UK Athletics say long-term coaching strategy is in place, says Neil Black
Friday 4 August 2017 10:03, UK
UK Athletics performance director Neil Black says plans are in place to increase the number of elite level British coaches.
Speaking at a news conference ahead of the start of the Athletics World Championships in London Black said: "We're really proud that we've appointed someone to a full-time position that's called High Performance Coach Development Manager, we're appointing a talent director, we've appointed two pathway managers.
"It takes a bit of time to build systems, we have a longer term strategy, we're massively supported by the British Athletics board.
"We're about to embark on something that over the next four, eight, 12, 20 years people will really see this determined investment in British coaching."
Black's comments come after Toni Minichiello criticised the lack of elite level coaches in British athletics. Jessica Ennis-Hill's former coach said "there's nothing drawing people into the sport to coach" and that outgoing UK Athletics Chairman Ed Warner's legacy after 11 years in the job will be "the destruction of coaching".
Minichello added: "I sat with Ed Warner in a hotel in Berlin and he said to me 'Britain only has two world-class coaches, what are we going to do?'"
"If you recognise that, what are you going to do about it? And the bottom line is: nothing.
"He didn't employ more coaches, didn't push the education process, didn't professionalise coaching so that he'd leave a legacy of coaches out there doing work, employed in clubs - he didn't take the opportunity, yet he spotted it in 2009.
"And as he's going out the door some eight or nine years later, he's got an OBE for services to athletics and he's suggesting that the sport is in a better place - I disagree."
