by Stuart Weir
Stuart Weir did this piece on the newest LJ coach for Lithuania, Richard Kilty.
Stuart meets a Lithuanian triple jump coach!
I was delighted to bump into Richard Kilty in Apeldoorn. Richard is a two-time European Indoor 60m champion and won the World Indoors in Sopot 2014—not to mention Olympic, World, European, and Commonwealth relay medals. He is in the Netherlands supporting his wife, Dovile, who has reached the final of the Triple Jump for Lithuania. Richard has just announced his retirement at age 35.
His most significant achievement was undoubtedly that 2014 World Indoor Championships in Poland, in the seaside city of Sopot. In his first senior major individual competition, Kilty seized that opportunity with both hands and in a considerable upset, when he set personal bests in the heats, semi-finals and final, winning a sensational gold in a time of 6.49 in the closest race in the history of the competition, with a tenth of a second separating the entire field.
His stellar career included three Olympics: 2016, 2021, and 2024. Having made his Olympic debut in Rio in 2016, Kilty was again part of Team GB in Tokyo, initially earning a silver medal in the 4x100m, which was later removed from the team. However, in an almost fairy-tale-esque comeback story, Kilty battled back from injuries to appear at his third Olympics in Paris last summer and was part of the 4x100m relay team that won bronze.
Kilty participated in the heats, helping Team GB earn automatic qualification for the final despite tearing his Achilles tendon. Replaced by Zharnel Hughes in the final’s line-up, he watched as Jeremiah Azu, Mitchell-Blake, and Louie Hinchliffe brought home the bronze medal and restored his place as an Olympic medallist.
At the Paris Games, Kilty roomed with rising star Hinchliffe, who has since begun coaching the Hinchliffe and now oversees a promising group of young sprinters as he continues to give back to the sport. The British Athletics press release said: “Now focusing on coaching full-time, the Teesside Tornado might be bringing down the curtain on a remarkable career on the track, but his athletics legacy still has a long way to run”.
