I have to think that seeing athletes who've trained hard for years to qualify for the Olympics but not go because UKA thinks they won't finish in the top eight is a lot more de-motivating than seeing those athletes get to the Games but not get to the finals.
Athletes suffering at the hands of UKA mismanaging funding and wasting it on diversity training and pay for unproductive staff - just like most of the civil service. Things will only get worse under labour.
Their selection is not even consistent with that top 8 policy though; for example, by the sound of it Tade Ojora is not even fully fit and will be lucky to get through the first round. Why on earth send him?
Yeah, it's a stretch. But she's getting fitter and could be in 31 shape by the Olympics. And a fair few African athletes essentially give up and save themselves for future races if they're out of the medals because they aren't incentivised to run minor places. That let Jess Judd into 8th place in Budapest. I don't think top 8 is likely, but it's not out of the question, and it will be very hot in Paris so they'll be a bit of carnage in the race
I did a bit of research. Ian Beattie, the Chairman of British Athletics has a "day job" as Chief Operating Officer of a firm of Scottish solicitors called Lindsays. Lindsays sponsor Eilish McColgan and some other athletes. Eilish McColgan ran the qualifying time and recently won a 10k in The Netherlands and fully desrves her place. Mr Beattie is also an ex Chair of Scottish Athletics and ex Vice Chair of Sportscotland and an MBE for his work in the charities sector. Basically he is an all round good guy, very keen on athletics (he is a race director of the West Highland Way race, which is unpaid) and I doubt he's getting a lot of money for his part time role at UK Athletics.
Jack Buckner is the Chief Executive of UK Athletics, but overall the problem is the way sport is funded in the UK. It just doesn't get much government funding and it has to fight each year for what it does get, which itself uses financial resources and time in making and justifying cases to do so. It is part of the typical British way of doing this kind of thing, which seems to be to make it as difficult as possible and to create as many layers of difficulty and hoops to jump through as possible, and its not supportive of the athletes.
Mr Beattie's speciality is charities and the third sector, so you would have thought if anybody could have got sponsorship or raised funds for British Athletics, it would have been him. These decisions do seem to be finance (or lack thereof) based, so I don't understand his rather comments about athletes de-motivising their teammates if they don't get out of the heats. Or is it? Leaving athletes such as Guy Learmonth out of the world indoors when qualified on world ranking when the event was held in Glasgow can't have been much of a cost saving. Neither can sending a few more athletes to Paris be that expensive.
There just seems to be no money available and a lot of that must be due to athletics not being televised by the BBC at prime time. The BBC is publicly funded through the license fee and a lot of the British public increasingly resent it and its very obvious bias towards wokeism and a lot of their budget goes on televising live football. Thats quite a new thing in the last 10 years or so, there used to be a much bigger of variety of sports shown live on the BBC and athletics isn't the only casualty.
Last year, UK Athletics was in debt to the tune of £3.7 million, although Nike was a kit sponsor and made a substantial cash payment too. Basically, they are trying to avoid it going bankrupt.
It really is a poor show that such a mainstream sport in a country the size of the UK is struggling for funds to send eligible talented athletes to the Olympic Games. I don't envy either Ian Beattie or Jack Buckner in their roles one bit, but they are not looking into the self-funding or crowd funding route for qualified athletes and I do think that is unwise in the current climate. Perhaps the publicity from athletes having to do so might be enough to attract a big sponsor.
Interesting stuff re Beattie who I know proved himself in Scottish Aths and I totally get you on the point that he's not doing this for cash or for a quiet life. Buckner will be well paid for his efforts though.
On funding, the UKA elite prog is funded by Lottery plus commercial income, not central taxes. You can see the accounts in plenty of detail and the tiny marginal cost of sending the 'declined invitees' to Paris is absolutely not a factor in the decision. TBH even if the OG were in NZ it still wouldn;t be. Very few of the UKA staff are particularly highly paid - imo it's more about the added value of some of the jobs even existing rather than the pay scales (and the T+Cs aren't great either re hours, pensions etc).
It's not obvious to me that all the 6 selected marathoners have Top 8 potential, however the race is run and whatever the temperature and course - and so that drives a hole through the Top 8 thing already.
I recently spoke to a former UK WR holder who ran at all the major champs and raised with them this 'demoralising' thing re those knocked out in heats. "Bollocks" was the reply. They added that on self funding, they would be confident that in UK at least the relevant athletes could fully cover the OG travel and accom and all other trip-associated costs by crowd-funding.( I think several could simply get their proud parents/grandparents to pay the necessary.)
I think this shameful policy has roots in UK exceptionalism and we all know where that has got us in recent years. Unfortunately I think that as usual the UKA medal haul at Paris will be impressive enough for Beattie and Buckner to claim that the policy is effective. Though arguably the first 200m of the USA women's 800 metres trials final was the most effective single thing that may assist UKA gold.
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