The EIS is the team in the background that delivers a range of performance impacting sport science and sport medicine services to over 40 Olympic and Paralympic sports to make them the best on the planet.

At the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the EIS worked with 65 of the 70 athletes - a total of 93 per cent - that won a medal and they are expected to produce similarly high results at London 2012.

However, Walker admitted that if their funding is dramatically cut after London 2012, Britain will go back to mediocrity despite having been one of the world's top sporting nations since Beijing.

"We are certainly in the leading pack in terms of international elite sporting performance and we are happy to be playing a big part in helping Britain stay ahead of its rivals," Walker told insidethegames.

"It is like with Australia, who in the period around Sydney 2000, were way out ahead of most countries in the world and were punching way above their weight.

"Britain, unashamedly, tried to copy parts of their system around that time and now, in the last few years, people have come to see Britain as the key example in terms of punching above our weight given that we finished fourth in the medal table at Beijing 2008 and are predicted to do so again at London 2012.

"The three countries above us at Beijing 2008 [China, United States and Russia] have much greater populations than us but we finished ahead of countries that have similar populations to us like Germany and France and we should do so again.

"But you can't get around the fact that funding is keeping us on top.

"Sports Minister Hugh Robertson has gone on record saying that he has secured our funding through until 2015.

"He has also guaranteed that during the cycle from 2013 to 2017, there will be no more than a ten per cent reduction which in the world we live, is pretty good.

"To be honest, if the funding were to be cut significantly in 2015, you wouldn't actually see that much of a drop off at the Rio 2016 Games because there is a short time gap between 2015 and 2016.

"But over the next four years leading up to 2012, you would see a dramatic decline in performance because our best people would move abroad and better systems and equipment would emerge in other countries that would start leaving Britain behind.

"So funding is obviously crucial in allowing us to have the best systems in place in being better than our rivals."


The EIS have now created a leading system with more than 250 practitioners that work with over 90 per cent of Olympic and Paralympic sports, delivering 4,000 hours of support to over 1,500 athletes every week.

Walker, who represented Britain at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the 110 metres hurdles before switching to rugby union and winning 17 caps for Wales, admitted there is little the EIS can do to stop rival nations attempting to copy their world leading system but said that it is not a system that can be copied exactly or in a short space of time.

"You can't stop people looking and copying your systems but there is no way to exactly replicate them unless trade secrets are given away, which we will not be doing," he said.

"But it also takes a lot of time and investment to create world leading system so it is not something you can simply look at and do overnight."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
January 2012: Alan Hubbard - When we witness Britain's success at London 2012 we must remember the team behind the team
January 2011: Nigel Walker - Ensuring the team behind the team live up to expectations
July 2010: Former Welsh rugby international to be new boss at EIS