Jonathan Males - Australian / British

Member of the World Paddle Awards Academy

Jonathan Males is an ex-Australian kayak slalom athlete, coach, sports psychologist, corporate mentor to a wide range of businesses and entrepreneur – to the WPA Academy he brings a lifetime-worth of experience, dedication, knowledge and unrivalled expertise.

In his elite paddling days, twice Australian Champion, he represented Australia at 4 World Championships from 1983-1989; quite oddly he finished 9th in all 4 K1M team competitions he participated in!



As a coach for the Australian Institute of Sport, he worked with the national canoeing team up to and during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He worked as a coach and sport psychologist with the GB slalom and sprint teams until 2005.

Jonathan went on the serve the British Olympic Association as HQ sports psychologist at Athens 2004. His portfolio supporting Olympic medal-winning athletes, other coaches and team-leaders spans across the last 6 Olympic Games, most recently he worked with Paralympics GB at London 2012.

World-renowned, he is a leading published expert and academic in the field of sports psychology. Graduating from the University of Tasmania, Australia in 1991 with first class honours, he went on to do research for his PhD at the University of Nottingham, England – he specialises in 'reversal theory', a comprehensive framework to help understand the complex relationship between performance, emotion and motivation.

In 2000 Jonathan set up his own business, Performance1, that trains leaders, teams, athletes and coaches themselves to strive for success; one of his focuses is using wilderness environments for executive coaching.

Residing in London and frequenting Lee Valley at weekends, Jonathan is an ever-active paddler still competing at the World Masters. Drawing on his rich experience at the very highest levels of sport, he will bring a psychological approach to choosing WPA nominees and winners.