Quote Originally Posted by Dynamo Dan View Post
I think the medals flattered to deceive. I suspect Commenee realises that too, if it wasn't for Farah, Ennis and a fortuitous long jump gold the athletics tally would be pretty pathetic for a home nation with our sporting pedigree. Too many athletes failed to make the semifinals/finals let alone win medals.

There's some great talent coming through, but you have to question the standard of the elite coaches in UKA - especially when you consider our best athletes have to leave the UKA system to be successful.

I can understand why you want to make athletics coaching sound more complicated than cycling and rowing, but the reality is that athletics could learn a great deal from the success of those sports - especially cycling.

I don't think it's a question of facilities, it's more about signposting talent from other sports (Gemili is a great example) and improving coaching. One thing which is often overlooked when it comes to Manchester Velodrome is that it's not just a track for cyclists it's a hub for developing coaches too.
Dan I agree with you - but just to clarify I'm not saying that athletics coaching is more complicated, but that athletics is more complicated as a sport and we cannot just replicate the Veldodrome and put all of our elite athletes in to one or two HIPACs.

Gemili isn't "new" he was just tied to football as a junior at Chelsea. Since 2010 he's competed and improved. We have a similar lad at BBH called Luke Evans. He was in rugby and couldn't compete for us until U17 / Year 11 when he ran 11.1 and 22.5

Luke is at Loughborough and ran slower when under their coaching regime in 2011. It seems they spent most of the time in the gym and you only need to look at the likes of Harry AA and you can see that.
Luke is an athlete and needs to run.

I don't think these centres are the way for athletics. I think smaller more focused centres, perhaps more difficult to fund alone which is why I suggest the Uni way.