Have you ever dreamed of participating as an athlete in the Olympic games? And did you succeed? Well, we didn`t succeed as athletes, but as performance consultants we created our own opportunity called TopSwimming Amsterdam (TSA). Conceptualized in 2000 in a bar in Amsterdam, this initiative was launched to close the gap between athletes` 2001 performance level and the highest Olympic-level swimming performance in 2004. In this article we share our experiences in this exciting journey, showing how common performance improvement concepts proved their value in the world of elite sports. In addition, it may inspire you to think about your own Olympic dream. By applying human performance technology (HPT) concepts to the world of elite sports, by applying business performance experiences with physical and mental research, and by shaping a performance environment driven by ambition and with a structural shortage of funding—this is where "Rummler meets Inge." Based on fundamentals of HPT (Rummler & Brache, 1995), a team of people created strategies, processes, and (human performance) systems to fulfill Olympic ambitions.
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