As the countdown to the Rio Olympics gets underway, Team Great Britain and its official fitness partner Fitness First have collaborated in developing an online Sports Test to help determine what Olympic sports every-day people are most suited to. Capitalising on the general popularity of the Olympics, the test has proven to be a novel way of not only entertaining the public but a way of pushing the Fitness First brand as an official partner of Team Great Britain.

By summarising aspects like individual’s pace, strength, attitude as well as their exercise habits, the tool uses the ratios against the kind of sports that use similar ones. For example, individuals with the highest speed, highest  power and highest rate of exercise would, according to this tool, be most ideal to a triathlete whereas the individuals with the lowest speed, lowest power and lowest rate of exercise would be most ideal to shooting.

With studies showing that the majority of the UK public train only for swimming, cycling, running and football, the tool gives insight into other, lesser-known sports that people would be successful at based on their characteristics. Olympic Gold Medal winner in the Women’s Coxless Pairs Rowing event at the London Olympic games suggested that the tool was a similar way to how she discovered her sport.

The tool is a similar concept to the way I first got into rowing having never thought about trying the sport before. It’s great for people who are really interested in trying something new because you never know what it’s going to suggest – it could be a sport that you already know and love, one that you’re good at, or a sport that you have this whole new lifestyle through.

The tool has been developed to encourage people to try a sport that they’ve never participated in before and allow users to download unique training plans as well as a pass to their local Fitness First gym. On the back of this initiative, Fitness First is also running in-club workshops led by experienced Team GB and English Institute of Sport coaches, making the training tools and techniques of Team Great Britain available to the public for the first time.

For the Olympic sport that you’d be most suited to, have a go for yourself