Team Manager Lee Stutely explains that no stone was left unturned as the team prepared for Paris.
The team narrowly lost their bronze medal match at the Paris Paralympics 50-48 against Australia, but captain Gavin Walker was positive.
“If you’d have asked me two years ago, I’d have probably snatched your hand off for the experience of playing for a bronze medal,” he said, mindful of the transition the team has been in since winning gold in Tokyo.
“We go into another rebuilding process, another four years ahead of us and looking towards LA now,” he continued. “[We will be] growing the sport, putting time into grassroots and developing the team going forward.”
Not that any stone was left unturned in the build-up. “Our performance in Paris highlighted the progress we are making and confirmed that we remain at the forefront of wheelchair rugby,” says Lee Stutely, Great Britain’s Team Manager.
She is speaking to the Leaders Performance Institute about Great Britain’s two team camps that took place at St George’s Park in Staffordshire before the Games. The first, a seven-day visit in January, focused on their continuing preparations; the second, a four-day camp in August, represented the final taper towards Paris.
Both were a result of smart planning, with Stutely taking a lead on the logistics of the camps. “We came and rec’ed, just me and our Head of Performance Support & Science Barry Mason,” adds Stutely. “Then the coaches came with some athletes to check the playing surfaces.” From there, the coaches and performance team came together with Walker and vice-captain Stu Robinson to map out the sessions and structure.
All reflect with satisfaction on the work that was done in the last cycle. “The team’s trajectory is clearly on the right path toward further medal success,” says Stutely, “and we are driven by our commitment to high standards and continuous improvement.”
The team will conduct a post-Paris debrief to identify its strengths and weaknesses. “We will be hoping to learn if the systems and processes in place were effective,” adds Stutely, who emphasises how important it is to retain and refine successful strategies. “We will also examine what can be improved and what we should stop doing. As Paris showed, there is little between the top teams. We need to identify where can we get our marginal gains and what can increase our competitive edge in the next cycle.”
Chris Bond of team Australia is on the ground after a clash with Aaron Phipps of Team Great Britain during the Wheelchair Rugby Group B game Australia vs Great Britain. (Photo: Marco Mantovani/Getty Images)
The home of England
Great Britain qualified for Paris by finishing runners-up at the 2023 European Championships.
With their passage secured, the team could step up their preparations. While happy with their usual training facility at the Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire, Stutely and her colleagues felt that a change of scenery could reset minds and take players out of their comfort zones.
The 330-acre facility at SGP fitted the bill. Stutely says: “It made them more aware that they were moving onto a competition and preparing for something special rather than just being their home from home training environment.”
SGP is also the home of 24 England football teams. “We have quite a few football fans within our team so they were excited,” adds Stutely. “It’s historic and other senior teams have trained here, such as the England women’s rugby team. The venue is awesome for us because it’s accessible; and everything – training facilities and accommodation – is in one location.”
In addition to an onsite Hilton Hotel, the complex boasts 14 state-of-the-art football pitches, which can be configured for a variety of sports, as well as a range of indoor facilities including a full 3G pitch, a multifunctional sports hall, gym, hydrotherapy pools and a cryotherapy chamber.
The SGP team were on hand to allay any concerns. “Kevin Sanders was very good to us,” says Stutely of SGP’s Elite Sport & Partnerships Manager. The team could count on court time, gym time, meeting rooms and private dining rooms. “The Hilton were also very good at making sure we had as many accessible rooms as possible and that everything was suitable for our athletes’ needs.”
SGP is the home of England’s Para football teams and has long been committed to ensuring that the nation’s disability and impaired teams have equal access to the complex’s high performance facilities. It’s a point of pride for SGP, even if this process remains a work in progress, as Becky Bullock, the SGP Customer Account Lead at the Football Association, tells the Leaders Performance Institute.
“We acknowledge there is always more we can do,” she says. “We are continually learning, listening and striving to improve, and we remain dedicated to incorporating best practice into the future design and development of our facilities to be accessible for all.”
Aaron Phipps of Team Great Britain competes during Bronze medal match between Australia and Great Britain. (Photo: Aitor Alcade/Getty Images for IPC)
The future
The Great Britain team is aware of its legacy beyond the court, with Walker taking the opportunity after the bronze medal match to address the audience watching at home in the UK.
“For fans out there and people who are watching this, we’re all playing this sport after starting life with a disability or going through some sort of traumatic injury,” he said. “The fact that any athlete in the Paralympics is competing shows they’ve overcome adversity and everyone should be proud of any performance. I guess that’s the main message for anyone out there that is struggling – this is something that can get you out of those dark times.”
Wheelchair rugby, as Walker alluded to, is an egalitarian sport. It is built on ensuring that players with different care needs can compete together. Players are assigned a points-based value based on their functional ability ranging from 0.5 (those with the highest support needs) to 3.5 points (those with the fewest). The total point value of a four-player team cannot exceed 8.0 points unless it includes a female player, which affords a team an extra 0.5 points, taking the maximum total to 8.5 points.
“Some team bonding happens because of accessibility issues, the whole ‘no-one is left behind’ thing,” says Stutely. “They always look after each other.”
The British Paralympic Association works with Games authorities to ensure that athlete accommodation at all Paralympics is suitable for their teams’ needs. Stutely, who took part in her fifth Games in Paris, believes that environments have generally improved since the London 2012 Games raised the bar.
“As staff and athletes, we spend a lot of time being adaptable to the environment we enter,” she says. “Overcoming any challenges and learning how to control people’s mindsets when things are not going the right way is so important.”
Looking further ahead, Stutely is excited for Great Britain’s prospects. “We also have a promising depth of young and talented athletes. This blend of experience and emerging talent positions us well to continue competing at the highest level and achieve even greater accomplishments on the world stage.”
Further reading:
Pre-Season Preparations: Why a Home from Home Can Make All the Difference
