Sponsored by
Pulling out all the stops for Nicola
Two companies from South Yorkshire's Advanced Manufacturing Park have joined forces to ensure women's bobsleigh champion Nicola Minichiello gets her bid for Gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics off to a flying start.
Apprentices from the Park's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre used their manufacturing and engineering skills in a race against time to turn the latest designs from Innovation Technology Centre company Bromley Technologies into bobsleigh runners.
The runners had to be ready in time for Nicola and her brake woman, Gillian Cooke, to take them straight out to the US to start pre-season preparation and testing in time for the start of the World Cup season in November.
Nicola and Gillian are among a number of athletes supported by Formula Ice 2010 sponsorship initiative, set up by Bromley Technologies, which was founded by 2008-9 Triple Crown skeleton bob World Champion, Professor Kristan Bromley, whose partner, Shelley Rudman is the current Olympic skeleton bob Silver medallist and the only British medallist from the last winter games.
"Very few people know there is so much ice-sport talent within a 25-mile radius," said Bromley's chief operating officer, Mike Maddock, himself a former bobsleigh competitor.
"The apprentices have been fantastic. Under the direction of training manager Paul Rigden and workshop manager Ashley Godbehere they have delivered to a very high standard and to the timescales demanded by the sport. The AMRC support has been invaluable.
"By drawing also on expertise from aerospace and Formula One we have become one of the world's best winter-sport innovators in equipment design and manufacture. Medals are one way we measure success."
A number of local companies are already supporting the Formula Ice initiative, but Bromley Technologies is keen to find more sponsors in the run up to the Olympics in Vancouver and wants to build support so that it can help even more athletes for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, a Russian resort city on the banks of the Black Sea.
"Elite athletes make huge personal sacrifices to compete at international level and we want to give that extra edge," says Mike Maddock.
"We are passionate about supporting our athletes to become World Number Ones by continuing to build the world's fastest equipment. We want to raise the profile of winter sport to show that we have world-class athletes and that, as a nation, we are up with the best."
Buy The Star - Monday to Saturday - for local news, sport, features and ads. To subscribe CLICK HERE
READ MORE
Main news index
Your letters
Features
South Yorkshire's environmental news
Kids Zone
More business news
More Rotherham news
More Doncaster news
More Barnsley news
Latest sport
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
