News and events

Olympic hopefuls take to the field at Fringe Festival

Published 10 May 2010
Event 11 May – 4 June 2010

Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls aiming for gold medals at the London 2012 Games are the subject of an innovative exhibition combining medical imaging and striking photography, travelling through Sussex this summer.

Scanning for Gold explores the bodies of high performance athletes and gives an insight into the training regime as they prepare for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. Led by the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) in partnership with the University of Brighton's Chelsea School of sports science, this is being formed into a travelling exhibition. It opens as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival at the medical school building on the University of Sussex campus on 11 May, before travelling to venues across Sussex until November.

High-performance athletes in the areas of triathlon, weightlifting and paralympic cycling are featured. For this project, they had their bodies MRI-scanned at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School's Clinical Sciences Imaging Centre at the University of Sussex. To complement this Brighton-based photographer James Lewis went behind the scenes capturing the athletes' daily training regime.

Darren Kenny legs

Darren Kenny

This is supported with engaging responses about what it takes to become an elite athlete performing on the international stage from lecturers in anatomy, imaging and exercise physiology at both BSMS and the Chelsea School, as well as the athletes themselves.

One of those profiled, five-time paralympic gold medallist cyclist and current three-time world record holder, Darren Kenny said: "Having had so many scans as a result of my injuries, it was really interesting to see my scans from a sports performance perspective. It was fascinating to see the effect of training on my body." All the other athletes profiled are Sussex-based and include BSMS medical student and triathlete, Todd Leckie and University of Brighton Engineering student and weightlifter, Halil Zorba.

Todd Leckie chest

Todd Leckie

Photographer James Lewis said: "I found the whole process of photographing these athletes a great privilege. Their dedication and attention and focus to detail was awesome."

Head of Anatomy at BSMS, Professor Darrell Evans said: "This is a great opportunity to promote the wider understanding of science, by linking it to sporting activity."

This exhibition has been supported by the Creative Campus Initiative, a project that creates art projects within universities inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, and is one of eight projects shared between the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex.

Exhibition schedule

The exhibition opens at BSMS foyer as a Brighton Fringe Festival open house from May 11 until 4 June before travelling to the Jubilee Library, Brighton (7–21 June), Brighton General Hospital, (22 June – 4 July), Hove Polyclinic (5 July – 15 July) and University of Brighton's Art Gallery at Grande Parade (19–31 July), it will then travel to locations across Sussex until November.

Launch event

Scanning for Gold is holding a launch event at Brighton and Sussex Medical School on Monday 17 May at 6pm entitled What makes a high performance athlete? This fun and interactive event will be hosted by Brighton and Sussex Medical School's Professor Darrell Evans and Dr Malcolm Johnston and the Chelsea School's Dr Gary Brickley with some of the athletes profiled taking part in the event. Visit www.bsms.ac.uk for more information, or contact a.crossland@bsms.ac.uk to book a place.