Leeds coach shortlisted for national coaching award

The UK Coaching Awards is a national celebration event, regarded as the most prestigious within the coaching community and created to celebrate the remarkable contributions coaches make – from delivering high quality and technical coaching, to supporting participants both physically and mentally.

Bradley Colver, 23, is a full-time triathlon coach based at the Leeds triathlon centre who, despite his young age, has been coaching within the sport for five years.

He transitioned from an athlete who coached casually to a full-time coaching role back in 2021, taking a people-centred approach.

As part of his outstanding coaching work, Colver has been recognised for creating an environment in which he continues to get injured athletes involved, so that they still feel included even if they may be unable to take part fully as they recover.

On their nomination, Colver said: “I am extremely proud for my coaching work to be recognised with a nomination for a UK Coaching Award, and I am grateful that I can continue to have a positive impact through my coaching.

“I have enjoyed the development of my personal coaching journey, I am still young and have a lot to learn, but within the team of coaches I work within, there is vast amount of racing and coaching knowledge, and I am still eager to learn from as many people as I can.

“I feel like coaching can have a massive impact on people. With the age and level of athletes that I coach, most of these either come to university to do the sport, or discover it at university, but get wholly involved very quickly.

“This means that sport is a massive part of their university life and development as a person and it is rewarding for me to see the positive impact that I am having on people’s progression and university experience.

“The most important thing to me as a coach is; if I can positively contribute to someone’s growth, development or experience; within the time that we interact, I will have done my job properly.”

With previous award winners including Sarina Wiegman, Jane Figueiredo, Judy Murray, and Ben Stokes’ coaching chain, the awards celebrate the best of the UK’s Coaching workforce, the unforgettable moments they deliver, and the profound impact at every level of sport and activity.

UK Coaching’s CEO Mark Gannon congratulated Colver on their nomination, and reflected on the huge variety of coaching talent announced:

“We are delighted to announce our finalists for the 2023 UK Coaching Awards. Across the board we have seen so much talent, passion and commitment amongst our amazing coaching workforce, and this year’s finalists represent the best of our nation’s coaches who do so much to support people through sport and physical activity.

“All of our finalists should be extremely proud of what they have been able to achieve and fully deserve this recognition. We are very much looking forward to celebrating together at our UK Coaching Awards ceremony, bringing together the coaches that are going above and beyond to deliver outstanding experiences and make a real difference in their community.”

The awards will be held on December 5 at the Queens Hotel in Leeds.

Find out more about this year’s finalists and the awards by heading to www.ukcoaching.org/uk-coaching-awards.