Gardner has a vast array of achievements to his name, notably coaching his fiancée Pendleton to a gold and silver medal at London 2012 and serving as a performance scientist for British Swimming as part of the team that led Kerri-Ann Payne to gold in the 10 kilometre open water event at the 2009 FINA World Championships in Rome.

The Australian has also held roles at the Institute for Sport in both his native country and the UK, through which he was integrated as a performance scientist within the two most successful cycling teams for their respective countries at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Games.

Throughout the previous Olympic cycle, Gardner also served as a coach mentor for GB Canoeing themselves and undertook elite sport performance research for UK Sport.

GB Canoeing performance director John Anderson said: "We are delighted to have attracted someone of Scott's calibre to head up our Canoe Sprint programme.

"At the highest level of our sport it is all about small margins and we believe that with Scott's expertise in the integration of coaching and performance science he can help us achieve those marginal gains.

"We have a great squad of athletes, including Olympic gold medallist Ed McKeever and bronze medallists Jon Schofield and Liam Heath who are continuing to Rio in 2016 and we are confident that Scott, working with our committed coaching team, will be able to help us build on our success of 2012, when Britain finished as the 3rd ranked Olympic canoeing nation."

Tim Bailie and Etienne Stott made history by winning Britain's first ever canoeing gold medal at London 2012

Gardner, who will take up his role at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre in Berkshire on June 1, is relishing the challenge of harnessing the momentum from London 2012 and further improving performance from Britain's canoeists going into Rio 2016.

"GB Canoeing is in a wonderful position to capitalise on some fantastic performances from the London 2012 Olympic Games," he said.

"I would like to thank John Anderson and his dedicated team for the opportunity to become part of a sport that is on the rise heading towards Rio 2016.

"I am passionate about seeing athletes maximise their performance potential.

"Through the integration of leading edge scientific knowledge and practices into the coaching process, I aim to help GB Canoeing's athletes to find the extra small margins required to achieve success and in so doing maximise their performance potential.

"I am really looking forward to the challenge."

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