Lead Talent coach for sabre, has been selected to join Sport England’s Aspire Programme.  Run and managed by Sports Coach UK, the Aspire Programme is designed for coaches who have a realistic aspiration of coaching athletes at future Olympic and Paralympic and Commonwealth Games.  It has been developed for the next generation of coaches who have the potential to progress onto UK Sport’s world class coaching programmes in the future.

Clearly happy with his selection, Ian said; “I’m delighted to have been selected for a place on the Aspire Programme.  This is an exciting opportunity for me to further develop as a coach.  It will be exciting and very informative to work with professionals to improve my own skills and increase my coaching knowledge.  As I grow as a coach this will enable me to better support and develop our athletes.”

British Fencing’s Performance Director, Alex Newton added; “It is great news that two of our World Class Programme coaches have been successful in their applications to join two highly competitive and fully funded coach development programmes.  Maciej will be part of the Elite Coach Apprenticeship Programme (ECAP) run by UK Sport developing the next generation of coaches working with our senior elite athletes.  Ian will go through the Sport England Aspire Programme specifically aimed at coaches working with talented athletes.  I know that both coaches and fencing coaching in Britain as a whole, will benefit from their participation in these programmes and congratulate them both.”