The statue, presented by the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign and supported by London Mayor Boris Johnson, will be in place for six months and a permanent memorial statue of Park will then be unveiled in Waterloo Place on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain on 15 September 2010.

Mayor Johnson at the unveiling ceremony

The unveiling ceremony was attended by over 1,000 invited guests, alongside the general public, including Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, Terry Smith, Chairman of the SKPMC, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, Chief of the Air Staff, WWII RAF veterans and members of Sir Keith Park’s family. Also in attendance will be supporters of the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign, including Edward Fox OBE, Dr Stephen Bungay, Flight Lieutenant John Nicol and many representatives and diplomats of the Commonwealth and other countries represented by members of ‘The Few’.

Sir Keith Park commanded 11 Group of Fighter Command – responsible for the defence of London and the South East. He therefore commanded the squadrons which bore the brunt of the Battle of Britain. The failure of Nazi Germany to defeat the RAF in 1940 is seen as Hitler’s first major setback in the Second World War – and forced Germany to call off the planned invasion of Britain. This statue is a fitting memorial to Park as it will be erected in London’s Trafalgar Square, in the heart of the United Kingdom’s capital City which he helped to defend in 1940 and beneath Nelson’s Column – a memorial to another commander (this time Naval) who likewise defended Britain from invasion 135 years earlier.

Park was a New Zealander, who fought in the First World War in the field artillery first at Gallipoli, and then the Somme where he was wounded and evacuated to England. Medically graded unfit to continue service with the artillery, Park joined the Royal Flying Corps, remaining with the air arm when it was re-formed as the Royal Air Force.

Marshal of the RAF, Lord Tedder, said of Park:

“If ever any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did. I don’t believe it is recognised how much this one man, with his leadership, his calm judgement and his skill, did to save not only this country, but the world.”

Terry Smith, Chairman of the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign, said: “It is an honour to be unveiling a statue of Sir Keith Park in Trafalgar Square today. Park was pivotal in organising the defence of our country and capital city during the Battle of Britain and was a key figure in ensuring the survival of our nation. A New Zealander, Park was one of many who came from Commonwealth nations and other countries to our aid at one of Britain’s most bleak times in history. As we reflect on the recent anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War, and the story of Sir Keith Park, we should remember the sacrifices made on our behalf by our own forces and by citizens from the Commonwealth and other countries in our ‘Finest Hour’.”

Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, commented:‘Sir Keith Park was a brave and exceptional fighter pilot, and outstanding senior officer, who never failed at any task he was given. He inspired all who worked with and for him, with his quiet gallantry, supreme personal inspiration, organisation and mental agility. He is a hero to the Royal Air Force, to this country, and to New Zealand, whose citizens have so often joined us in battle, from the World Wars through the Falklands to the present day.’

London Mayor Boris Johnson said it was an important moment: “London owes an enormous debt to Sir Keith Park for his courage and leadership, which helped to win the Battle of Britain. Hosting a temporary memorial in Trafalgar Square in time for the 70th anniversary of this epic battle is a mark of our gratitude for the bravery and commitment this great hero showed to London and the world.”

Edward Fox OBE said: “Quality of leadership exists in varying capacities. In differing degrees it is possessed by many. The power of great leadership however belongs to only a few and was quintessentially decisive in determining the outcome against the enemy that Great Britain (which as a country was not well prepared) had to face in 1940.

“However gallant and courageous the nation’s forces unquestionably were, it was great leadership which galvanised that spirit and propelled it to victory against a formidable and better-armed enemy. Such men are rare. Such a man was Sir Keith Park.”

The statue of Sir Keith Park commemorates the c.2950 pilots from 15 countries who fought to defend Britain in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Today, there are just over 105 survivors.

The ceremony commenced with a Royal Air Force flypast of a Spitfire and a Typhoon aircraft over Trafalgar Square. Speeches were made by Terry Smith, Boris Johnson and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton.

A large screen in Trafalgar Square carried video footage of Sir Keith Park and RAF Films from noon and relayed the ceremony through to the close of the event.

The Sir Keith Park statue will be in place for six months and is not part of the Fourth Plinth commissioning process. It is being installed as an exceptional and one-off event, as a tribute to his courage and leadership and to coincide with 70th anniversary of major turning point in the Second World War. The Fourth Plinth programme is set to recommence in May 2010, with Yinka Shonibare’s ‘Ship in a Bottle.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park, GCB, KBE, MC and Bar, DFC, DCL, MA, RAF was the New Zealand born RAF Air Vice-Marshal who commanded 11 Group, Fighter Command, responsible for the air defence of London and South East England during the Battle of Britain. His inspirational leadership and tactical brilliance was central to Britain winning the battle, which in turn helped determine the outcome of the entire Second World War. Sir Keith went on to lead the air defence of Malta in 1942, subsequently reaching the rank of Air Chief Marshal in South East Asia at the end of the war. During the First World War, Sir Keith served at Gallipoli and then the Somme before becoming a pilot and shooting down 20 enemy aircraft.

The design by sculptor Les Johnson will be used for both the statue to be exhibited temporarily for six months on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth from 4 November 2009, as well as for the permanent memorial statue which will be erected in Waterloo Place on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain on 15 September 2010, Battle of Britain Day.

The Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign was launched on 7 March 2008 when Battle of Britain pilots, senior serving RAF officers, a great-great niece of Sir Keith Park, politicians and many other supporters assembled in Trafalgar Square beside a full-size replica Spitfire.

The Campaign has received support from a broad constituency including the RAF, Battle of Britain veterans, members of the Park family and the New Zealand cricket team. It also secured the support of the leader of every New Zealand political party, including the Prime Minister and Defence Minister. In this country more than 100 MPs and a number of House of Lords members from all parties, former politicians such as Tony Benn and Lord Tebbit, as well as well-known names such as Sir Patrick Moore, Dan Snow and Edward Fox have backed the Campaign.

Over 10,000 people signed the various Campaign petitions.

Terry Smith is the Chief Executive Officer of Tullett Prebon plc and Executive Chairman of Collins Stewart plc. He has a keen interest in military history.

Other supporters of the Campaign include: Algy Cluff; Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge; Air Marshal Clifford Spink; Lord Lee of Trafford; Lord Selkirk; Rt Hon Lord Trefgarne; Mark Field MP; Richard Benyon MP and Hon. Nicholas Soames MP.

THE FOURTH PLINTH

The Fourth Plinth project is funded by the Mayor of London and Arts Council England, London involving a rolling programme of contemporary art commissions to be installed temporarily on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. The scheme was initiated in 1998 by the RSA with the support of the Cass Sculpture Foundation. In 1999 responsibility for Trafalgar Square was transferred to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority. The scheme is led by the Cultural Strategy team, within the Mayor of London’s Office, under the guidance of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group (FPCG), which recommends contemporary works to be placed on the plinth. The London office of Arts Council England has been a funding partner supporting the programme since 2003. More information is available on the website: www.fourthplinth.co.uk. The first new commission for the Fourth Plinth under the auspices of the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group was Marc Quinn’s sculpture, Alison Lapper Pregnant, unveiled in a public ceremony in September 2005. It was replaced in November 2007 by Thomas Schütte’s Model for a Hotel. Previous commissions have been Ecce Homo by Mark Wallinger (1999), Regardless of History by Bill Woodrow (2000) and Monument by Rachel Whiteread (2001). The next work to be installed as apart of the Fourth Plinth commissioning process will be a scale replica of Nelson’s ship, HMS Victory, in a giant glass bottle, by Yinka Shonibare MBE. he programme is part of the vision for Trafalgar Square to be a vibrant, public space and to encourage debate about the place and value of public art in the built environment. For more information visit the Greater London Authority website: www.london.gov.uk/trafalgarsquare/index.jsp.

The SportAccord Convention will see over 1,500 of the world’s top sporting officials and business people from more than 60 countries come to the capital for the six-day event. The convention will initially contribute over £3m to the London economy. However, it is expected to be worth many more millions through contracts for new businesses and more major events coming to the capital and the UK beyond 2012.

Hosting SportAccord is a key milestone in delivering the capital’s long-term aims to position London and the UK as the world’s leading city and country in the business of sport. With the 2012 London Games around the corner, the convention is a unique opportunity for the capital and the UK to showcase British expertise and increase its market share in the US$111 billion global sports business industry.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “This is a truly fantastic opportunity for the capital. Delivering a legacy for London after the Games is crucially important and SportAccord will now play a significant role in helping us achieve this. Sport is at the heart of this great city and I am looking forward to welcoming all sports leaders, IOC members and Olympic bidding cities to London in 2011 to give them a taste of what’s in store for 2012 and after.”

Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell - keynote speaker

Tessa Jowell, Olympics Minister and speaker at the 2012 Games Sport Business Summit today, said: “The SportAccord Convention is an excellent opportunity for UK businesses to showcase their expertise gained from working on London 2012 to key players in the international event supplier sector. With preparations for the London Games reaching fever pitch in 2011, SportAccord will be a vital forum for British companies looking to capitalise on the business benefits of 2012 and take their experience overseas.”

Hein Verbruggen, Chairman of SportAccord Convention commented, “Our constituents comprise the top leadership in all areas of international sport and have a vested interest in any city that is hosting an Olympic Games and other top-level sporting events. With London preparing to welcome the world for the Games in 2012, there is no better time for the SportAccord Convention to come here and witness the final preparations taking place in your city. We look forward to working with our colleagues here over the coming year and a half, and to together creating an event which will show the world what a wonderful host city London will be – for the SportAccord Convention, the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and future major sports events in the city.”

The bid to bring this prestigious sport’s convention was co-ordinated by the Events for London team at Visit London and has been heavily supported and funded by a number of the UK’s sporting and business bodies. Those bodies include the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) whose key role is to build Britain’s capabilities to compete in the global economy. The government’s sporting body UKSport has also proactively supported the bid as well as the Greater London Authority (GLA), LOCOG, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), the London Development Agency (LDA), VisitBritain, and Events for London.

The convention is a unique annual event organised by the International Sports Movement. It will be attended the top officials from the Olympic and non-Olympic International Federations of sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board, rights holders of major sports events, media, sponsors and other commercial businesses in the global sports industry. The six-day gathering from 3rd – 8th April will be the first time the convention is hosted in the UK and will be held in the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, London.

• The SportAccord Convention is a unique annual event owned by the International Sports Movement, gathering all the top officials of the Olympic and non-Olympic International Federations of sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board, rights holders of major sports events, media, sponsors and other commercial businesses in the global sports industry.
• The first SportAccord Convention was held in Madrid in 2003. Each city to be successful in hosting the Convention has to provide an itinerary of engaging events and activities, which allows the attendees to experience the culture and hospitality of that city.
• London follows on from previous host cities including Beijing, which also hosted SportAccord in the year before the 2008 summer Olympics. Other previous host cities include Dubai, Denver, Lausanne and Olympic cities Seoul and Athens.
• The Events for London coordinated and spearheaded the overall bid. The team was created in 2007 by the Mayor’s office to attract and bid for new major events to London.

SportAccord Convention

The SportAccord Convention is a 6-day gathering of 1500 leading representatives from international sport. The annual convention is held in a different country each year and encompasses the Congress and General Assemblies of over 100 international sports federations and their related associations. Its mission is to offer the sports community a powerful opportunity to come together on a global scale, in an exclusive and authoritative networking environment, to build relationships, share knowledge and develop ideas.

The SportAccord Convention comprises networking activities and a select series of high-level conference sessions centered on a comprehensive exhibition, which showcases over 80 organisations. The event attracts a global audience of about 1,500 delegates from 60 countries around the world, representing 500 different organisations, including 85 cities and national event bodies, consultants, lawyers and a wide range of companies, as well as media covering the event.

Owned by SportAccord/GAISF (General Association of International Sports Federations), ASOIF (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations) and AIOWF (Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations), the SportAccord Convention encompasses the annual Congress and General Assembly of each of these association, while also offering the sports community a powerful opportunity to come together in an exclusive and authoritative networking environment to build relationships, exchange knowledge and develop ideas. These three associations have a collective membership of over 100 international sports federations who turn own and manage over 1000 international sports events in over 100 different sports disciplines. The International Olympic Committee have organised the spring meetings of the IOC Executive Board at each convention to date. In addition to its Executive Board Meeting, the IOC also hold their annual joint meetings with SportAccord/GAISF, ASOIF and AIOWF during the Sportaccord annual gathering.

Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS)

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is building a dynamic and competitive UK economy by: creating the conditions for business success; promoting innovation, enterprise and science; and giving everyone the skills and opportunities to succeed. To achieve this it will foster world-class universities and promote an open global economy. BIS – Investing in our future.

New vision sensor networks that track movements

Imperial College London in major research collaboration which will improve British athletes’ performance on the world stage

Scientists are developing a range of miniaturised wearable and track-side sensors, computer modelling tools and smart training devices to help British athletes improve their performance on the world stage, as part of a new £8.5 million project that will be officially launched on 28 October 2009.

The Elite Sport Performance Research in Training with Pervasive Sensing (ESPRIT) project is funded by the EPSRC and is led by Imperial College London in partnership with UK Sport and supported by Queen Mary University of London and Loughborough University. It involves researchers from the three universities working alongside British athletes via UK Sport’s Research and Innovation programme.

The researchers are devising miniature wearable sensors that will monitor different aspects of athletes’ physiological performance, in order to monitor and optimise training for competitive performance. The sensors will include wireless wearable nodes to measure biochemical information, heart rate, EEG, ECG, muscle activity, joint speed and contact forces. Athletes will be able to use this information to understand how they are progressing and developing with their training.

The team is also developing small track-side sensors, for detailed monitoring of an athlete’s body movements and location, and of interactions between a team during training.

Sports scientists can currently monitor athletes’ performance through controlled experiments in a laboratory setting or, increasingly, via commercially available technologies that can be used in the ‘field’. However, the devices used for this are often large and either not suitable for use in the field, or able to measure only one aspect of an athlete’s or team’s performance. Consequently, the data collected is not realistic enough for sports scientists and coaches to understand how athletes are performing in a training or competition environment.

The new wireless ‘pervasive’ sensing technologies that the ESPRIT team is developing will extract continuous information under normal training and competition environments, giving coaches far more accurate and regular feedback about their athlete’s performance than is currently possible. The researchers will be working with the high performance sports community, with the ultimate aim of creating a competitive advantage for elite athletes.

Scientists are developing new Vision Sensor Networks that will track movements

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang from Imperial College London, who is the principal investigator and programme director of ESPRIT, says: “We expect that the ESPRIT project will make innovative leaps in biosensor design and allow us to look in really fine detail at the physiological changes that happen to an athlete during training and competition. This means that athletes and their coaches will be able to gain an unprecedented understanding of their performance and use this to develop a crucial competitive edge. The project will also give scientists new insights into how people’s bodies work, in order to help them to design devices that improve the health and wellbeing of the general population.”

For their first project, the ESPRIT team has created prototype networks of miniature video camera sensors, called Vision Sensor Networks (VSNs), which coaches can use to monitor an athlete’s movements and assess their strategies while training. The scientists are already trialling the VSNs with athletes training for Britain’s summer and winter Olympic sports.

The vision of ESPRIT is to position the UK at the forefront of pervasive sensing in elite sports and to promote its wider application in public life-long health, wellbeing and healthcare. The programme represents a unique synergy of leading UK research efforts in body sensor networks (BSN), biosensor design, and sport performance monitoring and equipment design.

Dr Scott Drawer, co-chair of ESPRIT and Head of Research and Innovation at UK Sport, adds:

“At the highest level of elite sport, we know that medals are won and lost within the tiniest margins. Our job at UK Sport is to ensure our athletes reach the start line knowing they are the best prepared and best equipped in the world.

“We are delighted to be working with leading experts on this exciting project, which we hope will not only benefit British athletes in the build up to our home Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012, but also revolutionise our approach to, and application of, science, medicine and engineering in sport for years to come.”

ESPRIT is a 5-year research project funded through EPSRC’s Programme Grants Scheme, which provides a flexible mechanism to provide funding to world-leading research groups to address significant major research challenges. The ESPRIT programme is supported by both government research institutions and leading industrial partners in sports.