Tanni Grey-Thompson resigns from World Athletics Championships role
Thursday 10 March 2016 12:28, UK
Tanni Grey-Thompson has become the fourth official from the London 2017 World Athletics Championships organising committee to resign in the space of two months.
The 11-time Paralympic wheelchair athletics champion has quit the board in frustration over her role.
In February, managing director Sally Bolton quit after fellow board members Heather Hancock and Martin Stewart left their positions.
Addressing the Sport Industry Breakfast Club in London, Grey-Thompson said: "I think my role was seen 'I can do the Paralympics stuff.' For me it was just all getting a bit tokenistic and it's not fun or interesting. I don't might mind the fight, and trying to challenge people about disability athletics is what I'm meant to do.
"But I got tired of saying, 'And what about [the Paralympic athletes]?' It needs to be someone else because I don't feel I was having the impact in terms of taking that discussion on."
Grey-Thompson said she felt she was "going round in circles" trying to provide an all-round contribution to an organising committee headed by UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner.
"I felt I had run out of energy in terms of having to have that fight," Grey-Thompson said. "I was being seen as the person to carry the torch of inclusion. I can offer more than that and other people can as well. It just felt it wasn't place for me to be."
London won the bid to stage the championships at the Olympic Stadium in a 2011 vote. The Paralympic event will be staged in July 2017 ahead of the August 5-13 IAAF championships.
"Both events will be fine. Will they be the best they can absolutely be right now? I'm not sure," Grey-Thompson said.
"It's really good to have the two world championships in the same place, that's massively important. But it just felt we were spending lots of time discussing things that weren't operational."
