Ama Agbeze MBE and Kate Howey MBE are the latest guests to join us on the SportsAid Vault Podcast!
The podcast, produced by Hogarth Worldwide and Gramercy Park Studios, returned for a second series earlier this month and is being brought to you in association with Commonwealth Games England and the Team England Futures programme.
Episode four is themed ‘Performing at your Best’ and sees Ama and Kate talking about how athletes aim to peak at the right time for a major Games, the psychology of competing in front of a home crowd, the behind-the-scenes work undertaken by Team Leaders in the build-up to international competitions….and managing the highs and lows of sport!
Ama is a netball icon who famously captained England to the country’s first ever Commonwealth Games gold medal in the sport. That success on the Gold Coast came back in 2018….12 years after her Commonwealths debut when the Roses returned from Melbourne with bronze.
Ama has been capped over 100 times for England having first made her international debut in 2001. She most recently plied her trade at club-level with the Severn Stars in the Vitality Netball Superleague - enjoying a decorated career at home as well as in Australia and New Zealand. Ama's journey began at Team Bath before enjoying spells with Loughborough Lightning, West Coast Fever, Central Pulse and Adelaide Thunderbirds - among many others - throughout her travels.
A stand-out moment for Ama came in 2009 when she won the ANZ Championship with the Melbourne Vixens in a historical season for the club. She also skippered England to gold at the European Championships in 2016, and a year later, they were crowned champions at the Fast5 Netball World Series.
Ama received an MBE in 2019 for services to netball and is an inductee of the England Netball Hall of Fame. She is also a SportsAid trustee, an ambassador for the United by Birmingham 2022 community programme, and a member of the Organising Committee for this summer’s Commonwealth Games.
Kate is a judo legend who broke numerous records during her career and helped bolster the sport’s popularity in this country beyond recognition. She is the only British woman to have won two Olympic judo medals after bagging bronze at Barcelona 1992 and silver in Sydney eight years later.
Kate made an instant impression at senior level when she claimed silver at the European Championships as a 16-year-old back in 1990. She celebrated numerous podium finishes over the course of her career – a major highlight being securing gold at the World Championships in 1997.
Later that year, Kate was awarded an MBE for services to judo. She was also chosen to be Great Britain’s flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympics….and still remains one of just four women to have been given the role by Team GB in the history of the Summer Games.
Kate retired having competed at senior level for 16 years and this illustrious period was followed by a hugely successful stint as Head Coach at British Judo….a role she stepped away from recently. Many will recall she famously helped guide Gemma Gibbons to a stunning silver medal at London 2012.
Kate continues to coach within the British Judo ranks and is also part of UK Sport’s Leadership Programme aimed at increasing female representation in high-performance coaching roles.
