Keen, a former junior international pursuit cyclist, has been with Great Britain's high performance sports agency for eight years since joining as a performance consultant.

He is widely credited with helping transform Britain into a major Olympic power strong enough to finish fourth in the medals table in Beijing four years ago with a total of 47 medals, including 19 gold, their best ever overseas performance. 

"With the work of the UK Sport Director of Performance complete for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Peter will move into a new role of Special Adviser for Performance as of 1st May 2012," said Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of UK Sport.

"This new role will allow Peter to continue to focus his time and energy on activities that have performance impact whilst also pursuing personal ambitions to mentor and coach high performers in leadership and coaching, both internal and external to sport, as well as industry."

UK Sport is now set to launch a global search and hope to have a replacement in place by January 2013. 

"Peter is still committed to the Mission and UK Sport will continue to benefit from his expertise as we move through to London 2012, Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016," said Nicholl.


Keen implemented the tough sports review system which measured sports on a red, amber and green traffic light system.

Today, 15 of the Olympic sports were rated green with 13 rated amber.

"It's fantastic to see the majority of our Olympic and Paralympic sports, and more than ever before, in such a good place with just over 100 days to go," said Nicholl.

"It has been an incredible journey so far, we are on track and the best is yet to come.

"The Mission 2012 process reassures us that our investment is working, it shows us where our support can have the most performance impact and allows us to remain confident in our ambitions for London 2012; to achieve a top four Olympic finish and second in the Paralympics, winning more medals across more sports.

"The final Mission 2012 assessment will take place in June, at which point we will be confirming the performance target ranges we will have agreed with each and every sport, bringing the scale of our collective ambitions for this momentous home Games into sharp focus."

Keen claimed that there was nothing more behind his decision other than he was tired and wanted a new challenge, using a cycling term to try to describe how he was feeling.

"If you stay at the front too long you hear the clicks from the wheels behind you, and they are champing at the bit, and if you leave it too late [to swing off to the back] you can be too shot and go right out the back, so I am going to nip in at the back and support them," he said. 

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July 2009: Peter Keen - The next stage of the mission to London 2012
May 2009: Keen completes team for London 2012