NSWIS Collaborates with French Connection

New South Wales Institute of Sport’s (NSWIS) Director of High Performance, B-J Mather, described the recent visit by a delegation from the French National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP) as an opportunity to ‘share, learn, and collaborate’.

The French delegation, which also visited the Sports Institutes/Academy in Victoria, Queensland, and Auckland, included INSEP’s Director General Fabien Canu, Director Babak Amir-Tahmasseb, and Head of Performance Bertrand Daille.

Besides visiting NSWIS, the trio headed to the Penrith Whitewater Stadium to watch – and meet – the Institute’s Canoe Slalom scholarship athletes, including Jess and Noemie Fox, Lucien Delfour,  Kaylen Bassett and coach Titouan Dupras at a training session.

Mather said the visit was beneficial in establishing an alliance with the Institute for the host nation of next year’s Olympics and Paralympics, and to also learn how they approach a raft of issues which are similar to the ones NSWIS face.

“It’s good to create relationships across different nations – and different facilities – with people who are in similar situations to us so that we can learn from them, and to see how they deal with problems and issues that inevitably crop up,” said Mather.

“We all have the same issue with funding – nobody knows how to solve that one – but it is a very valuable thing to sit down and have a learning opportunity with people.”

Mather said while the delegation was particularly interested to see how NSWIS athletes were being prepared for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, he was keen to learn how France had primed the young talent they identified a decade ago to compete at the 2024 Games.

“They were interested to see how we’re preparing for Paris, and what we found was there’s parallels with France and what we’re hoping to do in 2032,” said Mather.

“While they have INSEP as their central organisation, they also have regional centres of excellence which are similar to our Regional Academies of Sport (RASIs) and our sports high schools.

“It was insightful to learn how they interact in France, and how they manage their system.”

Mather said the more he speaks to overseas-based institutes, the more he appreciates there is a feeling of solidarity.

“What I took from meeting with Fabian, Babak and Bertrand is we’re not alone; we’re all in the same boat,” he said. “We have the same goals as INSEP.

“On another subject, it was also interesting to learn about their personal experiences of transitioning from athletes – all of them are Olympians – and how they transferred what they learned as athletes into their careers.

“Coming from professional sport I have found it is a big change . . .  culturally it’s different . . . but the performance issues are the same. We’re all asking the same questions, we all want to get better, the same stresses we work under, different environments.

For Bertrand Daille, (pictured second from left) the trip to NSWIS was an eye opener, but going to Penrith was special because he confessed to having an “emotional” bond to the place.

As a former world champion in the C2 team event, he spent time at the venue ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and he said NSWIS’s scholarship athletes were fortunate to have such a facility at their disposal.

“It’s a wonderful place,” enthused Daille. “We have some artificial courses in France, but not like this one. I think it’s the best place for training in the world.”

Daille said he shared Mather’s desire to collaborate with international Institute’s to develop best practices.

“It’s important to improve how people work, and how we can use some of their ways of working,” he said. “We are going to take some things from Australia, and we’ll use it in France.

“It is crucial. Seeing and using what people are doing can only improve performance.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS