Adam Pengilly

Adam Pengilly was a skeleton racer who competed at the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Winter Games. He studied at Birmingham University, graduating with a degree in sport and exercise science in 2000, and later obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a distinction in Social Sciences from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2013.

Pengilly, who took up bobsleigh as a brakeman at the age of 19 and after five years racing as a junior, took the job as strength and conditioning coach to the Great Britain ladies bob team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. He was a strength and conditioning coach at Bath University at the time and was also hired by Baron Clifton Wrottesley to help with his preparation in becoming the first Irishman to compete in the Olympic skeleton at the same Games, in which he finished fourth. Pengilly is believed to have been the first Briton to have coached at the Olympics before competing in one. Pengilly won a silver medal in skeleton at the 2009 World Championships. He added a silver at the 2005 Winter Universiade and a bronze at the 2008 European Bob & Skeleton Championships.

In 2010 Pengilly was named an athlete member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He served his eight-year term and stepped down in 2018, but not without some controversy. Pengilly was critical of Russian doping and what he felt was a lenient response by the IOC to it. At PyeongChang 2018 he was involved in an incident with a security guard in which he allegedly assaulted him and swore at him after being denied access to a venue. Pengilly was sent home by the IOC.