Slater, 49, who has held senior roles in the production teams covering many of the BBC's biggest sports events, including Wimbledon and the Olympics, will also become the first director of sport based outside of London when the department moves to Salford in 2011.

 

She replaces Roger Mosey, who has been appointed BBC director of London 2012, overseeing the corporation's preparations for coverage of the Olympics.

 

In her new role, Slater - who has also worked on the Open and Masters Golf, Commonwealth Games, Grand National, Ascot and the Derby - will oversee BBC Sport as it takes on next year's winter Olympics and World Cup as well as its transition to a new base.

 

Slater, who competed in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, began her career with the BBC in 1983 as a trainee assistant producer, joining the sports department the following year.

 

She gained two degrees from Birmingham and Oxford, and qualified as a PE teacher at Loughborough.

 

Besides representing Britain 20 times at gymnastics, Slater also reached national standard at diving and was a club-level squash player.

 

Sporting excellence runs in the family. 

 

Slater's father Bill won three League Championship winners medals at Wolverhampton Wanderers and captained the Midlands club to victory in the FA Cup in 1960, the same year he was voted Player of the Year.

 

He also played for England 12 times.

 

Slater's uncle, J J Warr, was an international cricketer.

 

Peter Salmon, the new director of BBC North, said: "Barbara was the outstanding candidate for the job at one of the most exciting moments in BBC Sport's long and distinguished development.

 

"Her passion, commitment and skill as a supreme sports producer clinched the role. 

 

"She will now lead teams who will play a major role in broadcasting the London 2012 Olympics and who already have an exciting roster of sports rights already in the locker - huge events that are at the heart of the BBC's relationship with its audiences.  

 

"This is also the moment BBC Sport itself enters an exciting phase, at the heart of a new family of services, including Radio 5 Live and children's, that will move to Salford to become a core part of BBC North in 2011."