The Great Britain disabled shooting team ‘warmed up’ for this week’s world championships at the University of Bedfordshire.

The Brits spent more than a week in the sports science laboratory at the Bedford campus before flying off to the IPC Shooting World Championships which start in Zagreb, Croatia, on Friday (16 July) and run until 24 July.

Preliminary testing took place in the first two weeks of June before heat acclimation took place over a number of consecutive days. This meant most athletes achieved eight sessions with a day of rest at the weekend and those who could not attend every one generally managed at least five sessions.

A final training camp took place over the weekend at their base in Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire and the team departs for Croatia today (Wednesday, 14 July).

The sessions were arranged by Dr Paul Castle, Senior Lecturer in Physiology and the University’s laboratory director, and its Professor of Sport, Professor John Brewer.

Dr Castle, who supervised the sessions, said: “The experience of working with athletes with different needs has been great for the staff involved.

“Hopefully this is the start of a relationship with the team leading up to 2012. Our early research suggests that the heat acclimation is working and has been very helpful to them.

“We will publish the results and this is significant as this is the first time heat acclimation in disabled athletes has ever been studied.”

Dr Castle continued: “Heat acclimatisation is the physiological adaptation that the body undergoes in response to repeated exposure to a hot environment. Heat and dehydration both impair performance; these negative effects are additive.

“Acclimatisation allows the body to work better in the heat, meaning that the negative effects of competition in a hot country are reduced and performance may be enhanced. The benefits of acclimatisation can be induced by using an environmental chamber to simulate the conditions, known as acclimation.”

The impressive calibre of athletes on campus included Matt Skelhon (Beijing gold medallist), seven-time Paralympian Di Coates (who won golds at Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta), British pistol shooting champion Jean Guild, Georgina Callingham (gold medallist in a recent World Cup event in Germany), Ryan Cockbill (gold medallist in a recent World Cup event in Poland), Beijing Paralympians James Bevis and Nathan Milgate, and Adam Fontain (equal world record holder from a recent World Cup event in France).

The Head Coach and Performance Manager, Colonel Pasan Kularatne, accompanied the team along with coaches Louise Minett and Robin Taylor (rifle) and Vladimir Filimonov (pistol). Some of the athletes stayed on campus in the student accommodation in Liberty Park.

Colonel Kularatne said: “The facilities are world class here and all the coaches, the athletes and myself are very happy with the work carried out by Paul, John and the team. I would like to thank the whole sports science department for use of the excellent facilities.

“Croatia will be hot and this can impact on the performance of athletes. I wanted to take the best prepared team I could there.

"I wanted to make sure we took care of all things and left nothing to chance, so they can perform to their optimum ability.”

The world championships only take place once every four years and the last one was in Switzerland in 2006.