Several Team GB athletes approach Coe over ‘catastrophic’ UK Athletics regime.

Based on his reaction to the final 3 format discussion, I presume his response was to tell the athletes it was there job to put forward an alternative administration.

Not sure he's the person to be asking for help on much

Is it Malcolm they are unhappy with? I thought it was the top dogs rather than the coaches

Bunch of whingers. All you need is your kit and a plane ticket.

falesebceo wrote:

Bunch of whingers. All you need is your kit and a plane ticket.

That’s actually part of the problem.

Those who have legitimately earned the right to be at the games are not given a plane ticket!

I know a lot of them wanted the relays coach to be promoted. I forget his name. It did seem like he was the logical choice for short term. But he was older. The new female director was all about changing the make up of the coaching staff. I remember reading that at the time. She didn't disguise her priorities. Therefore it's going to be younger with women and minorities leading the way. How anybody can be shocked is astonishing. She was focusing long term, not to Tokyo. It was just a matter of the names.

In terms of Tokyo I don't see how their results were disappointing. The only gold medal likelihood went out the window when Katarina Johnson-Thompson ruptured her achilles. Her Doha level was roughly 200 points above Thiam's winning number in Tokyo.

Dina Asher-Smith wasn't going to defeat any of the Jamaicans at 100. She might have been in the photo with Gabby Thomas and Mboma for lesser placement at 200.

CM has done nothing at all apart from hire his friends into the coaching role(s).

AD who was the coach you refer to? Steve Maguire?

The new director is sexist! simple as that, way to feminist, hiring purely because they are female and again from her old job, hiring friends yet again (after her statement of no job for the boys).

As for the coaches who are being let go or reduced hours, some of them are shocking! hired purely because of the "Athlete to Coach" platform they created and needed to make it appear of value.

The results in Tokyo were pretty good for GB. No golds, but six medals is solid. Truth is, Mo Farah added a bit of glitter to the Rio performance and GB were lucky to have a second amazing talent in 2012 (Jess Ennis), plus a favourable long jump competition for Rutherford. Beyond the medallists for GB in Tokyo, you had Reekie hitting a PB of 1:56, Neita becoming only the second Brit to go sub-11, Jodie Williams going sub-50 after recently taking up the 400, Alex Bell making the final and getting a PB in the 800, three men into the 1500 final. There's a base to build on there.

The two big weaknesses are the men's sprints and the long distance events. This is where the criticism of UKA needs to be heard. It's been nearly a year, and they still haven't appointed a head of endurance. Olympic selection was a joke - people who were invited by WA based on their rankings had the invitations declined by UKA (a men's steepler and race walker), while the women's marathon selection looked like a mistake at the time and even worse now. Piasecki and Twell had no form whatsoever and delivered poor performances in Tokyo. Charlie Purdue should feel pretty aggrieved right now.

Coe can't get involved as it's surely a conflict of interest for him, but where are the big names standing up for athletes? People like Cram, Radcliffe, Jackson, Lewis, Holmes, Ennis, Rutherford, etc, etc, have platforms and a voice. They can speak up without the kind of risk that current athletes might face.

Very good post. By medal count or by Top 8 positions UK is something like 5th to 8th in the whole world, the sort of range it's had for much of the last 20 years. The mainstream media can't hack nuance so just flags up the 'No Gold' thing and handily for the sledgehammer approach Italy got 5. Yeah, the relays usually help UKA but why not.

One could argue that the weaker events go somewhat wider/deeper into many of the field events; men's 400 strangely weak atm. Longer distance - given the huge dominance by athletes born in Kenya, Ethiopia and increasingly Uganda I think that basically the whole planet bar these and the USA has 'big weaknesses' though arguably we aren't comparing like for like.

The increasing appointment to senior posts of people who aren't white males does look like a fairly obvious political agenda tho I'd be surprised if anything in the recruitment process left itself open to valid challenge on this front. On the Head of Endurance, one previous incumbent (white male) was hired through the most untransparent process and left the post in a less jovial atmosphere.

I was including the 400m with the sprints, but it is unusual for GB to be so weak there as they always had a good relay team; it's just part of the general decline of male sprinting in the country. The narrative around GBs poor Olympics comes from people not understanding the sport. GB doesn't have any generational talents in T&F right now, but they have strong athletes competing against generational talents on the men's side in the 1500 and on the women's side in the 800 and 1500. Any medal in those events right now is a great result.

I don't think GB can realistically expect to compete with the East Africans over the longer distances, but they can look for improvement. Getting multiple guys regularly under 13:15 and 27:10 is realistic in the super spike era but GB only has Marc Scott. Andy Butchart has gone backwards since Rio, Sam Atkin looks too erratic, no one else is close. The women's side may be a little better with Weightman and McColgan getting under 14:40. The marathon is a joke. GB has one man running sub 2:10. There's basically been little progress since the 1980s. There's 16 men on the GB list that have broken 2:10, only four since the year 2000. We're not asking for miracles, just for a few runners to be as good as Ron Hill was back in 1970 when he ran in a string vest, with no nutrition, and slabs of rubber on his feet.

"I don't think GB can realistically expect to compete with the East Africans over the longer distances, but they can look for improvement. Getting multiple guys regularly under 13:15 and 27:10 is realistic in the super spike era but GB only has Marc Scott. Andy Butchart has gone backwards since Rio, Sam Atkin looks too erratic, no one else is close." Digressing from the big picture but seems reasonable to hope that Dever, hicks and Cairess are all at age and stage where they can edge to these sort of times and given their 10k ability an onward move to fast marathon would be feasible too. Jake Smith should surely join the sub 2.10 crew when he goes for it. Digressing even further, and full respect to the legends, I think some of those fastest1970s marathons may have been a jot short - seems a bit strange that guys had such strong marathons vs 10k PBs in the era before the science of marathon had really got refined.

They have quite well getting results out of what they have but whether that is worth the bucks they have used up.

The problem is that at the grass routes the sport of creaking to death.

Which then leads to an empty cupboard in the future.

But then if a large part of the budget and brain power is going on the para side of the sport we can’t be surprised if the able side is contracting.

I would also point to the almost total demise of athletics at school level and I can see no return to the previous importance it once held.

I wouldn't say that Butchart has gone backwards since Rio in terms of time. He ran an outdoor best 1500m of 3:38 in 2019 (1500m pr is 3:37i from 2017), a 3k pr of 7:35 this year, which is close to 13 flat level for 5000m, and a 13:09.97 in very tough conditions in Tokyo, just 3 seconds off his pr (and he ran 13:08 in 2019). So, he was at the top of his game this year.

Dever has a chance if he stays in the US and finds a training group. He'll go nowhere in the UK. More importantly, there's no pipeline of talent and no plan to develop it. UKA could do a lot worse than talk to James Thie about the head of endurance role, unless they are willing to appoint a non-Brit. At some point, there needs to be ideas about how to develop British endurance athletes from people who aren't Mick Woods

Bergenkampf wrote:

Was Christian Malcom picked because he ticked the boxes? Great athlete, blessed with the right genes for sprinting, but not sure an elite coach and national.co-ordinator.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/13/team-gb-athletes-approach-sebastian-coe-over-uk-athletics-regime

Why the are you mentioning Christian Malcolm ?

Along with multiple criticisms of Symington and Malcolm’s coaching, eyebrows were also raised....

its well known around the country, the staff dont like Coates, the athletes dont like Malcolm or the people he has placed.

Its smaller unfunded coaches producing the talent

LondonCoach wrote:

its well known around the country, the staff dont like Coates, the athletes dont like Malcolm or the people he has placed.

Its smaller unfunded coaches producing the talent

Do you remember how Christian Malcolm used to run? He would close his eyes as he neared the finish, which is a strange tactic, suggesting he lacked fighting spirit.

High hopes wrote:

Dever has a chance if he stays in the US and finds a training group. He'll go nowhere in the UK. More importantly, there's no pipeline of talent and no plan to develop it. UKA could do a lot worse than talk to James Thie about the head of endurance role, unless they are willing to appoint a non-Brit. At some point, there needs to be ideas about how to develop British endurance athletes from people who aren't Mick Woods

I don’t quite get this criticism, apart from the widely held view that endurance running in the state school system is far weaker than it used to be; but it still seems strong in the private sector. If the starting point for UK endurance talent is great genes and a UK passport then we have various cases who come from all weird parts of ‘the system’ – look at the life stories so far of Jake Smith and Charles Hicks; compare them to what Mo Farah had gone through at same age. Steph Davies, Eilish McColgan, Jess Judd, Marc Scott. I’ve just picked up random names from top of 2021 PO10; give or take, all pushing at edges of world class (Davies maybe not yet) and huge differences in how they’ve made their way there. Have any of them been truly let down by ‘the system’ so far? imo the system includes going to the USA - that's globalisation for you. We can draw flow charts and organograms till the cows come home but UK endurance elites come out of UK society which is a very polarised place. I think Mick Woods is bloody great.

My post probably came off as critical of Mick Woods when that wasn't intended. He's been great for decades but he's just one person and there needs to be more of a structure. The athletes you mention actually illustrate the point - they have all, more or less, made their own way so their success is not replicable, which is why systems are needed. The US has the NCAA and funded pro groups, Japan has privately funded groups. There's no shortage of talent in schools, there's just no system to shift that talent into organised coaching. I listened to an interview with Mick Woods where he described how he has successfully found so many good young athletes. He just travelled around schools in his part of Surrey. That's it. No system, just one person in a small part of the country. How much endurance talent is being missed around the rest of the country? That's what I mean about systems. UKA should be funding talent identification just as football clubs fund scouts - if you're a good 8 year old footballer in the UK, I guarantee you will be found by a pro club. If you're a good young runner, it's more likely you will slip through the net. UKA can do something about that, it's not like they lack opportunities to watch kids compete, with hundreds of parkrun and junior parkrun events every week