More than 1,200 Olympic and Paralympic athletes are funded by UK Sport
funds in elite sport. It is accountable to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and works to support the UK’s top athletes in maximising their chance of success internation- ally. The role of Morton and his team is both to help in the bidding and staging of major sporting events in the UK and to work on developing the UK’s interna- tional sporting relationships.
Record levels of investment helped Team GB win 65 Olympic medals
A CAREER IN SPORT Morton has worked for UK Sport for seven years. Before that he spent six years with the International Badminton Federation (now the Badminton World Federation) in a number of roles, fin- ishing as head of marketing. Despite having spent his entire
career working in sports, Morton says he never set out to do so. “I did a degree in Political and Ancient
History at Keele University and then a Masters in International Relations at Warwick University, and really I just wanted an international-style job,” he says. “I applied for internships at sev- eral organisations including the United Nations, then a friend, who was a director at the IBF, asked if I’d ever thought about working in international development through sport.” Mor ton joined UK Spor t as a major
events consultant, advising governing bodies about issues surrounding the
ISSUE 1 2013 © cybertrek 2013
staging of major events. In June 2011 he was promoted to director of Major Events and International Relations.
“Ever since I worked for the IBF, I’ve always had a passion for international spor ts politics," says Mor ton. "To be formally looking after the UK’s strategy to build international spor ting relations is pretty special, and a good challenge.”
THE GOLD EVENT SERIES The latest challenge for Mor ton and his team comes in the shape of the Gold Event Series, a campaign unveiled in November 2012 by UK Spor t and the DCMS. The Gold Event Series will see £27m of National Lottery money invested in bringing more than 70 international spor ting events to the UK by 2018.
“For a long time, people have talked about the golden decade of sport in the UK, with the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and all the other amazing events tak- ing place across the UK,” says Morton. “We wanted to formalise this, and
start to promote this incredible pack- age of events. We now have these amazing assets – these iconic new venues – and we want to use and exploit them. We have a stable of world-class events taking place in the UK, and a public that wants to see more amazing sport after the Olympics. The Gold Event Series is acting as a vehicle to package these events, as well as a support pro- gramme for the national governing bodies bidding for and hosting them.”
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