LIHPS - Luxembourg Institute for High Performance in Sports Mission: developing high performance sports in Luxembourg
Excellence! A key word of Luxembourg's high-level sport. Around 500 Luxembourgish athletes have participated in the Olympic Games since the 1900 edition in Paris. The Luxembourg Institute for High Performance in Sports offers services and optimal resources adapted to high performance athletes since 2019, with a view to developing high performance sport and prepare athletes for competitions in the best possible conditions. This support highlights Luxembourg's desire to provide elite sports figures with the best conditions.
Bringing high-level sports under the same roof
The institute offers services to athletes preparing for the Olympic games or with realistic prospects of qualifying for the Olympic games, to all other high-level sportspeople who are part of the high-level squad or of the promotional squad of the Luxembourg Olympic and Sports Committee (COSL Squads), who are in the Army's High-Level Sports Section (SSEA) or who benefit from any of the COSL's other support measures. National teams of team sports can also benefit from certain services offered by the LIHPS.
The LIHPS also offers consulting in biomechanics, performance analysis, sports medicine, sports nutrition, sports psychology, strength and physical fitness training, as well as lectures and conferences on sports. Specialized services are made available to create action plans between athletes and coaches, the COSL and the LIHPS, to select, use and coordinate the LIHPS' different services, to organise expert groups and ongoing feedback on sport performances, to evaluate athletes through the COSL's sporting management, and much more!
By coordinating specialist services for high performance athletes, the institute puts into practice the essential principles of the integrated concept for sports in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. This concept was designed by the COSL in 2014 with a view to ensuring the future and development of Luxembourgish sport at all levels: sports at school, competitive sports, elite sports, the training of coaches, sports medicine, etc.
High-level supervision
LIHPS transmits its skills and know-how to various high-level sports figures in order to support them in their quest for excellence and promotes top-class sports and Luxembourg at international level, while protecting the physical and mental health of athletes. This mission is handled by a team of five permanent employees, some of whom are not are not unknown to Luxembourg water sports enthusiasts.
The first director of the Institute since 2018 is Alwin de Prins, a former competitive swimmer who represented Luxembourg at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. He has been a member of the COSL's Board of Directors since 2013. In 2015 and 2017, he was head of mission at the Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE) in Iceland and San Marino.
Laurent Carnol, a Luxembourg swimmer and specialist in breaststroke events, is the coordinator of the double career at the LIHPS. He participated in the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008 and in London in 2012.
Creating the Institute: a logical step
Luxembourg's Olympic Medical Centre (CMOL - Centre médical olympique luxembourgeois) was created in 2008-2009. It provides the COSL's athletes with medical support and passes on its know-how to sports federations. There is also an infrastructure that makes it possible to implement the medical and sports projects of athletes and federations.
In 2014, the COSL designed the integrated concept for sports in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which promotes the development of Luxembourgish sports at all levels while remaining in touch with international competition.
In 2018, the articles of incorporation of the Luxembourg Institute for High Performance in Sports were signed and activities were officially launched. The founding members are the Luxembourg Olympic and Sports Committee, the Ministry of Sports and the Luxembourgish Society for Sports Medicine.
The LIHPS finally opens in 2019.
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