My experience as a Team England scientist at the Commonwealth Games

We began together as one team for the first time at the Commonwealth Games Immersion Camp in Loughborough on Wednesday 20 July. The kitting out day was a special event with a great sense of pride as we received our Commonwealth Games attire. This was followed by five days of seeing England’s best swimmers come together and undertake some impressive training ready for the summer games. During this camp, I provided blood lactate support during some of their key sessions to ensure their Physiology was in the correct place for this phase of training.

Preparation and PCR testing

During day three of the Camp, four of us took on the role of setting up what would become the preparation area for our swimmers. We first had to all go to the NEC in Birmingham which is where everyone would receive their accreditation. This process involved getting a PCR Test and awaiting just over an hour and a half (during peak times this went up to between 4-6 hours!) for the results before we could proceed to the competition venue. Our aim upon arrival was to create a space where our presence would be felt, and the swimmers could optimally prepare for the race ahead of them. 

Inside the village

A village experience is something I don’t think I’d ever get used to… free food, drinks and most importantly for me personally, coffee. The atmosphere was electric from the moment you walk in and set the tone for what was to come.  

Once the Games began on 29 July my role shifted to one of the Performance Analysts. This meant recording all races and analysing them to provide the coaches objective and comparable feedback which assisted in getting the swimmers to progress from heats to semi-finals, and then the final, hopefully swimming a personal or season’s best in the process. This can be a very intensive process usually leading to a late night (or into the early morning!) of work to ensure the coaches receive the feedback for the following day.

Cheered on to victory by the home crowd

Overall, the experience is like no other I have ever had. There were some lows but plenty of highs which lead to roars from the crowd that I’ve never heard before and still give me chills as I write this now. Especially on the last night when we won the 4 x 100 Medley Men's Relay beating the Australians and narrowly missing the Games Record.

To finish I have got to thank the incredible leadership team (Grant Robins, Mel Marshall, Diane Elliot and Rod Wardle) who put a lot of hard work into the planning and logistics over the last couple of years, which came to fruition this week when we certainly achieved the aim of having a positive, proactive, one team culture which strived to have their best games ever.