Stephen Park: Olympic sailing boss joins British Cycling as performance director

Park becomes performance director role at British Cycling, a position last held by Sir Dave Brailsford

The man who has overseen British sailing's Olympic successes for the past 15 years has been named as British Cycling's new performance director.

Under Stephen Park, Britain's sailors have amassed 23 Olympic and Paralympic medals, and finished top of the medal table at this summer's Rio Games.

The 48-year-old Scot has now been tasked with continuing British Cycling's recent dominance.

"I feel enormously privileged and excited," Park said.

Britain's cyclists have been a dominant force on the track in particular in recent years, but have also had success on the road, in mountain biking and BMX.

They won 33 medals at this summer's Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games, 18 of which were gold.

Sir Dave Brailsford was the last person to fill the role of performance director at British Cycling.

He left in April 2014 to focus on Team Sky, with head coach Shane Sutton moving into a new role as technical director.

Sutton left 100 days prior to the Rio Olympics amid allegations of sexism - he was later cleared of eight of nine allegations against him - with programmes manager Andy Harrison taking on his responsibilities.

"Clearly cycling poses very different challenges to sailing, but it's a sport I am very passionate about from a personal perspective. I'm looking forward to meeting its challenges head on," Park added.