British Cycling has appointed Andy Harrison as its Programmes Director, the sports governing body announced today.
Harrison – currently Performance Operations Manager for the English Institute of Sport (EIS) – will start at British Cycling in May. The role will provide additional support to the Great Britain Cycling Team structure, which has enjoyed amazing successes over the last two Olympic cycles, to ensure performances are sustained in 2016 and beyond.
Commenting on the news, British Cycling’s Chief Executive, Ian Drake, said: “Andy Harrison’s experience as a performance support and management expert for several major sporting bodies gives him a solid grounding for our new Programmes Director role.
"This is about creating a sustainable structure from which Britain can continue on its journey to become a cycling nation at all levels. It’s going to be a challenge to ensure we can sustain the remarkable success that we’ve achieved so far.
"I’m confident that the addition of Andy to the team alongside Sir David Brailsford as Performance Director and Shane Sutton as Head Coach will give us the best possible chance of continued success.”
"Having worked alongside the GB Cycling Team during their last two successful Olympic cycles, I am looking forward to becoming more involved with them as they work towards Rio."
Andy Harrison
Harrison said: “Having worked alongside the GB Cycling Team during their last two successful Olympic cycles, I am looking forward to becoming more involved with them as they work towards Rio.
"I think my experience and learnings from the elite sports industry will help drive the momentum which the team has picked up and I’m happy to have this opportunity to work with the GB Cycling Team.”
Andy Harrison has worked for EIS for the past ten years in both physiology and leadership roles. In addition, he has acted as a consultant to professional football, rugby and F1 teams. In the past year, he has also worked as High Performance Advisor at England Netball and was the Olympic Team Manager for British Swimming’s female GB water polo squad at the London Olympic Games.
Harrison originally trained as a sports scientist at the University of Liverpool and worked for the Welsh Institute of Sport fulfilling that role from 1997 to 2002. In 2010, he started studying for a PhD in ‘investigating performance leadership’ at Northumbria University.
