Athlete Committee

UK Anti-Doping’s newly formed Athlete Committee provides advice on all matters of anti-doping.

Olympic, Paralympic and professional sports are all represented on the Committee which has the responsibility of working with other athlete-centred groups to ensure the wider views of the athlete community are represented. It also engages with athletes to collect feedback on UK Anti-Doping programmes.

The Committee is chaired by John Brewer, UK Anti-Doping Board member and British Handball Chair. Ten committee members have been appointed for their experience of, and commitment to, anti-doping, as well as their understanding of the national and international sporting environment.

John Brewer

Professor John Brewer
Chair

John is a Professor of Sport at the University of Bedfordshire, and also Chair of the British Handball Association. He began his career as Head of Sports Science for the Football Association and spent 18 years as joint Director of the Lilleshall Sports Injury and Human Performance Centre at Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire, delivering sports science support to a range of National Governing Bodies. He then moved to GlaxoSmithKline as Director of Sports Science and was Chair of the London Regional Sports Board.

Helene Raynsford

Helene Raynsford
Adaptive Rowing

Helene made history in Beijing becoming the first Paralympic Gold Medallist in the sport of Rowing.  Prior to taking up rowing she had been part of the Great Britain Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team from 2004-2006, in which time she won two Paralympic World Cup silver medals.  Helene first tried rowing as cross training in 2005 and a year later she became World Champion.  She has a degree in Medical Biochemistry and was made an Honorary Fellow of Royal Holloway University of London in 2009. She is presently undertaking a Masters in Human Neuroscience, and has held public health management positions both regionally for the Department of Health and at local level for the NHS.

Graham Edmunds

Graham Edmunds
Disability Swimming

Graham is a member of the Great British Disability Swimming Team and has enjoyed a number of successes at the highest level of sport, competing at European and World Championships, as well as two Paralympic Games. He has numerous medals to his name, including gold at both the Athens and Beijing Paralympic Games and has broken a number of world records. Graham first made the Great Britain Disability Swimming Team in 2004, having been involved in a life changing road traffic accident in 2000 after which he was told he may never walk again. He currently lives in Swansea and trains at the High Performance Centre there.

Emily Freeman

Emily Freeman
Athletics

Emily has firmly established herself as Team GB & NI’s number one women’s 200m sprinter, and has competed for her country at numerous events including the Olympic Games, World Championships, and European Team Championships. Emily is currently fourth on the all time list for her event, and last year retained her 200m UK National title, winning by the largest margin in the race’s history. Emily also topped the UK Power of 10 rankings for both 100m and 200m in 2009. Emily spends most of her time at the High Performance Centre in Loughborough where she undertakes the majority of her training. She lives in Yorkshire with her husband, her cat Summer, her two rabbits Rum and Lewis, and a large tank of fish who are too numerous to name.

Clarke Carlisle

Clarke Carlisle
Football

Clarke has been playing football professionally for 13 years. He has played for three promotion winning teams and enjoyed two stints in the Barclays Premier League. He gained international honours at under-21 level, receiving three caps for England in 2000 before a career threatening knee injury halted his progress. It was during this two-year absence that he came through the Sporting Chance clinic having been treated for alcohol addiction. Not only has he overcome this battle, but he has also revitalised his career and now uses his experiences to try and help others who may be suffering in similar ways, by assisting in the life-skills seminars which the clinic holds. Clarke is on the Professional Footballers Association’s (PFA) management committee as well as being an ambassador for the Kick It Out campaign and The Prince’s Trust. He is currently playing for Burnley FC in England.

Jon Wilkin

Jon Wilkin
Rugby League

Jon began his career in professional sport at the age of 16 and has played for St Helens in rugby league’s top flight for the last eight years, winning four challenge cups and one grand final winners’ medal. His biggest career highlight to date was winning the treble including being crowned world club champions in 2006. He has also represented England in three tri-nations competitions and one World Cup in which they reached the semi-finals. Away from the game he contributes to several online news sites and is a partner in a small sandwich bar. He loves nothing more than to unwind with friends and partner Megan.

Henry Nwume

Henry Nwume
Bobsleigh

Henry is currently a doctor in the British Army but was originally a rugby union player, gaining three Blues at Oxford University before being offered a contract at London Wasps, where he was part of the squad which won both the Heineken Cup and Premiership final in 2004. He returned to Medicine and the Army in 2005 and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007. He became involved with bobsleigh after he attended a talent ID day, and went on to compete in the next three World Cup seasons and World Championships for Great Britain, before being selected for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Henry is currently studying the use of sport in the rehabilitation of severely injured service men and women in America, which is funded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

Chloe Rogers

Chloe Rogers
Hockey

Chloe is a GB and England International with 104 caps to her name, having made her international debut in 2003 and been an ever-present player since then. She won bronze medals at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and 2009 European Cup, and was also a member of the GB squad which finished sixth at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Chloe plays for Leicester Ladies in the English National Hockey League, who won the National Indoor title in 2010.

Martin Corry

Martin Corry
Rugby Union

Martin retired from rugby at the end of the 2008/09 season. Captain of England from 2005-2007, he also captained club sides Bristol and Leicester Tigers.

During his time with Leicester, Martin won five Premiership titles, a Premiership Championship, two Heineken European Cups and an Anglo-Welsh Cup. He also won 64 caps for England, and played in three World Cups, picking up a winners' medal in 2003 and a runners-up medal in 2007. He also toured Australia and New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions, winning 6 caps. Martin was voted Premiership and Professional Rugby Players Association Player of the Season in 2004/05, and was awarded an MBE in the 2004 New Year’s Honours.

Iain Gowans

Iain Gowans
Athlete Services Manager            British Paralympic Association

Iain has worked for Paralympics GB since 2003 and has led on anti-doping issues for the organisation since 2005. He ensures that Paralympics GB complies with its anti-doping requirements and that athletes and staff receive adequate education on their own rights and responsibilities in the area of anti-doping.

Iain represented Great Britain at the Atlanta Paralympic Games as a swimmer in 1996 and has subsequently worked at two summer, and two winter, Paralympic Games. Iain joined Paralympics GB from the Irish Sports Council. During his time there, the Irish Sports Council established itself as the National Anti-Doping Organisation for Ireland. Away from the Paralympics, Iain enjoys following the Scottish national football team around Europe and includes Lithuania, Ukraine and Slovenia as countries in which he has seen Scotland win and lose!

Ian Smith

Ian Smith
Legal Director                       Professional Cricketers’ Association

Ian was a solicitor in private practice for 12 years and an acknowledged expert in sports law before going in-house in 2004. He is a specialist in sports governance and the relationship between athletes, their employers and their sports’ governing bodies. He has advised and represented athletes who have attended disciplinary and anti-doping panels, and adjudicated on cases involving anti-doping procedure and related disciplinary proceedings.

Ian designed and implemented the first education programme for all first-class professional cricketers in England and Wales, and has been on the anti-doping panel for most International Cricket Council (ICC) events in the past five years. He is an advisor to a number of organisations on governance and anti-doping policy, including the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA), the Professional Players Federation (PPF), the League Managers Association (LMA) and the European Elite Athletes Association (EU Athletes).