5:09 AM
Shweta Pandey
Sir Clive Woodward is a man who most English rugby union fans would love to see come to the rescue of the national team after their disastrous World Cup campaign, but he is currently property of the British Olympic Association, where his innovations continue to produce results.
One of his slogans in his previous tenure as head coach of the England team, a time defined both by his methods and his victories, was typical of his efforts to do anything to gain an advantage: "If you win in IT, you tend to win".
Between 1998 and 2004 Woodward implemented a number of methods that raised eyebrows amongst his rivals but that ultimately gave England small "half a per cent" advantages over their opponents. He employed a vast backroom staff including coaches for specific aspects of the game (unheard of at the turn of the century): a masseur, a chef, and even a QC for any legal issues that arose on tours.
Woodward understood that to be the best rugby team in the world the England side had to be the fittest. So he completely revamped the players' health and conditioning habits. Under the advice of their nutritionist - another member of the backroom staff - the England team were put on a high protein diet that prohibited them from eating carbohydrates after lunch and recovery after matches and training was led by the use of ice baths to help halt the build up of lactic acid.
Sherylle Calder, the visualisation coach who had helped establish Australia as the dominant cricket team of the 1990s, was also brought on board by Woodward. She created a software program that players used in training and spoke with them on a one-on-one basis to try to increase their spatial awareness.
Jason Robinson, in tight fitting England kit, scorches over for a try in England's 2003 Rugby World Cup final win over Australia
Every detail was accounted for, even the rugby jerseys the team wore. Woodward had noticed that some of England's fastest players were being prevented from accelerating away because their opponents were able to tug at their jerseys. Their kit suppliers Nike were alerted to the complaint and England entered the World Cup clad in tight-fitting shirts that Woodward insists made his players harder to tackle.
At the Rugby Football Union he also introduced Prozone, an evaluation system that fed back from 12 cameras strapped to the roof of Twickenham, which allowed him to track all the performance levels of his players.
This, he says, allowed England to overtake their southern hemisphere rivals and become the best team in the world, winning the only World Cup victory by a northern hemisphere team in the tournament’s history.
Now in his role of director of elite performance at the BOA Woodward is at it again, determined to make Team GB the most technologically advanced outfit at the London Olympics.
And encouragingly for those who want to see GB athletes on the podium next year, he thinks he has the answer, thanks to the analysis software and storage products provided by a company called Dartfish. Little known outside professional sports, it is creating a minor revolution within them.
Woodward, in fact, rates the Dartfish technology, used by 22 of the BOA's Olympic sport teams, as highly as the Prozone software used on the way to Rugby World Cup victory.
"With England we understood how important technology was,” says Woodward. “So I implemented the use of Prozone and it allowed us to lead the way ahead of the Aussies and the Kiwis.
"We’ve now set up an IT hub down in Stratford where we're planning on getting live feeds from the all London 2012 events, and we're hoping to work with Dartfish in terms of the overall software programme that we're using."
The intention is for the BOA to use the live video footage provided by the Olympic Broadcasting Services during the Games and plug that footage into the Dartfish software. Coaches on the sidelines during live events are then able to watch and analyse the pictures using their iPhones and iPads and can make live decisions based on real-time performance.
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