AMP - Advanced Manufacturing Park

One of the world's top ice-sport champions – South-Yorkshire's Nicola Minichiello – is being helped in her bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics by technology developed in her own area, including the latest in aerospace innovation.

She is already part of the current Two-Woman Bobsleigh World Champion pair, and her Olympic hopes are now being boosted by two companies at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham – Bromley Technologies Ltd and the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing (AMRC).

She and Team Minichiello are among the athletes supported by Bromley, through the company's Formula Ice 2010 athlete-sponsorship initiative, all living in the Sheffield-Rotherham area.

In the skeleton bob, Shelley Rudman is the current Olympic Silver medallist and the only British medallist from the last winter games. Shelley won World Cup gold and beat the track record in December at Italy's Cesana track. Her partner, Professor Kristan Bromley, the company's chief executive and co-founder with brother Richard, is the 2008-9 Triple Crown World Champion, also in the skeleton.

“Very few people know there is so much ice-sport talent within a 25-mile radius,” said Bromley's chief operating officer, Mike Maddock.

The company gives them technical support and equipment developed through its research and development programme to help them during this season's qualification for February's Vancouver Olympics.

But, in an example of the Park's ethos, Bromley has also received support from other companies there. The latest is from AMRC apprentices, who have used their manufacturing and engineering skills to produce the latest sets of bobsleigh runners to come from the Bromley R&D programme for her use.

After being presented with them, she and her bobsleigh brake-woman, Gillian Cooke, travelled straight out to the US to start pre-season preparation and to test the equipment ready for November's start of the World Cup season.

Mike Maddock said: “It's great that through our partnership with the AMRC we're able to provide Nicola with runners that will hopefully give her the edge over other competitors during the testing stage.

“The apprentices have been fantastic. Under the direction of training manager Paul Rigden and workshop manager Ashley Godbehere they have delivered to a very high standard and to the timescales demanded by the sport. The AMRC support has been invaluable.”

Himself a former bobsleigh competitor, he stressed the importance of understanding intimately the challenges and stresses of competing at the front edge of performance. “By drawing also on expertise from aerospace and Formula One we have become one of the world's best winter-sport innovators in equipment design and manufacture. Medals are one way we measure success.”

The Bromley team has more than 50 years' combined experience in elite winter sport, aerospace technology, Formula One engineering and design with its equipment supporting athletes to win over 40 world-class medals, including Olympic Bronze and Silver.

“Our expertise in high-performance materials, engineering and aerodynamics, linked to understanding the requirements of the elite athletes, enables us to develop race-winning combinations. We work closely with the athletes to develop solutions to issues and challenges. That enables us and them to drive the limits of equipment and performance further.”

Travelling at over 40 metres – 131 feet – a second, a 100th of a second improvement could mean the difference between first or second place.

Mike Maddock said: “We are passionate about supporting our athletes to become World Number One by continuing to build the world's fastest equipment. We want to raise the profile of winter sport to show that we have world-class athletes and that, as a nation, we are up with the best.

“Formula Ice has been developed as a sponsorship and support platform to allow individuals and companies to support British Athletes through a unique programme. Elite athletes make huge personal sacrifices to compete at international level and we want to give that extra edge.

“We currently have a number of ‘Brand Partners' from the local business community supporting the initiative, but in this Olympic year we are looking for support and sponsors to ensure we can give the best possible opportunities to our Formula Ice team, not only for this season but to enable us to support more athletes for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, in Russia.”