BADMINTON England today announced that Andy Wood has resigned from his role as Head Coach of the GB programme, to take effect from 4th January 2011.

Andy’s impact in his time with badminton has been significant.  He coached Simon Archer and Joanne Goode to Britain’s first Olympic badminton medal, a bronze in Sydney 2000, and Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms to their silver medal in Athens in 2004.

In the 2006 World Championships he coached all four of the finalists in the mixed doubles, with Nathan and Gail winning the gold medal and Anthony Clark and Donna Kellogg the silver, a fact which contributed to him winning the Sports Coach UK, Male Coach of the Year later that year.

BADMINTON England Chief Executive Adrian Christy said today “Having headed the GB team at the last three Olympics Andy’s extensive experience will be sadly missed and I wish him every success with the next stages of his career."

“We now need to look to the future and secure the right candidate to drive the sport forward through to 2016; we will commence the recruitment process with immediate effect. A strategic review of the 2012 and 2016 programmes is already under way and the successful appointee will be key to driving the success of this programme.”

Vikki McPherson, Head of GB Performance said “Under Andy’s leadership in the training hall we had already started to make significant progress into creating a driven, accountable and performance focused environment; momentum that we will ensure we retain in the lead up to the year-long Olympic qualification programme for London 2012 commencing in May 2011."

McPherson added "I am very disappointed to have only had the opportunity to work with Andy for such a short period of time, however fully respect his decision and the motivations behind it. With a strong coaching and support staff in place there is a real opportunity for the successful candidate to build on this momentum, lead the team into 2012 and lay the foundations to take us through until 2016.”