Talent Lab
Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award
Simon Timson and Chelsea Warr were the Performance Directors of UK Sport, tasked with the outrageous objective of delivering even greater success to Team GB and ParalympicsGB at Rio than in 2012. Something no other host nation had ever achieved in the next Games.
In The Talent Lab, Owen Slot brings unique access to Team GB’s intelligence, sharing for the first time the incredible breakthroughs and insights they discovered that often extend way beyond sport. Using lessons from organisations as far afield as the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, the NFL Draft, the Royal College of Surgeons and the SAS, it shows how talent can be discovered, created, shaped and sustained.
Charting the success of the likes of Chris Hoy, Max Whitlock, Adam Peaty, Ed Clancy, Lizzy Yarnold, Dave Henson, Tom Daley, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Katherine Grainger, the Brownlee Brothers, Helen Glover, Anthony Joshua and the women’s hockey team, The Talent Lab tells just how it was done and how any team, business or individual might learn from it.
Owen Slot (Author)
Owen Slot is the Chief Rugby Correspondent for The Times. He has covered six summer Olympics and three winter Olympics. He has three times won Sports Reporter of the Year and three times won Sports Feature Writer of the Year. He has written five books: two romantic comedies, two children’s novels, and was ghost-writer of Jonny, the autobiography of Jonny Wilkinson.
Simon Timson (Author)
Simon Timson led the successful development and delivery of Team GB’s performance strategy throughout the Rio cycle, as Director of Performance at UK Sport. He has since become Performance Director for the LTA / British Tennis. Previously, Simon was Head of the England Cricket Development Programme when England became the No1 ranked nation, and Performance Director of British Skeleton, leading two medal-winning Olympic campaigns.
Chelsea Warr (Author)
Chelsea Warr is the Director of Performance at UK Sport. She pioneered Team GB’s talent identification and development programme, that discovered Olympic champions like Helen Glover, Tom Daley and Lizzy Yarnold. She joined UK Sport in 2005, before which she was a physiologist with the Australian Institute of Sport and then Talent ID manager for British Swimming.