Often called the most powerful woman in British sport, Liz Nicholl has been the Chief Executive of UK Sport since 2010, heading up the nation’s high performance sports agency investing in Olympic and Paralympic Sport. The Nottingham Chemistry graduate was also a talented netball player. Liz won 22 caps for the Welsh international squad between 1975 and 1979, helping them to 6th and 7th place at two World Championships before becoming the Chief Executive of England Netball at just 28 years old. Under her leadership as Championship Director, the organisation hosted the World Netball Championship in Birmingham in 1995. Championing female sport, prior to joining England Netball, Liz also acted as the General Secretary of the Women’s Inter-Varsity Athletics Board, a forerunner of the organisation we now know as British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS). A move to UK Sport in 1999 saw Liz play a pioneering role in the development of the UK’s elite sport system. As their Director of Elite Sport, she led the work of UK Sport’s Performance Directorate, throughout the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Cycles. Awarded a MBE in the 2000 New Year Honours List for services to netball, Liz has since been honoured with an OBE in 2006 and a CBE in 2015 for her services to sport. In 2010, just two years before hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games on home soil in London, Liz was appointed the Chief Executive of UK Sport. Making the final decisions regarding allocation of government National Lottery funds to each sport, Liz played a pivotal role in the drive to reach ambitious medal targets at London 2012. The strategy paid off and with Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis leading the way at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Team GB logged their best performance at a modern Olympic Games finishing 3rd in the medal table. For the Rio 2016 Games, Liz oversaw a record investment of over £350 million into the preparations. Team GB and ParalympicsGB became the first nation to improve their medal total after a home games – with 67 Olympic and 147 Paralympic podium finishes – placing them both second in their respective medal tables. Olympic and Paralympic golds came from 22 different sports, more than any other nation, demonstrating the depth and diversity of UK Sport’s investment programmes. An astonishing journey from 36th place in the Olympic medal table with just one gold medal at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. After 20 years at UK Sport, Liz will step down in summer 2019 to focus on family and other interests. However, her years within the organisation will be remembered as the years Great Britain confirmed themselves as one of the top sporting countries in the world. To find out more about our Hall of Fame, please visit https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sport/our-heritage/hall-of-fame.aspx