Woodward's wins BOA back despite flak

British Olympic chiefs have thrown their weight behind Sir Clive Woodward and insisted the former rugby coach is making strides in his new job as director of elite performance.

A BBC Sport survey said 18 of the 28 Olympic sports they consulted had claimed Woodward, England's rugby World Cup-winning coach, had had little impact in his first year in the BOA position.

There were also suggestions after his appointment last year that Woodward's new role would duplicate the work being carried out by the performance directors at UK Sport and at the individual Olympic sports.

BOA chief executive Simon Clegg said however: "I am extremely comfortable with what Clive is doing. He has not charged into every sport telling them how to do their business.

"He's gone around speaking to people and building up a programme that he will launch next month."

Clegg pointed out that all of the critical comments had come from anonymous sources while a number of performance directors had gone on the record backing Woodward.

He added: "If you speak to sports like judo they will tell you he has fundamentally changed the whole approach of their governing body to elite performance sport.

"What we need to do is develop a system that is equally applicable across all Olympic sports.

"We are not in the business of duplicating anyone's role - this is about bringing added value."

Woodward said many of Britain's Olympic sports needed a "change of mindset" if they are to compete successfully at Beijing next year and on to London in 2012.

"Some sports don't need touching but we've got to crank up other sports and we've got to do it quickly," he told the BBC.

"There are some fantastic programmes out there - cycling, rowing, sailing, I've just gone 'wow' - but there are a lot of sports that we're going to have to move into a whole new mindset and way of doing things.

"The clock is seriously ticking."