Dr. Neil Black, UKA HIgh Performance Director,

courtesy of UK Athletics

Dr. Neil Black, UKA’s new performance director, sure does not waste time. Just as the track world was wondering how many US coaches he was hiring and many British coaches were getting the proverbial ax, UKA released the following press release on their new UKA Performance structure.

Centralizing coaching site locations to Loughborough, naming five coaches (Rana Reider, Terrance Mahon, Fuzz Ahmed, Aston Moore, Steve Fudge) who will, per Dr. Black, be ” forming the bedrock to guide athletics through Rio 2016 and London World Championships 2017″. Two Americans, three British coaches.

This approach to make coaches accountable for their successes and failures has come under some some criticism in Great Britain. In UKA’s defense, with the money behind athletics, UKA has to perform or risk loosing the support.

The system seems to work, just look at the performances in London 2012. UKA has to keep the interest up, and athletes performing for 2013, 2015, 2016 and of course, 2017.

The note also says that there will be news on some additional appointments forthcoming.

BLACK CONFIRMS UKA PERFORMANCE STRUCTURE

26 November 2012

UK Athletics Performance Director Neil Black has unveiled the first of a series of new coaching appointments that will form the bedrock of a performance team set to take athletics through to Rio 2016 and the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London.

Confirming plans to centralise resources around a single High Performance institute in Loughborough- Black has outlined the shape of the performance team that will lead British athletics coaching ranks through the next Olympic cycle.

He said: “Bringing all of our very best staff together into a single centre is absolutely central to the vision for investing National Lottery and UK Sport support in order to maximise British athletics medals in future years, in particular in Rio 2016 and at the World Championships in London in 2017.

“The coaches appointed are selected for their proven technical ability allied to their ability to work across multiple disciplines with multiple athletes at varying stages of their development.

“Having these coaches alongside our world leading sport science and medical team means every British athlete will have a single venue which they can build their training around and means we will be able to offer tailored support to more athletes, more effectively than before.”

UKA employed performance coaches will work in a full time capacity from the Loughborough Institute, supporting athletes based there, supporting the event development and ensuring continuity of practice.

Two further forms of support will be offered to coaches of World Class Performance Programme (WCPP) athletes. Coach Based Support, where coaches who lead a group of potential world level medallists will be employed full time in that coaching capacity. And Athlete Based Support where coaches who work with individual athletes who have world level medal performances or potential will receive financial support to assist with their coaching commitments.

Coaches confirmed in performance coaching roles with UKA so far are:

Rana Reider: The 2011 USA Track and Field coach of the year, coach to Olympic Triple Jump champion Christian Taylor, World 100m hurdles silver medalist Danielle Carruthers and GB’s long jump World Indoor Bronze medalist Shara Proctor. Reider brings a wealth of sprint, hurdles and jumps knowledge to the UK and will oversee the sprints, sprint hurdles, horizontal jumps and relays programmes from the Institute.

Terrence Mahon: coach to USA 1500m athlete Morgan Uceny, as well as former coach to 2004 Olympic Marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor. Mahon takes a role as an endurance coach working from the Institute and will be senior men’s team coach for next month’s European Cross Country Championships

Aston Moore: coach to former World and European Triple Jump champion Phillips Idowu, as well as the women’s former triple jump world record holder Ashia Hansen. Moore has previously held the National Event Coach role for UKA and will be based at the Institute as the horizontal jumps coach.

Fuzz Ahmed: coach to 2012 Olympic bronze medalist and European Champion Robbie Grabarz, and 400m athlete Martyn Rooney, Ahmed advised GB’s 2008 Olympic silver medalist Germaine Mason and will run the Vertical Jumps programme at the Institute as well.

Steve Fudge: coach to developing sprint talent James Dasaolu, Leon Baptiste and more recently Richard Buck and Chris Clarke, Fudge has developed a strong developing squad at Loughborough working as an apprentice coach in recent years and will work as a performance coach for sprints from the institute.

Coaches who will be employed by UKA as part of the ‘coach based support’ programme as well as those who will work as consultants for UKA in order to focus on the preparations of a specific athlete, will be confirmed in due course.

UKA Performance Director Neil Black said:

“The variety of ways we can now employ coaches to do what they do best means that we will be in a position to directly support more coach athlete pairs of genuine medal prospects than ever.

“It is important to stress that we do not expect every athlete to locate full time at the Institute. Some spend long periods abroad either in warm weather training or at altitude and others have alternative UK bases that offer a better solution than relocation.

“Because of this I am also allocating resources to support coaches and athletes to continue to operate where they are most effective, using the Institute periodically where it adds most value to their programmes which are all overseen by myself and the Head Coaches f
or the Olympic and Paralympic programmes.”

Further appointments will be confirmed later in the week.

Official link to UKA site:

http://www.uka.org.uk/media/news/november-2012/26-11-12-uka-performance-structure/

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Larry Eder

Larry Eder has had a 50-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself."

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