20thMarch 2014
Dear Head of PE
National Talent Identification Programme – Playground to Podium
We are delighted to announce the second year of our national schools initiative being delivered byscottishathletics in partnership with the Scottish Government and sportscotland – Playground to Podium;our National Talent Identification Programme.
This national programme for athletics is part of ongoing developments in the lead up to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow through the INSPIRE 2014 programme. Our aim is to create and deliver an innovative and exciting programme in orderto identify and develop pupils with potential to be future Internationalathleteswho are not currently involved in athletics clubstructures.
Ultimately the aim of the programme is to motivate and inspire these young Scots to make themost of their abilities in order to become Scotland’s next generation of Commonwealth and OlympicChampions.
The talent identification programme will primarily focus on power events and we are looking to replicate the success of the workperformed by the UK Talent Team - which has deliveredseven National athlete recruitment projects and assessed over 7,000 athletes - all of whom werepreviously unknown to the UK World Class system and sports.These projects have resulted in over 100 athletes being selected by sports into their World ClassPerformance system, with 293 international appearances made and a total of 102 internationalmedals won.
Athletics as a sport has benefitted from talented young people transferring from other sports in the past and we want to highlight the fact that athletes presently competing in other sports can have the physical and mental attributes necessary to become a world-class athlete. A number of current athletes have made the successful switch including; Eilidh Child (Swimming to 400m Hurdles -Scottish Record Holder, European Champion & GB Olympian), Dai Greene (Football to 400m Hurdles - World Champion), Lawrence Okoye (Rugby to Discus Thrower - UK Record Holder), Adam Gemili (Football to 100m / 200m - World Junior 100m ChampionGB Olympian), Jax Thoirs (Gymnastics to Pole Vault - Scottish Record HolderGB Internationalist) and Jade Nimmo (Gymnastics to Long Jump - Scottish Record HolderGB Internationalist).
scottishathletics will be holding a series of Talent ID camps across Scotland in June and every one of the 376 secondary schools in Scotland are beinginvited to send along 3 male and 3 female pupils from S3 who are not currently involved in an athletics club to the Talent ID day in your region.
All athletes taking part in the talent identification days will be supported into athletics if they so wish and those athletes who are identified as having the potential to become World Class will be invited to work with an experienced coach who will be able to facilitate their development towards podium potential. Identified athletes will also be part of National Talent ID Gatherings where they will have the opportunity to speak with, spend time with and be mentored by International athletes such as Eilidh Child, Laura Muir,Lynsey Sharp, Chris Baillie and Mark Dry - as well as former Olympic Champion Allan Wells - as part of their development in the sport.
The enclosed booklet provides more information on the dates of camps as well as the tests that athletes will undertake; teachers should feel free to use the tests as a guide to which athletes to send to the talent identification days.
For more information please feel free to view the information video at or if you have any further queries please email us at
Please note that nominations of athlete names for participation in the talent identification days should be received by scottishathletics no later than MONDAY 26th MAY.
The electronic entry form is available to download here:
We hope that you will support and endorse this programme which we are sure will unearth some future stars of Scottish sport.
Yours Sincerely
Eilidh ChildStephen Maguire
Commonwealth Games Medallist Director of Coaching
scottishathletics Programme Ambassadorscottishathletics
Scottish Athletics Ltd
Caledonia House, South Gyle, Edinburgh, EH12 9DQ
Tel. 0131 539 7320