Paula Dunn is determined to build on the momentum of the London 2012 Games following her appointment as UK Athletics' Paralympic head coach.
UKA continued its policy of promoting from within by appointing Dunn as successor to Peter Eriksson following his move to replace Charles van Commenee in the Olympic set-up.
Eriksson and his staff, which included Dunn, masterminded a remarkable turnaround in Paralympic performance at London 2012.Following just two gold medals in Beijing in 2008 – both for David Weir – Britain won 11 on home soil as part of a total haul of 29. Wheelchair racer Weir again led the way with four golds, while Hannah Cockroft claimed two and Jonnie Peacock, Richard Whitehead, Aled Davies, Mickey Bushell and Josie Pearson won one each.
Dunn was an integral part of the Paralympic coaching team and takes up her new role with immediate effect.
"I'm so happy to be given this opportunity," the former 100 metres European bronze and Commonwealth silver medallist said. "I'm just going to do exactly what I've been doing, make sure the athletes get the best service possible and go on to better things.
"London 2012 had an amazing impact on Paralympic sport in this country and we've a real opportunity to build on that over the next four years. I believe there is more talent out there and I am looking forward to building on the success of 2012."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article