Tony sends greetings to all blog readers from his hospital bed, where he is recovering from a heart procedure. He is looking forward to getting mobile again and sends best wished to all and promises to be back at his keyboard in a month or so.

Posted by Gwenda Ward on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 in Track Chat
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One of the bonuses to come from the Diamond League is the revival of the concept so attractive to the public, that of head-to-head clashes; once the prerogative of distance running (Seb Coe vs Steve Ovett) and of sprinting (Carl Lewis vs the notorious Ben Johnson) the League has enabled it to spread over a full range of events and meetings. Most importantly it makes for great television.

In Daegu next August and in London in 2012 a real humdinger is in prospect. No it’s not Bolt vs Powell vs Gay, juicy to the cognoscenti though that might be; its Ennis vs Dobrynska vs Hyleas Fountain, the girl born in Columbus, Georgia and the silver medallist at the Beijing Olympics. World champion vs Olympic champion vs Olympic silver medallist. It’s enough to make you salivate. And, lurking in the shadows are the records of the great Jackie Joyner Kersee and Carolina Kluft, two of the three women in history to exceed 7000 points (the other, in case you’re asking, is Larisa Nikitina).

Just the thought of it raises memories of those great tussles at decathlon between Jürgen Hingsen and Daley Thompson. Eleven times they met, eleven times Thompson won. At the Seoul Olympics the German finally had chance of revenge. Daley was severely injured and sheer bloody mindedness took him through the contest (he finished fourth a few points outside the medals). But Jürgen was in great shape; the problem was he created three false starts in the 100 metres and was disqualified. I watched from a high vantage point as he ran around the Olympic stadium like a headless chicken pleading to no avail with anyone he could find (including the great Primo). He never competed internationally again. Neither did Daley. Both the gladiators downed their weapons but honours had been far from even despite the fact that Hingsen had set three world records during the period of their rivalry.

All three of the top women in the Heptathlon are on top of their game and just 88 points separates their best performances set this year. A look at their potential (best performances in each event) shows a difference of just 47 points (with Dobrynska leading and all three over 7000 points). These are infinitesimal margins. None of the three can be written off; no one is a certainty to win.

We in Europe know about Ennis and Dobrynska for they dominated the television screens of athletics enthusiasts for two days but what of Hyleas Fountain? The 29 year old American champion has an impressive record. She joined a club at seven years of age (Denise Lewis had to wait till she was nine). They didn’t do multi events at Central Dauphin East High School in Pennsylvania so her first heptathlon success came when she was 20 and she won the first of her five NCAA titles. Her breakthrough came in 2004 when she finished fourth in the Olympic Trials. A year later she won the US outdoor title, a feat she was to repeat in 2007 and 2008 (Olympic Trials). In 2010 she finished fourth (behind Ennis) at the World Indoor in Doha. Coached by Lynn Smith and represented by Karen Locke she is part of an all-woman team that will be striving for double gold in the next two years.

It is intriguing that the strengths of the three athletes are spread over different events. Ennis will undoubtedly lead after the opening 100 metres hurdles and despite some strong shot putting by Dobrynska may well be ahead after the first day. Both the American and the Ukrainian come into their own on the second day. Fountain has the best long jump with 6.89m; Dobrynska leads the trio with 49.25m in the javelin; Ennis could clinch the titles with the fastest 800 metres. It is anybody’s game.

Tension will be in the air at 10am (7pm GMT) on 29 August 2011 when the heptathletes go to their marks for the opening event, sending us into two days of intense, riveting drama. Watch it.

Over to Paul

And to talk you through it in Britain will be my mate, Paul Dickenson on the BBC.

When you listen to Paul’s commentaries two things come strongly across: he really does “know” about track and field in the widest sense of the word and he manages with great skill and lucidity to impart his love of the sport.

Paul has always been one of (and strong advocate for) the self-styled “heavies” (a bit like the Bikers) and was part of, along with Howard Payne, Barry Williams, Chris Black and Ian Chipchase, a golden era of British hammer throwing. Indeed his best ever throw of 73.20 metres (achieved 34 years ago) ranks him 11^th all-time in Britain. He is Chair of The Hammer Circle, one of the few specialist clubs left in Britain and rumour has it that he is still twirling the ball and chain to some effect at 60.

Listening to the story of a multi-event, with the complexities of points scoring, nuances of the rules (you’re allowed two false starts), seeding, the fact that for quite a lot of the time the athletes are competing against themselves and the scoring tables, can be a daunting prospect for the viewer but thanks to Paul’s knowledge and use of the language it’s as if you’ve known all about multi-events all your life.

Worshipping in Götzis

Gőtzis is the Mecca for all multi-eventers and like the Islamic shrine all worshippers should attend once in their lifetime. I hope to go next year.

Established in 1974 in the town in western Austria this gathering at what is now known as the Hypomeeting has seen most of the great decathletes and heptathletes in action down the years. The first world record came in 1980 when 21 year old Daley Thompson bettered Bruce Jenner’s four year old record by six points with 8622. Two years later the Englishman regained his record which had been snatched away by Germany’s Guido Kratschmer.

In 2001 a landmark in the history of world athletics occurred when the Czech, Roman Sebrle became the only man to exceed 9000 points. This was the start of a five year winning streak that has not been bettered.

Bryan Clay, Erki Nool and Tomas Dvorak are three more legendary names from decathlon who have battled to success in this small town close to the border with Switzerland. Carolina Kluft has had five straight wins here; Jane Fredericks has also won five times. World record holders Sabine Braun and Jackie Joyner Kersee and World champion Jessica Ennis have seen success (the latter has also experienced disaster sustaining an injury that kept her out of the Beijing Olympics). How did all this come about?

It began in 1972 when the Mőesle stadium was built and four men – Arain Hug, Konrad Lerch (national coach), Elmar Oberhauser and Werner Strőhle dreamt of staging an international meeting in the town. Two years later the inaugural gathering was staged and the GDR athlete Burglinda Pollak (who was to win bronze in the pentathlon in München) added some prestige by winning her event. From that moment on the organisers never looked back and the meeting can now attract upwards of 13,000 spectators.

It is an indication of the progress that the sport has made that the Hypomeeting is now an integral part of the IAAF Multi-events Challenge where the winners of both men’s and women’s events can earn 30,000 dollars. Götzis, through its prestige and superb organisation has helped the one-time paupers of athletics to earn their due. And this year, in the heptathlon, there is the added incentive of cracking Sabine Braun’s 18 year old meeting record of 6985.

Posted by Tony Ward on Monday, August 9th, 2010 in Track Chat
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Triumphant Roman generals such as Pompey, Lucullus, and Julius Caesar always yearned for a ‘triumph’ after their successful campaigns, a seemingly interminable parade through the streets and suburbs of ancient Rome of the spoils of war, of doomed prisoners and blatant displays of untold wealth.

In sport in Britain, apart from local parades we seem to confine such activities to when we beat the Australians at cricket when a replica mini-urn, supposedly containing the ashes of cricket bails, is paraded by the team on an open top bus by players awaiting the gong that will surely be theirs in the next New Year Honours list.

British athletes’ historic successes in the European Championships in Barcelona where they won more medals than at any previous championships (18) with six gold medals in the total must mean that the young and not so young athletes who did so brilliantly in the Catalonian capital deserve their ‘triumph’. And if Ennis, Green, Farah, Turner, Idowu don’t receive some recognition come the New Year there is something deeply biased about the system (which one suspects there is).

This has been an international renaissance for British athletics. We can look forward to London 2012 with more confidence than we could have done ten days or so ago. And confidence is the key word and you have to hand high praise to head coach Charles van Commenee for the manner in which he has instilled it and changed the culture within British athletics which seemed to have become fearful of the big time under the previous management. I haven’t heard such positiveness from British athletes in seventeen years. Going for gold seemed to be a mantra and there was palpable disappointment by those who ‘only’ won silver or bronze.

It would be easy now to get carried away and end up with a nasty dose of realism in Daegu, Korea next summer. There the Americans, the Caribbeans and the east Africans will also await us and it will be a far better indication of how we will fare in London a year later. But it can be confidently predicted that, in athletics, Britain will be the most successful Olympic host nation since Atlanta in 1996, mainly because of the lack of strength of the three previous hosts.

It would now also be easy to crow a little. It would be unwise. The accompanying Blog (Low Jumping) shows the woebegone state of women’s high jumping in Britain. It is not the only event to be in such a mess. In Barcelona we had just one thrower in total; the women had one competitor in the jumps. We were unrepresented in 38% of the events; overall we filled just 37.5% of the places available to us (the women just 30%). This is serious in terms of support and television viewing figures.

When the Commonwealth Games were staged in Manchester in 2002 (a lost golden opportunity for athletics) England fielded three competitors in every event, men and women. The country won just 7 titles out of 46 available but the enthusiasm of the stadium crowds was overwhelming and television viewing reached great heights. In a Sport England survey athletics, for a fleeting instance, overtook soccer in popularity.

What the viewing public want to watch is British athletes taking on the world. But if a third to a half of an evening’s programme is sans a UK competitor it’s usually time for a tea break or something more urgent. Public interest is in direct proportion to the frequency of seeing British athletes competing.

This applies across Europe and in an interview Lord Coe made the point that the European AA had run surveys that indeed indicated that the same applies across the continent. The number of entries and standard must be a worrying factor for Hansjorg Wirz and his council especially with the next championships being held just a few weeks prior the 2012 Olympics. Surely the European’s could have been held after London?

In Britain there is no development of events and van Commenee, who clearly realises this fact, must devote himself, in part, to this task. Since the retirements of Steve Backley and Mick Hill in the javelin and Ashia Hansen in the triple jump for instance, both events have declined to alarming levels. In the javelin our top thrower lies 31st in the world; in the triple our top competitor lies 67th (our second ranked is 81st). Below our great performers in these events there was the smallest of pyramids which crumbled.

Who epitomised the championships from a British point of view? It would be easy to say Ennis or Farah or any of the five gold medallist but for me it was the exciting exuberance of Perri Shakes Drayton, a 21 year old from Victoria Park Harriers, who lives just a stone’s throw from the Olympic Park, who arrived in Barcelona with aspirations of getting to the 400m Hurdles final and ended going home with two bronze medals and a sub-50 secs 4 x 400 relay leg.

It has been an exciting week for the sport in more ways than one.

Posted by Tony Ward on Sunday, August 1st, 2010 in Track Chat
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Dorothy Odam-Tyler, first of eleven high jump Olympic and European medalists.

If any one event epitomises the slow and seemingly terminal decline of athletics as a major sport in this country it is surely  the women’s high jump. It reflects the podium fixation, imposed by UK Sport, of Charles van Commenee and Kevin Tyler and his band of Mounties, and of those who went before which eschews development in favour of a mostly futile hunt for global gold. For some extraordinary reason performance and the development of it have been inextricably kept apart since 1997.

This has been fatal. The father of British coaching, Geoff Dyson recognised from the very beginning the importance of a sound base for every event. “The star performer,” he used to say, “stands at the top of a pyramid and the higher he stands the greater the base of that pyramid must be.” Conversely the smaller the base of the pyramid the lower the apex will be.

This year 90 women have so far cleared 1.65m; in 1980 the same number cleared 1.67m.

Women’s high jumping is in a dreadful state but it hasn’t always been so. Between 1936 and 1971 eleven Olympic and European medals were won by high jumpers. Then, seemingly, the well ran dry.

It isn’t just that the standards are so appalling but that the numbers taking part are also so woeful. The event stopped providing medallists two generations ago. We last sent a competitor to a global championship in 2001; we last had a finalist in 1988; our last global medallist was Dorothy Shirley at the Rome Olympics of 1960. And so it has been neglected and abandoned.

No one seems to care. It is as if the event has become one that dare not speak its name. The sport in general has long since stopped caring about such matters; no word of such a state of affairs appears in the columns of Athletics Weekly (avoiding reality appears to be  editorial policy).

The event has reached a nadir this year. At the UK Championships (and European Trials) there were just five competitors. One failed to clear a height; one was a veteran who cleared the same height as the bronze medallist (1.71m). The silver medallist cleared 1.76m and the winner 1.84m. These are heights from a bygone era, achieved with Western Roll and Straddle techniques. Likewise at the recent England championships there were only four competitors with a winning height of 1.84m and fourth place of 1.69m. Given such performances who was the humorist who set the UK qualifying height for Barcelona at the UK record of 1.95m?

There is worse news. There were a combined total of just seven competitors in the three English regional championships. One winner cleared 1.60m. Dorothy Odam-Tyler cleared that height off cinders on to sand using a Scissors technique at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

And there is no encouraging sign at junior level.  At the World Junior’s only Lea Haggett has gained a medal (in 1990) by jumping 1.88m; her career best was 1.92m.  At the World Youth championships Aileen Wilson won gold in 2001 with 1.87 but improved no further in her short career.   In the younger age groups athletes were jumping equal heights to today forty five years ago and like Dorothy Odam they were doing so off cinders on to sand pits. Today, even with landing beds, there are stories of some schools banning high jump for health and safety reasons.

So it’s a mess and has been for too many years.

Is the standard of high jump coaching in Britain good enough? Do we have enough former Level 3 coaches to adequately cover the country? Where does the buck stop for this appalling state of affairs? What are the development plans for the event? Are good competitive opportunities for the best jumpers available? Why has there been no conference to discuss the problem? Are we encouraging the right kind of athlete into the event?

These are questions that demand answers but you can be sure that none will be forthcoming. Those who currently run British athletics feel accountable only to those two over-inflated and overrated sporting quangos, UK Sport and Sport England. They certainly do not feel answerable for their actions to the sport itself leaving athletics in this country as one of the least democratic sporting organisations.

Meanwhile women’s high jumping continues in a doldrums that has lasted well over twenty years. There is a 13 centimetre gap between UK leader Ennis and world leader Vlasic’s best performances. The fact that there is a 28 centimetre gap between their respective heights speaks volumes. There appears to be no plan to bring about a renaissance either for the event or athletics in general. The leadership of the sport over the past thirteen years has much to answer for.

Posted by Tony Ward on Monday, July 26th, 2010 in Track Chat
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Britain's last Olympic 800 metre champion, Steve Ovett, winning in Moscow in 1980

To comprehend the seemingly eternal problems that have beset and continue to beset British men’s 800 metre running you only have to compare the outcome of the events at the World Junior Championship trials at Bedford and its senior European Championship counterpart in Birmingham.

Those who watched the race at Bedford and saw three young men set personal bests and lead the UK rankings (placing themselves in the top five in Europe) must have felt that maybe, just maybe, twenty-three years of medal barrenness at world level would soon come to an end. The prize of racing the best juniors in the world at Moncton was incentive enough and UKA qualifying times were achieved by the first two home.

The contrast with the race in Birmingham could not have been starker. The incentive of racing at the European Championships in Barcelona was not enough to stir a competitive edge in the runners. A funereal opening lap of 54.7 (almost two seconds slower than at Bedford) showed the mindset of seven of the eight finalists (the winner, Michael Rimmer is honourably excused having already qualified). As for the rest they clearly felt that the UKA qualifying standards were beyond them. Not one of the finalists set a season’s best let alone a personal one. Indeed Warburton in second place just managed to eclipse Sydney Wooderson’s 800 metre world record time set in 1938. We are used to the sight of British middle-distance runners immediately dropping to the back of international fields; Birmingham was an example of what happens when they all want to run there.

Five British junior athletes have broken 1:50 so far in 2010 but before we get carried away by the exploits of the new breed of two lappers we must understand that this has also happened in four of the opening ten years of this century. Unfortunately those glimmers of hope have been as fleeting as Haley’s Comet. We now look at the names and wonder what happened to them. They made no impact after their junior stardom and so the event has suffered. It is almost thirty years since a British athlete ran under 1:42, it is twenty since 1:43 was eclipsed and seventeen since 1:44 was last beaten. Not an auspicious record.  However,this year Michael Rimmer looks like fulfilling his initial promise when setting a personal best in Lausanne and running the fastest time by a British athlete (1:44.49) since 1993.  However one swallow doesn’t make a summer and only he has been selected for Barcelona.

Yet, taking in the whole history of the sport, we have an honourable record by winning six Olympic titles, more than any other country except the USA. We have had the knowledge too from men like Sam Mussabini (coach to 1920 Olympic champion Albert Hill) through to Harry Wilson and Peter Coe.

Wilson coached our last Olympic gold medallist, Steve Ovett, who won in Moscow in 1980. He ran very few 800 metres after his triumph and some point to his being just seventh on the all-time list as an indication of his lack of speed (but no one has run as fast this century), forgetting perhaps that he ran 47.5 for 400 metres as a junior!

It was Peter Coe who broke the middle-distance training mould with his emphasis on speed being the essence of the event. It may be useful to repeat some of his phrases on training

“If speed is the goal, then never get too far from it”.

“It is repeatable fast 400m speed that can be called upon and more than once at any stage of the race and it must be sustainable speed”.

“What I am suggesting is that there is more time spent in steady winter running than is necessary.”

This was heresy and it seems to me that for many it still is. But is it the reason (and I’ve asked the question before) for our alarming decline? If as Peter suggested a top class 800 metre runner has to have equivalent speed to a national class 400m runner (46-46.5 secs) then our seniors should be there and our juniors working towards it. A glance at the current rankings shows that only one senior and one junior fulfil those criteria.

The rest of the world stood still after Seb Coe and Joaquim Cruz broke 1:42 in the 1980s and it did so again when Wilson Kipketer next achieved the feat in 1997. Now there are stirrings and great anticipation.

David Rudisha ran 1:41.51 last weekend in the Belguim town of Heusden-Zolder to move ahead of Sebastian Coe to second on the all-time list.  Rudisha, covered the opening lap in 49.65 (comfortable for him as he has run 45.50 for 400m in Sydney).  He is now just 5/10th away from breaking Kipketer’s 13 year old record.

The Africans are now taking over the event more than ever leaving European runners behind. At the time of writing only three Europeans have run under 1:45 this year and another five have eclipsed 1:46. Five Africans top the world list with runs under 1:44. But in 2001 four Europeans ran under that time. In other words the general decline has nothing to do with a lack of talent, sedentary lifestyles, conflicting interests or any of the other excuses mooted. It has to do with attitudes of mind.

It is an attitude of mind that has to be overcome if our runners are to match the best in the world; the danger is that the event will continue to slip away from Europe if Africans are perceived once again as running “impossible” times. Remember the coach who told us that the Africans were unbeatable? Many researchers have since refuted that belief. Presently it looks as if it will be America that will rise to the African challenge not only with their senior runners but with their juniors as well.

There was a remarkable heat at the recent NCAA championships at Eugene, Oregon last month. In what appears to have been a collective brainstorm the whole field sped the first lap in 50.7 with the indoor champion, Robby Andrews, a 19 year old Virginia University freshman, following them in 51+. The pace continued into the second lap but it was Andrews who prevailed with 1:45.54. This was not only the fastest time in the world by a junior in 2010 but the third fastest American junior of all-time behind Jim Ryun and Jose Parrilla. In other words American junior athletes are anticipating sub-50 opening laps in the years ahead.

To aficionados of the event all this is exciting stuff and we in Britain must endeavour to ensure that we are not left behind. The first (and simplest) stage is to ensure that the hemorrhaging of junior talent from the sport, either through injury or lack of motivation or other causes, is stemmed often through the simple expediency of communication, of keeping in touch. It may also be that competition for the Under 23 age group needs to be rapidly expanded.

Writing of the heyday of British two-lap running (when four consecutive Olympic gold medals were won between 1920 and 1932) that indefatigable chronicler of the sport F.A.M. Webster wrote: “Lowe and Hampson…established the fact that a top-class 800 metres race is in reality just one prolonged and glorified sprint from pistol flash to finishing post.” You may look at the times achieved back then and smile in disagreement but it is all relative and obviously a trend that experts were beginning to witness all those years ago.

Posted by Tony Ward on Monday, July 12th, 2010 in Track Chat
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If Lamine Diack decides to stand for re-election for the presidency of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) at its Congress in Daegu in 2011 he, if elected, will at the end of the tenure in 2015, be the oldest serving President in IAAF history at the age of 82.

What galls most people is that the reason he was unopposed at the last election in 2007 in Osaka was his undertaking that this would be his last hurrah; that come Korea he would step down gracefully in favour of whoever wins the succession battle between (probably) Sergey Bubka, Lord Sebastian Coe and the first African woman to win an Olympic track title, Nawal el Moutawakel. Any one of that trio has the proven ability to extricate the IAAF from the financial and administrative quagmire which it currently finds itself in. Any one of that trio has the leadership qualities so sadly lacking in the present incumbent.

What surely must further irk Diack’s critics is the fact that he is after a much bigger prize – the Presidency of Senegal no less. He says that friends (unspecified) are urging him to challenge President Abdoulaye Wade and “help the country make the transition back to democracy.” He also says that other friends (also unspecified) are urging him to stand again for the IAAF Presidency. Should he be elected Senegalese president, Diack says he would immediately relinquish the athletics post and a interim president would serve out the remaining three years. So we all know where Lamine’s priorities lie.

The IAAF has always over-venerated its Presidents, treating them more like old fashioned potentates than mere leaders of sport. It may be something to do with their advancing years. The organisation has had only five presidents since its inauguration in 1912 and each has lived into his seventies. The longest serving was the first President, Siegfried Edstrom of Sweden who served for 34 years.

Diack has not been a particularly effective President. His communication skills outside of the French language have been poor. Vice-President Coe recently said that the IAAF faced commercial, internal and external challenges. “We’re not engaging with young people,” he said.

Diack recently admitted that his organisation faced making cutbacks of $20 million over the next three years and although its finances will be boosted by the recent sponsorship of its Diamond League by Samsung there is no evidence so far that it is engaging with the wider public with its new venture.

“Necessity,” Plato said, “is the mother of invention.” When it became clear that the commercial possibilities open to the sport in the early eighties were unlikely to be exploited internationally the then president of FIDAL, Primo Nebiolo, quietly assembled enough votes to defeat the incumbent President, Adrian Paulen, who was forced to stand down after only 5 years in office. Changes swiftly occurred under the extrovert Italian lawyer including the acceptance of a form of professionalism and the introduction of world championships.

Incidentally, had Paulen not stood down it would have been the only presidential election to date in IAAF history.

We are in a similar position now with athletics worldwide struggling to vie not only with the other, more commercially savvier major sports but with new, exciting physical activities that make the drabness of repetitious athletics training unattractive to young people.

We need leadership that has been sadly lacking during Diack’s tenure. Bubka, Coe and el Moutawakel must seek nomination for election in 2011. If Diack still decides to enter the fray then so be it, it is his prerogative. But none of the younger candidates should imagine that standing aside to give him another free run for four years is doing the sport a service. Clearly it is not. Diack must go.

Posted by Tony Ward on Monday, June 28th, 2010 in Track Chat
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In August 1989 the European Cup was held at Gateshead’s newly refurbished International Stadium and Britain won, ending a twenty-five year old hegemony by the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic. The coverage in the British press, both broadsheet and tabloid, was unprecedented, the latter going overboard with two page spreads and banner headlines like “YOU BEAUTS!” and “GREAT BRITS!” shifting all other sports out of sight.

We were, of course, in the middle of that golden era of British athletics that some nostalgics long for. It spawned excellent journalism from men like John Rodda, Colin Hart, Ian McLeod, Neil Allen, Neil Wilson et al; for a time BBC and ITV vied with each other at the major international events and for the UK athletics contract. I’m sure that the story was the same all over Europe when that continent’s athletes won the majority of the track and field medals at Olympic and World championships. No more.

Today the climate is very different for both Britain and the rest of Europe. Declining television viewing figures reflect declining success. Sprint events are dominated by the American and Caribbean athletes; middle and long distances by African runners; jumps are spread evenly between continents which leaves only the throws as a European preserve. Unfortunately these events, exciting though they may be on the day, are not in the forefront of people’s minds in deciding whether or not to attend or teleview a particular meeting.

In those stardust days of the 80s and early 90s you would need the fingers of three hands to count the names of British athletes who, though perhaps not quite household names, would be recognised by the general public. Today you’d only need one hand with fingers to spare. This is reflected in the paucity of newspaper coverage. Is the indifference more global than we think? Is the neglect of the sport by the media the cause of disinterest by the public or must we, as a sport, shoulder our share of the blame? Have we drifted back sixty years or so to when those that ran British athletics sincerely thought that a lack of publicity was good for the sport (or more likely a quiet life for themselves).

According to a recent article by Luciano Barra, Lamine Diack, the President of the IAAF, arbitrarily chose, purely on financial grounds ($80m to $63m) IEC in Sports, a Swedish based company for its television partner, over the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) with whom it had worked for 27 years. However production costs were included in the EBU bid but not in that of IEC, which according to Barra is worth $25m over the four years of the contract. The first victim of the change has been the BBC, who, in the midst of negotiations with IEC for a four year contract, had their interim bids for the World Indoor and World Cross Country championships turned down as being “too low.”

It is this argument that affects others sports: cash versus viewing penetration; terrestrial versus satellite television. Diack, due to his federation’s financial straits, went for the cash. After all television revenue represents over 60% of its income. It is a choice that the 76 year old President may well rue especially if he chooses, quite extraordinarily, to go for re-election in 2011. Sponsors could decide that the viewing penetration provided by the likes of pay-to-view channel ESPN is too low and withdraw. What would the IAAF do then poor thing?

In Britain viewing figures continue to plunge. Only 27 million watched the World championships from Berlin, compared with Germany (70m), France (50m) and Italy (40m) and what happens if the BBC cannot reach a satisfactory agreement with IEC?

Those who run our sport at all levels seem impotent in the face of the almost non-existent press coverage. I daily search the Guardian in vain for news of athletics, finding a small paragraph once in a while; it is a sign of the times that the World Cross Country championships from Bydgoszcz did not even warrant that. As for the tabloids, forget it. Athletics is now definitely yesteryear’s news.

But are we our own worst enemy in this regard? UKA may well feed the media with releases but most are not newsworthy. The governing body seems to have a lack of comprehension as to what the press want to cover and the public want to read. There is an apparent lack of understanding of the sport. The needs of the sponsor seem to take precedence over those of the media and the public. If athletics is everybody’s second favourite sport the federation serves its fans badly. A Harry Aikines Aryeetey Blog is no substitute for real information.

Below national level athletics promotion and media communication is a woeful joke. Regional championships, league athletics, home country internationals receive little or no pre-event publicity. A good example was this year’s Northern Indoor Championships at the EIS in Sheffield. Competing was Jessica Ennis, World Heptathlon champion, born and domiciled in the city. It was her first competitive appearance there since winning in Berlin. But if you lived in South Yorkshire you wouldn’t have known it. And at the meeting it showed there being just the usual gaggle of parents and coaches.

Press officers at regional and club level are thin on the ground. The thinking at those levels appears to be that it’s up to press, radio and television to find out what is happening in athletics rather than the other way round. That attitude spirals the sport to oblivion in the face of the juggernaut of soccer.

Indeed many seem to welcome the lack of media attention, being paranoid about too much intrusion or dirty linen being washed in public. In my decade of handling the media for British athletics we had our fair share of controversy but recognised the value of what the French call succes de scandale. We, less elegantly, refer to it as there being no such thing as bad news. What the controversies did was add spice to the golden era, not permanently harm it in any way. Because of the lack of success, however the drug scandals over the past decade have now taken almost exclusive precedence in the coverage.

British Athletics needs to overhaul its public relations and its interrelations with the media. Its websites must become more newsworthy and need to inform the voluntary sector. UKA’s site in particular does not seem to know who its target audience is. Is it 14 year olds, more senior athletes or the hard pressed volunteers?

I was and am frequently told of many enterprising schemes going on in our sport, both nationally and locally. Always I ask the question: who knows? Nearly always I get a blank stare in return. As we approach 2012 these are matters that require urgent attention.

Posted by Tony Ward on Friday, May 14th, 2010 in Track Chat
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This year sees the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Dubin Report into drug taking in sport in Canada. Judge Dubin, the Chief Justice of Ontario, headed the enquiry officially named Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic Performance set up in the wake of the sensational banning of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

The 100 metres was billed as the stellar event of the track and field events in Seoul as Johnson, the world champion and record holder from Rome the year before, faced his great rivals Carl Lewis and Linford Christie. Johnson stormed to the gold medal with another world record and the whole of Canada rejoiced, with congratulations, from the Canadian Premier downwards, flowing into the Olympic Village. Two days later the triumph turned to total ignominy as Johnson tested positive for the drug stanozolol. He left Kimpo airport, midst media mayhem, in utter disgrace. Infamy has followed the sprinter ever since.

The Dubin Enquiry cost $4 million, sat for 91 days, saw 119 witnesses and produced over 14000 pages of testimony. The star witness, however, was Charlie Francis, Johnson’s coach, who, Sports Illustrated said in 1989, was nicknamed by the Canadian track community ‘Charlie the Chemist’. Under oath he named names including 11 of his squad of athletes, none of whom apparently denied his evidence at the time. According to the New York Times of March 2 1989 they were: Johnson, Angela Issajenko, Tony Sharpe, Molly Killingbeck, Desai Williams, Dave McKnight, Mike Sokolowski, Cheryl Thibedeau, Kevin TylerAndrew Mowatt, Tony Issajenko. Three athletes Angela Issajenko, Williams and hurdler Mark McKoy, subsequently confessed to the Enquiry to taking steroids. The Chief Counsel for the Enquiry, Robert Armstrong, went to great lengths to ascertain whether the athletes understood that they were taking banned drugs. Francis assured him that they knew exactly what they were doing.

Little work, if any, has been done on the mindset of the drug user in sport. What is their psychological state as they, over a period of time, ingest, often via a needle, proscribed substances? And what is it that seduces this minority that does not tempt the majority? Is there a personality trait that lures them towards using unscrupulous methods to obtain success? Has covert, underhand behaviour become a way of life? Are they, by nature, duplicitous? Certainly they must be self-centred to a much greater degree than most athletes, caring little for their sport and only for their own self-advancement.

Francis used drugs as a competitive athlete and administered them to athletes when he became a coach in the early 1980s; one-time British 400 metre record holder David Jenkins used drugs after his 1972 Olympic failure and later set up a plant for the production of anabolic steroids in Mexico. He was arrested and in December 1988 found guilty by a US court of trafficking steroids worth around $100 million. He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment but was released after 9 months. Both are currently running successful businesses but would you trust them?

A number of the athletes named at the Dubin Enquiry have returned to athletics in positions of responsibility either in coaching or administration or both in Canada and elsewhere and you may say, as I do, that redemption along with education, must play a more important part in combating illegal substances in sport to allow that. One has to remember also that most of the athletes named by Francis did not test positive and there is no evidence to suggest that any (apart from Johnson who tested positive for a second time in 1993 and was banned for life) dabbled in prohibited substances subsequent to Dubin.

However, there is little doubt that deeper probing, using Psychometric testing amongst other methods, by federation administrators into candidates with a drug history should be an imperative.

There is no consistency in the way that those who tested positive for prohibited substances are subsequently treated. Linford Christie, who controversially tested positive for the drug nandrolone in 1999 has not been and will not be accredited by the British Olympic Association as a coach at any Olympic Games even though he served the two year ban imposed by the IAAF. Likewise Dwain Chambers will never compete in an Olympics thanks to BOA rules. The equally sanctimonious European Promoters make themselves look faintly ridiculous in not allowing him to compete at their meetings even though he is eligible under IAAF rules and won this year’s World indoor 60 metres title. Though it cost Diane Modahl a fortune to clear her name in the mid-1990s after a totally botched test in Portugal she received no compensation and eventually had to declare herself bankrupt.

Conversely Marion Jones has just signed a lucrative contract with the Tulsa Shock WNBA basketball team following her involvement in the BALCO scandal of 2003 which resulted in her forfeiting all her five Olympic medals and going to prison for perjury in denying to grand juries that she took steroids.

So fate or chameleonic sports federations have treated others with more favour and you have to ask why this is so. Perhaps it is, as the American writer Cormac McCarthy wrote that “in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime.”

Posted by Tony Ward on Friday, April 9th, 2010 in Track Chat
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Is athletics, internationally and nationally, intellectually capable of combating the juggernaut of professional football full of avarice, dubious financial practice and even more dubious ownerships, epitomised by the English Premier League? Sadly, it looks not. How do you battle with a sporting soap opera with which the media is so infatuated?

The IAAF (itself not immune to the attractions of Arab wealth) has evolved the Diamond League a supposedly worldwide series of meetings attracting the very best athletes. Upon closer examination, however, it is merely the former Golden League and its predecessors wrapped in a new glossy package but still in the grip of the European promoters whose antipathy to radical change is becoming all too obvious.

At the launch of the League IAAF President Lamine Diack studiously ignored the fact that it is a northern hemisphere concept. His organisation seems incapable of biting the bullet and acknowledging that athletics needs to go global and be a ten months a year sport where the best athletes accept that for four to six months they will be competing south of the Equator. European promoters’ dominance of what goes on in athletics needs to be ended and in a truly worldwide Diamond League a number of European promotions would have to be sacrificed.

We are, at the time of writing, just nine weeks or so away from the opening League meeting in Doha but I can find no mention of that most vital ingredient for success, global television coverage. With the IAAF no longer possessing a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) contract how will I in Britain or enthusiasts in other European countries be able to watch the opening meeting? Or any of the other thirteen jamborees? In Britain, unless a spectacular announcement is forthcoming, we shall only see Usain Bolt at or from (on the BBC) the Crystal Palace or, if he breaks a world record, on television news. In Norway, if reports are correct, the whole Diamond League programme of meetings will be shown on a terrestrial channel; clearly the Norwegians are not so mesmerised by soccer. But it seems that such coverage will be piecemeal. Without worldwide television the concept loses its purpose.

And the signs are not propitious. In Britain the BBC did not cover the World Indoor Championships from Doha, neither did Eurosport. It was covered on the web (not all that well) by the Telegraph Media Group in association with UKA’s major sponsor Aviva. This does not augur well for post 2012 coverage of the sport in Britain and UKA and Fast Track must seriously look at what they are currently providing to the viewing public. The format has not changed in years.

Other sports have grasped the nettle of year round global participation. Test cricket, one day and 20/20 matches now take place in appropriate seasons in all hemisoheres year round. Rugby tours likewise. Tennis is a ten month a year sport worldwide, as is golf. All appear on terrestrial or satellite television. You may say that cross-country and indoor track serve this purpose but these are northern hemisphere minor concepts strictly for aficionados.

In Britain athletics is a neo-conservative sport. Collectively we certainly qualify for membership of The Flat Earth Society. For us the eleventh commandment is Thou Shall Not Change. This is epitomised by the current umpteenth working party on the re-structuring of competition. Its findings will doubtless go the way of all the others, either to a dusty back shelf in Athletics House or the shredder. The problem is the same faced by the IAAF, that of trying to gel into a coherent policy meetings and leagues that fiercely guard their independence and status, universally known as the “not in my back yard” syndrome.

A few months ago I had an e-mail from a British administrator asking to be removed from one of this Blog’s address lists. He was, he explained, not interested in international athletics, nor in national athletics. He was just interested in his own small neck of the woods. He (like thousands of others in the sport) will not have heard of the Diamond League, probably doesn’t watch the Olympics or World Championships on television, will not be concerned with anything that happens outside the eighth lane of his home track. He will never click on to the IAAF, European AA or UKA websites. Before we condemn him for his parochialism we must remember that without him and thousands of other volunteers the sport would die on its feet. We should also reflect that, in its own way, the IAAF is just as parochial. The problem for the sport is how to awaken interest to a much wider public.

Seb Coe wrote a couple of years ago that athletics was everybody’s second favourite sport and that probably still pertains. You only had to witness the enthusiasm of the crowds that gathered on a very rainy day in Manchester last year to see Usain Bolt run a magnificent 150 metres on a portable track in the city centre to understand that. These were the same crowds that went wild about the Commonwealth Games in 2002. Between those two events that region of Britain lost its stadium to professional football and has been totally starved of class athletics ever since.

What athletics, both internationally and nationally, seems incapable of doing is selling itself not only to the general public but to its own rank and file.

How do you make our friend look outside his outside lane?

Posted by Tony Ward on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 in Track Chat
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There is an obvious and serious gender imbalance in coaching which is increasingly recognised by governing bodies and coaches themselves:

• L3: women are 20% of total.
• L4: women 9% of total.
• UKA does not employ any female coaches.
• All the National Coach Mentors (EA) are men.

UKA support team (coaches, medical and team management) Berlin World Championships:

• men    24
• women 3, no coaches among them.

Coaches to travel with the England Commonwealth Games, Delhi, Oct 2010:

• men 10
• women 2

The latter ratio is to be celebrated as a breakthrough (Well done England Athletics and congratulations to Lorraine Shaw and Christine Bowmaker)  but also emphasises how far we have to go to create equal access to achievement for women in coaching.  The reasons for this are complex and not easy to address.  So far both England Athletics and UKA appear to be thinking in terms of “bolt on” approaches – special projects for women that sit alongside standard provision.   The danger here is that mainstream attitudes and procedures which are not “female friendly” remain sacrosanct.  In other words indirect discrimination remains unrecognised and women are seen as having additional needs.  I do not think that this approach will prove effective, or provide value for money – but we will see.

In 2007 I produced a report for the then UKA Head of Coach Education, Callum Orr.  It focussed on barriers to the transition from Levels 3 to 4 for women.  There was a wide range of experience and views.  Overall it appeared that female coaches who have been athletes  in the same club and who coach club level athletes, tend to experience less negativity and are less likely to report sexism than those who are ex internationals themselves, or who coach or aspire to coach high potential athletes.  There were also significant issues around levels of expressed aspiration.  In general the female coaches did not express high levels of personal ambition and were not on the look out for talent, but said they got their satisfaction from establishing long term relationships with athletes of whatever level and helping them  to achieve their potential.  (Note points made by Lester and McGovern on coach/athlete relationship “Why Athletics Can’t give women an Equal Chance; posted 19^th Jan 2010)  although this finding ideally needs to be compared to responses from a similar group of male coaches, it does to equate to the diminishing distribution of female coaches at higher levels of qualification.

This apparent lack of ambition cannot be separated from perception of opportunity.  The absence of female role models at the highest level must affect perception of what is achievable and, therefore, levels aspiration.

Summary of barriers:

Since writing the above I have had occasion to talk in depth to five women coaches who are a combination of either L4, ex-international athletes, and/or coach international or potential international athletes. They live and coach miles away from each other, in different socio-economic areas, vary in age and ethnicity and coach different event groups.  Some are known, distantly, to each other, but are not close associates.  They report the following experiences:

• Have been publicly criticised by male coaches, including UKA coaches,  in front of athletes they are coaching and others
• Have been made to feel “invisible” by UKA coaches
• Have been spoken to by less experienced male coaches as if they are novices
• Have been publicly criticized by male coaches because of the adapted coaching style they use for teenage girls which is designed to keep them in the sport
• Have experienced sexist bullying by male colleagues in a non-coaching environment
• Either do not use certain tracks or feel at risk at certain tracks because of negative attitudes or bullying by male coaches
• Have been so upset by the treatment they have received by male coaches/decision-makers  that they have  been in tears after sessions/meetings
• Have seriously considered curtailing or ceasing coaching or other athletics participation because of the above
• Feel that their future satisfaction or advancement is seriously curtailed because they are women and/or because they will never get the opportunity to coach a potentially elite athlete to that potential.
• Think that either any complaint would rebound on them or that it is not worth complaining as concerns would be dismissed.  Some incidents have been reported to senior management, but no action was seen to be taken.
• One woman, a successful business woman in another industry, said that athletics was the most sexist environment she had ever worked in.  She has resigned from a major athletics role as a result.

Although a significant number of women do not report  overt sexism in the sport, it seems that those who  aspire to achieve highly are at risk of unprofessional and unethical treatment. The lack of a substantial and “live” code of practice for coaches and others makes it difficult for such incidents to be addressed.

The way forward; managing diversity

The current management teams at UKA and EA did not create or cause disadvantages for women, but have inherited what can only be described as organisational sexism as a result of the failures of all previous administrations to recognise and deal with it.   Neither, I would guess, was experience of addressing gender disadvantage in a complex organisation high on the person specifications for their current jobs.  It is also true that, as each regime comes and goes without effective action for diversity, the more entrenched and difficult it becomes to address. Whilst some advances might occur accidentally (e.g. the objectivity of Lottery funding) major setbacks (ever diminishing numbers of women in positions of influence; currently at an all time low) also occur as the result of a gender blind administration which manages systems, procedures and policies rather than people.  It also needs to be noted that in all the various attempts to address gender or diversity  in the last 15 years or so, the High Performance operation  (PAS, then UKA) has not been involved, rendering each project relatively impotent. None of these initiatives have made any lasting improvement whatsoever in regard to gender.  The question is, is the current regime stepping up to the plate?

The Croydon Conference “Improving the Environment for Women in Coaching” June 09.

150 Women attending this successful event, which was run by an American team of coaches and administrators.  A major project was to emerge from this and EA has seconded a co-ordinator to run a programme of “activities and opportunities” (England website) for female coaches, which an advisory group will support.   Although no aims and objectives have become clear for this project, I understand that significant funding was set aside to support it.  This could be an important piece of positive action.  However, it does appear at this stage to be targeting female under-development and not hidden gender related disincentives and barriers, over which women themselves have no influence because they have no power. Whilst low profile and under-development can, but obviously do not always,  go hand in hand, they result from organisational non-recognition of diverse needs.  To address effects but not causes is short-sighted and wasteful.    There is no suggestion so far that mainstream provision is to be adapted to be more inclusive, though that could still evolve.  But without, at the very least, codes of conduct and a project to raise awareness on gender for the rest of the athletics community, ESPECIALLY AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, it is hard to see how such a project can address the problems identified by the 5 coaches I have spoken to.  In technical terms, a piece of positive action such as this needs a backdrop of diversity management to enable it to bite.

A quick flick around “managing diversity” on Google throws up tens of thousands of words from hundreds of organisations and service providers on this well researched and practiced topic.

Definition of managing diversity:

“planning and implementing organizational systems and practices to manage people so that the potential advantages of diversity are maximized while its potential disadvantages are minimized,” according to Taylor Cox in “Cultural Diversity in Organizations.”

This is obviously more challenging and complex in the employee/volunteer mix of sport,   but even more important because female performance is, directly, 52% of the bottom line.

Here are some fundamentals identified by and  for managers aiming to eradicate disadvantage for non-majority groups in their organisations:

• Test your assumptions before acting on them, both personal and organisational.
• Establish a culture of honest relationships – inter-personal, inter unit/sector. Is there adequate recognition of individual and group motivations and goals and how they like to be recognized?
• In recruitment, have a diverse screening committee and make additional outreach efforts to ensure that a diverse pool of candidates will apply.
• Rigorously examine existing policies, practices, and procedures to ensure that they do not differentially impact different groups. When they do, change them.
• Listen to constructive feedback from under represented groups about ways to improve the work environment. Implement suggestions and acknowledge their contribution.
• Take immediate action when anyone behaves in ways that show disrespect for others in the workplace, such as inappropriate jokes, offensive terms and assumptions of inferiority or bullying.
• Make good faith efforts to meet affirmative action goals across all spheres. (we now have just one piece of such action, the women coaches project, but with no goals set as yet)
• Have a good understanding of institutional “isms” such as racism and sexism and how they manifest themselves in the workplace.
• Ensure that assignments and opportunities for advancement are and are seen to be accessible to everyone.

(Thanks to the University of California/ Berkeley website and others)

It’s not rocket science is it?  But patience, self and organisational awareness, imagination, determination, moral courage, the ability to actively listen and, crucially, to share organisational and personal power, are required in spades.  Are all these characteristics compatible with targets and timescales laid down by government for our NGBs?  Some are, but others, well…   given their lack of accountability to the sport, could be our governing bodies are the nuts in the nutcracker when it comes to equity.

Posted by Gwenda Ward on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 in Track Chat
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