Phil Glasgow has extensive experience in high performance sport as a practitioner, researcher, coach and mentor to the ‘team behind the team’. He is currently Head of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at the Irish Rugby Football Union having previously held the position of Head of Sports Medicine at the Sports Institute Northern Ireland for 14 years. He was Chief Physiotherapy Officer for Team GB at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where he led the physiotherapy team of the most successful British Olympic Team in history.
Phil is recognised as a leader in the field of sports medicine and performance and is particularly interested in functional rehabilitation and understanding factors that influence performance. Phil’s doctoral studies investigated factors influencing exercise induced muscle damage and its management and he has published extensively on factors related to sports rehabilitation.
Phil is regularly invited to speak at international conferences on areas related to performance, rehabilitation and leadership. Phil was a member of the executive committee of the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Sport and Exercise Medicine (Physios in Sport, UK) for 12 years serving as Chair for Education & Research and as Vice President. Phil is a visiting professor of the School of Sport at Ulster University and teaches on a number of postgraduate sports medicine programmes at various UK and European universities.

Lauren Hallaselkä is a 20-year old Finnish national team diver. She’s graduating from Mäkelänrinne sports highschool in June and has already signed a student-athlete contract to continue her studies and diving career at UCLA next September. Lauren placed 7th at the European championships last summer in Rome and is aiming to represent Finland at the 2024 and 2028 olympics.

Riikka Holopainen graduated as a physiotherapist in Finland in 2007.
She has a master’s degree in health sciences (physiotherapy) with
pedagogical studies as a major. She was awarded a PhD in 2021 by
the University of Jyväskylä on the subject of biopsychosocial
approach in the management of musculoskeletal conditions. In 2018
she was assigned with the title of specialist in pain physiotherapy by
Finnish physiotherapy association. Currently she is working as a
lecturer at University of Jyväskylä, as an educator at MoveDoc Oy
and as development expert at EKHVA.

Amanda Johnson is a physiotherapist with over 40 years’ experience in a variety of roles but predominantly high-level sport. She has worked with the England Athletics and Great Britain Aquatic teams including swimming and synchro swimming which was then followed by 10 years with the GB diving team. She then moved into professional football and worked at all levels including 5 years as the National team Physiotherapist for the England Ladies Team. This was followed by 10 years as the senior physiotherapist at Manchester United Academy before a move to Qatar as lead physiotherapist for the Aspire Youth Academy for 8 years. After Aspire she worked in India setting up a youth football academy and has several peer reviewed articles published. Her research interests and PhD are centrered around growth, maturation, and injury in youth athletes and she has lectured at many international conferences on topics concerning youth athletes She is now a Senior Lecturer in the Physiotherapy department in the Faculty of Health and Education at Manchester Metropolitan University and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority.

Sami Kalaja from Jyväskylä, Finland works as a Professor of Practice in Sport in the University of Jyväskylä. Sami’s task is to build a sport path that helps student athletes to combine studying and training. Sami’s working career started as a gymnastic coach and was the head coach for Finnish national team in men’s gymnastics as well as having the role as head coach Finnish national team in sport aerobics. After coaching Sami went to the school world, first a physical education teacher and later a principal in secondary school. From principal’s position he moved to the Research Institute for Olympic Sports, and held the role of director. Sami is also currently a visiting professor in Lapland University of Applied Sciences.¨ Sami’s PhD was about motor skill learning. How we learn, teach and coach sporting skills, has been his biggest motivator and area of expertise for decades. At the moment his greatest inspirators are three grandchildren. It is very rewarding to see how they learn and how it is possible to support their development.

Tapani Keränen (MSc) is an expert in sports biomchanics at the Finnish Institute of High Performance Sport KIHU, Jyväskylä. Last few years he has been working in the National Olympic Training Centre in Helsinki Finland. He has offered support services to athletes, coaches and sport federations his entire career and he has been involved in many sports applied studies. In addition to several congress presentations in sports science, he has beem a lecturer at domestic and international coaching seminars bringing biomechanics to trainings in a practical manner. Tapani’s own coaching career with athletes at the national and international level has been going on for more than three decades.

Stuart Lancaster (born 9 October 1969) is a rugby union coach. He was the head coach of the English national rugby union team from 2011 until he stepped down on 11 November 2015, following the failure to qualify for the Quarter Finals of the Rugby World Cup. On 5 September 2016 it was announced that Lancaster would join the backroom team of Irish provincial side, Leinster Rugby. After a highly successful spell with Leinster, the club announced on 26 September 2022 that he would be leaving to join French Top14 side Racing 92 for the following season.

Iida Lounela is a 19-year old Finnish para national team runner and long jumper. She competes in class T12 which means that she has visual impairment.
She will graduate from Mäkelänrinne sports highschool in June. In the future she would like to study social sciences. Next summer her goal is to compete in world championships in Paris and year after that Paralympic games at the same city. Her dream is one day win the gold medal in Paralympics.

Marko Malvela is a coaching educator, sport psychology expert and a swimming coach in Jyväskylä (Sport Academy of Jyväskylä, JUA). He supervises and teaches several coaches in different Sports (track and field, gymnastics, ke hockey,
football for example). Additionally, he runs groups for mentoring coaches and athletes. In swimming he has been coaching over three decades and produced several national team swimmers to European, World and Olympic level. He has been in five Olympics. Outside psychology his interest is movement, wanting to explore and understand why athlete moves the way they moves. He looks at movement from the natural perspective what is important purposeful and efficient He did his masters in biomechanics, continued studies in sport psychology, cultural studies and narrative psychology/therapy. He lives by the lake with a family of different humans and animals.

Currently, Tommi is working as a High Performance Manager at Finnish Olympic Committee. Tommi has a strong background working in elite level sports as a strength and conditioning coach gaining diverse experience in elite level sports throughout his interesting career. Tommi worked as a performance coach for Sebastian Vettel (former F1 4-time World Champion), strength and conditioning coach for Team Finland in volleyball and coach for two different SM-league elite level hockey teams (Pelicans and Tappara). Additionally, he has been involved in coaching/mentoring teams behind Olympic athletes in individual sports such as cross country skiing, track and field.

Zoe Saynor is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Clinical Exercise Physiology and lead for both the Physical Activity, Health and Rehabilitation Thematic Research Group and Clinical, Health and Rehabilitation research Team ( CHaRT ) within the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science at the University of Portsmouth. She is an honorary researcher at several NHS Trusts (Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust; University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust) and Registration Council for Clinical Physiologists (RCCP) Accredited Clinical Exercise Physiologist. She enjoys teaching allied health professionals globally and have been a Guest Lecturer on the MSc Physiotherapy course at University College London the past 9 years and have been a visiting academic at several national and international institutions. At the heart of everything she does it promoting safe and appropriate physical activity and exercise for all. She practices what she preaches and have competed nationally and internationally as an elite athlete (rugby union) and is passionate about the application of skills and knowledge from the field of sport and exercise science and elite sport to the clinical arena. She is an invited member of the Rugby Players’ Association (RPA) Welfare Advisory Board, and Chair of the Women’s Welfare sub-committee. This board aims to provide guidance, advice and proposals to the RPA Players’ Board, Management Board, and Executive Management Team on player-related welfare matters, in order to meet the challenges to and advancement of current and former professional player welfare – at all times, working towards the RPA’s mission statement of making England the best place to play rugby in the world.

Dr. Jane Thornton is a Sport Medicine Physician and Canada Research Chair in Injury Prevention and Physical Activity for Health. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, with cross appointments in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and School of Kinesiology at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She is also an Editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Her research focuses on long-term athlete health, female athlete health, and physical activity in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease.

Dr. Thornton is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM) and ParticipACTION. She represented Canada for over a decade in the sport of rowing, as a World Champion and Olympian

Tomi Tuuha is a 33 year old former artistic gymnastics national team member, European Champion from 2010 and World Cup series winner in 2014. Tomi had a 20 year long sports career, of which he competed for the mens finnish national team for over 10 years.
Nowadays he is a passionate sports climber and motorsports enthusiast. He keeps helping and mentoring the current national team gymnasts who are working hard at the Urhea Olympic Training Center in Helsinki. Tomi himself was employed as a customer service agent and property maintenance specialist at Urhea OTC for about 1,5 years.
He is a Mäkelänrinne sports highschool graduate from 2009, aircraft technician from Varia vocational college from 2012 and a commercial pilot from Finnish Aviation Academy in 2020. Currently he is working as a flight operations officer at a business airline company in Helsinki-Vantaa airport, and waiting to start his commercial piloting career soon.

Fiona Wilson is a Physiotherapist and an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin. She has over 30 years of experience in clinical physiotherapy, teaching and research. Her research has focused on examination and synthesis of epidemiology and biomechanics to create meaningful prevention and management strategies for injury and pain in sport. Her primary focus has been on athlete back pain, specializing in rowing related back pain. She also focuses on brain health and wellness in sport with a particular focus on current and retired rugby athletes. She was lead physiotherapist for Rowing Ireland for 10 years and is a member of the World Rowing Sports Medicine Commission. Fiona is a Deputy Editor with the BJSM and the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.