Neil given major role at the Olympics helping to get athletes in prime fitness
A contact tracing advisor is about to swap slowing the spread of Covid-19 for helping the UK’s top athletes to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
Strength and conditioning specialist, Neil Lewis, from Bettws Cedewain, near Newtown, works for British Equestrian making sure its riders are in peak condition for the Olympics.
He will be responsible for overseeing the final physical preparations for up to 10 sports at the Team GB training camp in Japan in the weeks leading up to and during the Games.
For the past five months he has been part of Powys County Council’s team advising those who have tested positive for Covid-19, and their close contacts, to self-isolate and more recently providing telephone support to Powys Teaching Health Board’s mass vaccination programme.
He said: “This will be my first Olympics and I’m incredibly excited to be working with Team GB. Across four Olympic cycles I have worked with GB Rowing, Sailing and Equestrian teams. So, I’ve been preparing athletes since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but this will be the first time I’ve actually been on the plane to the games for the final weeks of preparation.
“I will be working on everything from gymnastics and hockey to weightlifting. There will be 10 different sports coming into the final preparation training camp while I am there.
“I was selected to go to the Rio Olympics but because of the Zika virus outbreak, the size of the training camp was scaled down and unfortunately I missed out. It was massively disappointing, but here we are again four years later, and I am really looking forward to it.”
Neil will be in Japan for a month helping the GB athletes to prepare.
He said: "It is going to be different to any other Olympics that has gone before. The over-riding priority is going to be the safety of the public and athletes alike – which is completely understandable and right. At this Olympics there will be no international spectators and there will be limited physical interaction between the Japanese public, athletes and support teams.”
Councillor Graham Breeze, Powys County Council’s portfolio holder for corporate governance, engagement and regulatory services, added: “We wish Neil, and his Team GB athletes all the success in the world at the Tokyo Olympic Games and hope that all of his hard work pays off.
“If they work as effectively as our Test, Trace, Protect teams has done in Powys – with their contact tracing work and support for the mass vaccination programme – they will be onto a winner, I’m sure.”
