PREPARATION-is-EVERYTHING
Our story with Penny Coomes & Nick Buckland, Team GB Ice Dancers, as they prepared for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.
Preparation is everything to Team GB’s athletes and as they readied themselves for the PyeongChang Games, Panasonic played its own part as our athletes got set to compete on the global stage that is the Winter Olympics. As an official partner of Team GB for 30 years, we totally understand how even the smallest details can lead to incremental gains in an athlete’s performance.
Athletes who went through the Team GB Kitting Out event ahead of the Games were each given one of our amazing Slow Juicers which maximise juice and retain vitamins, nutrients and anti-oxidants, all vital for our athletes’ health and wellbeing as they headed to South Korea. In addition, the athletes were given a pair of our fantastic new HTX-80 headphones which helped them tune out of everything going on around them and get into their own mental preparation zone.
We also teamed up with Team GB’s Ice Dancers, Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland to tell their story of Preparation is Everything; find out more below.
Penny Coomes & Nick Buckland
Team GB Ice Dancers
Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland teamed up in 2005 where they trained together at The National Ice Centre in Nottingham. In late 2009 they moved to the States, initially to train under double Olympic Champion, Evgeny Platov, and more recently with Igor Shpilband.
Penny and Nick are the 2014 European bronze medallists and five-time British national champions. Aged 28, PyeongChang 2018 will be the couples’ third time representing Team GB having competed in Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi in 2014.
The pair’s place at PyeongChang 2018 was in serious doubt after a serious fall during a training session in the summer of 2016 left Penny’s kneecap broken in eight places. She was told she would never skate again.
After a year-long campaign to get fit, including a second operation on her knee in 2017, Penny and Nick missed their primary chance to qualify at the World Championships and only returned to competitive action in August ‘17, when they won the IJS Sheffield event, qualifying for PyeongChang.
The pair just missed out on a top 10 place at the PyeongChang Games, finishing in 11th place.
