TeamBath Buccaneers men’s firsts will be presented with their England Hockey League Conference West Trophy ahead of Saturday’s (20 March) home game at the University of Bath Sports Training Village. The trophy will be presented by ...
What We Do
Team Bath is the University of Bath’s sports brand. It covers the family of sports and recreation-related activities at the University.
Team Bath is based within world-class, £30 million sports facilities including the Sports Training Village. Our “home” is used as a training base by Olympic and world-level athletes as well as providing facilities and services to local, regional and national sports groups, squads and individual members of the public, making Team Bath unique in British sport.
Team Bath offers:
cutting edge sports science and medicine services; a thriving junior sports section, called Team Bath Tribe; a growing list of spectator and participation events; a world class coaching group.
Team Bath has a passion for sport and sports development and a burgeoning national and international reputation for delivering excellence in sport and recreation.
Home to Champions
Steph Cook and her training partner Kate Allenby left for Sydney from Bath in 2000 and came back with an Olympic gold and bronze respectively in modern pentathlon. Four years later, in the same sport, Team Bath’s George Harland was a bronze meallist. In bob-skeleton both Alex Coomber (bronze, 2002) and Shelley Rudman (silver, 2006) based much of their training at Bath. And, in 2004, Bath-born and raised Jason Gardener went to Athens and came back to his training home with an Olympic athletics gold medal.
The RFU use Team Bath as the base for their national academy, rugby league trained here before the tri-nations. Various leading football teams, the All Blacks, England’s netballers and others have chosen to make Team Bath their training location from time to time.
Where did it all start?
The University of Bath has been offering sports scholarships to talented sportsmen and women, who are also academically gifted, since 1976. International canoeist Martyn Hedges was the trail-blazer for the scheme. Around 30 others have since benefited, including Commonwealth gymnastics medallist James May.
In 1992, the University developed its sport further. Backed by the lottery, the local council and two governing bodies of sport, it built the 50m pool, athletics track and an indoor tennis hall. The facilities assisted Bath’s bid to host the European Youth Olympic Days which eventually took place successfully on the campus in 1995.
Elite squads in athletics, swimming and tennis moved to the University to make use of the world-class training environment which had been created and the people of Bath enjoyed the new facilities for recreational and competitive sport. Children taking their first sporting steps could participate alongside stars such as world champion and record holder Colin Jackson of athletics and Paul Palmer and Mark Foster of swimming.
With the advent of yet more lottery-funded facilities in 2003/4, more squads adopted the University as their training home. The University also built a bobsleigh push-start track with the help of lottery funding and with the support of the British Olympic Association to help bobsleigh and bob-skeleton athletes prepare for elite competition.
Core Values
At the heart of all Team Bath activities lie the Department of Sports Development and Recreation’s key objectives. These are:
- To establish an athlete/student/individual customer centred approach in which customer care is prioritised
- To develop excellence in coaching and coach education
- To develop teaching excellence and continued diversification of academic programmes
- To establish a self-sustained pipeline of talent across the focus sports
- To develop applied research and knowledge transfer that reflects the department’s industry focus, professional expertise and entrepreneurial spirit
- To develop the department’s own professionalism, productivity and profitability
- To expand our innovative world-class athlete support services
- To develop a calendar of events and expand spectator opportunities
- To increase recognition locally, nationally and internationally for the work of the Department through growth of the Team Bath brand
- To recruit, retain and develop a world class squad of Team Bath athletes
- To recruit, retain and develop a world class staff team
- To establish unique expertise and industry leadership in wellness, Lifestyle management and fitness education