Hannah England of Great Britain celebrates with her country's flag after claiming silver in the women's 1500 metres final (© Getty Images)
A new study released by the ‘On Camp with Kelly’ initiative has revealed that long term mentoring makes a measurable difference to athletic performance.
The first ever study to investigate the benefits of an educational mentoring programme found that 80% of the athletes mentored by 2004 double Olympic gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes through the ‘On Camp with Kelly’ initiative, with the support of Aviva, had better performance results than their counterparts.
In addition, qualitative research by Dr. Anna Waters, a leading sport psychologist, found six key ways in which ‘On Camp with Kelly’ has been supporting athletes since 2004 and contributing to their success. From this Waters identified a six step mentoring model that has a direct impact on athlete performance and could provide a template for future sports mentoring programmes and a legacy post London 2012.
The six steps include one-to-one mentoring from Holmes, support, preparation, education, long term regular contact and injury management. The research revealed that they lead to improvements in athletes’ confidence, self belief, race knowledge, motivation, concentration, persistence and competitiveness, which results in improved performance.
The benefits of this six step process have been demonstrated by the recent success of ‘On Camp with Kelly’ athlete Hannah England who won a silver medal in the 1500m at the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu.
“The support and education I have received from the Aviva-sponsored ‘On Camp with Kelly’ initiative has been crucial in helping me to achieve success in senior competition," England said. "For a mentor to be effective you need to know them well and I have developed that relationship with Kelly over the last seven years. The support of Kelly and ‘On Camp with Kelly’ will be crucial in the build up to London 2012. Kelly has been there and done it herself and she knows exactly what you need to hear.”
Waters has also extrapolated the six step athletics mentoring model into real life skills and developed a corresponding version for health and fitness suitable for all ages and abilities.
“Developing athletes of the future, with Aviva’s support, is a passion of mine," Holmes said. "Through a long term successful mentoring programme we can develop the kind of talent in the UK that can compete with and beat the best in the world."
“Effective mentoring can open up new ideas and bring the best out of people. Everyone has obstacles to overcome at some point in life, whether they be sports orientated or personal, and one way of achieving this is through this mentoring model.”
Click here for further details on the research findings.
Emily Lewis for the IAAF