Triple Olympic champion Ed Clancy was the special guest as a new elite performance coaching programme was launched in the island recently

The Per4mance Scholarship will provide homegrown talent with regular coaching from human performance specialist company Pro-Noctis.

The coaching will be delivered by people such as business owner Phil Kelly, British Canoeing coach Nathan Abbott, one of the island’s most experienced Commonwealth Games competitors Andrew Roche and local footballer Chris Feeney.

Pro-Noctis work with multiple professional athletes including renowned polar explorer Charlie Paton and England Women’s Rugby World Cup finalist Amy Cokayne to hone their methodology at the highest level. Per4mance Scholarship recipients will have access to these professionals who have committed to help as mentors.

The programme will enable six young Manx athletes from a variety of sports to receive specialist coaching designed to develop their mindset to perform with focus and resilience to maintain a mental advantage over direct competitors.

The launch event took place at Cycle 360 in the Isle of Man Business Park and was organised by Manxman Phil Quirk, director of Pro-Noctis, who unveiled the local sportsmen and women who will benefit from 2019-20.

The athletes in question are professional cyclists Lizzie Holden of Team Drops and Novo Nordisk’s Sam Brand, pro boxer Danny Roberts, golfers Lea and Ana Dawson, along with swimmer Magnus Kelly.

Clancy, who memorably teamed up with Manxman Peter Kennaugh to win gold for Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympics, was keen to stress the importance of mental health in sport.

The Olympic champion commented: ’Professional sport is elitist by nature; you’re judged by how well you are doing and base self-esteem on how many Instagram followers you have - it can be a toxic thing.

’It’s important to stay on top of mental health, and the earlier Pro-Noctis get hold of young athletes to help them understand how the mind works the better.

’Performance coaching is one thing that I wished I had access to earlier. Working with Pro-Noctis, you learn to commit to plans based on logic and rational reasoning, not to let emotion get the best of your intelligence which is where you find the best performance gains.’

Mental resilience in sport has been highlighted by Kennaugh who recently announced on social media that he is taking a break from professional cycling because of mental health issues.

Brand ambassador Clancy joined Quirk and business partner Phil Kelly for a question-and-answer session at Cycle 360 and led the inaugural workshop which saw 30 young athletes, parents and coaches take away performance tools to support their psychological preparation.

At the launch, Quirk commented: ’Our vision for the scholarship is to build a sustainable performance coaching model which develops young athletes’ mindsets to perform at the highest level with focus and resilience.

’The training for coaches will support our growth plans for non-technical skills coaching to be delivered locally to multiple athletes, starting with quarterly mindset workshops which will be open to the Isle of Man sports community.’

’Everything is won and lost on the top three inches - the psychological processes that shape how you perform on a given day. The principles are the same across sports disciplines and can be transferred to the business world.

’Per4mance coaching trains athletes to unlock this power through understanding how the brain works.’

While in the island, Clancy also joined Pro -Noctis for a charity dinner at L’Experience restaurant which raised more than £1,000 for Huntington’s Disease Research.

To find out more about the Per4mance Scholarship and to access the training materials from the mindset workshop, visit www.pro-noctis.com