AIS Combat Centre to offer more support to NSOs

Following significant consultation with combat sport national sporting organisations (NSOs), the AIS Combat Centre will now play a more substantial role in helping to deliver their high performance programs. The head coach of each sport will continue to lead the technical direction of their high performance program, but will be given additional support by the AIS Combat Centre as a partner to ensure the program’s planning and operations run smoothly.

The AIS, in consultation with combat sports, recently undertook a process to recruit for the new roles within the AIS Combat Centre; those roles being Combat Sport Manager, Performance Support Consultant and Operations Advisor. Andrew Pratley, Clare Humberstone and Michael Steinebronn are the successful candidates respectively for these roles. Andrew, Clare and Michael have each worked with combat sports in recent years and are very excited to be able to assist in a more hands-on way with these sport’s high performance programs.

The AIS Combat Centre will mostly work with sports prioritised under the Australia’s Winning Edge policy; currently Boxing, Taekwondo and Judo. However, the combat centre will consider providing support to individual athletes in the sports of Fencing, Wrestling and Karate if there is potential to achieve performance outcomes at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, 2020 Olympic Games and beyond.

Over the past few months, the Combat Centre team has been helping sports to clarify their high performance strategy for the next Olympic cycle, and will begin to take carriage of a number of high performance operational activities and processes for combat sports going forward. This has already lead to each sport planning exciting high performance program activities for 2018 that are sure to help athletes and coaches succeed in the future. There are also high performance camps planned at the AIS throughout the remainder of 2017 for boxing, judo, taekwondo, wrestling and fencing.

One particular initiative of note is the establishment of the AIS Combat Centre facility as the Boxing Australia Centre of Excellence, with a significant increase in camp activity in preparation for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. This is an exciting initiative for both Boxing Australia and the AIS Combat Centre.

Stay tuned to the AIS Combat Centre Facebook page for exciting updates from across the combat sports community.