Setting the standard: Mo Farah and UK Athletics have risen to the challenge of hosting the Olympics (Photo: AP)
By Jason Henderson, Athletics Weekly Editor
Six years ago, when London won the bid to stage the 2012 Games, British track and field athletes nervously gathered themselves to rise to the challenge.
Competing on home soil in the biggest Olympic sport would bring huge pressure. The team in 2005 was hardly brimming with potential podium contenders either.
Yet now, with one year to go, things could hardly be more promising.
Seven national records have fallen already this summer, with possibly more to come as the season nears its peak at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu.
Encouragingly, three of these performances have been set by 19-year-olds, while one of the record- breakers, Mo Farah, has earned the prestigious title of best distance runner in the world.
Not since the Eighties, when the sport enjoyed unprecedented popularity and success when athletes such as Daley Thompson, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated the world scene, has there been such a golden era.
In short, British athletics is great again and the host nation’s medal hopes in the showcase Olympic sport look better every week.
The UK records this summer have been set by Sophie Hitchon in the hammer, Holly Bleasdale in the pole vault, Tiffany Porter at 100m hurdles, Lawrence Okoye in the discus, Chris Tomlinson in the long jump and Farah over 5,000m and 10,000m.
Others look imminent, too, such as Dai Greene in the men’s 400m hurdles and Jessica Ennis in the heptathlon.
Success has not been limited to senior level either. Led by sprint prodigy Jody Williams, Britain won 15 medals at the European Junior Championships in Tallinn from July 21-24.
Earlier in July, at the European Under-23 Championships in Ostrava the GB team enjoyed its biggest-ever medal haul.
The IAAF World Youth Championships in Lille also saw superb performances by young Britons, with two gold medals from sprinter Desiree Henry and hammer thrower Louisa James. For them, London 2012 will come too soon, but Rio 2016 and beyond beckon.
All this compares with more modest achievements in recent years.
Victories by Kelly Holmes and the GB men’s 4×100m team at the 2004 Olympics, for example, covered up a generally poor team display by the GB athletics squad.
Beijing in 2008 was arguably worse, with Christine Ohuruogu in the 400m being Britain’s only athletics gold medallist.
“Three gold medals in Athens masked a very poor team performance,” says Ed Warner, chairman of UKA.
“Kelly’s two golds and the men’s 4×100m was fantastic but then you have Kelly Sotherton’s bronze and that was it, with lots of failures to reach finals.
“Then in Beijing we didn’t deliver as we would have liked, so that’s your nadir, probably, across those two Olympics. And I think there’s been a pretty sharp upswing since then.”
Sharp upswing is probably an understatement and credit should go to the coaches andofficials who were put in place during a bold reshuffle that occurred when the sport realised the system in place six years ago was not working as well as it could.
UKA chief executive Dave Moorcroft was replaced with two men – Warner and Niels de Vos – the latter becoming the governing body’s CEO.
Key figures in Moorcroft’s team, such as Zara Hyde Peters, Callum Orr and the deputy chief executive Adam Walker also left UKA, while major structural and personnel changes at England Athletics also took place.
Later, UKA performance director Dave Collins was replaced after the Beijing Games by head coach Charles van Commenee.
Along with the Dutchman, a number of international coaches were headhunted to work in Britain’s high performance centres, including Peter Eriksson – the leader of a disability athletics team that has also improved hugely and looks set to enjoy a terrific Paralympics.
Of course, there are still a few holes and for every world beater like triple jumper Phillips Idowu there is a weak event such as the men’s hammer or women’s triple jump.
Then again, during the Eighties – or any period for that matter – the GB team has always had some weak events.
Right now, though, British athletes can hardly put a foot wrong. The London Olympics are one year away and the timing could not be better.
Back in July 2005, when London was picked by the IOC to host the 2012 Olympics, Moorcroft issued a rallying cry to Athletics Weekly, saying: “We need athletes, coaches and volunteers to wake up every day telling themselves that the London Olympics in 2012 is their goal.”
The sport was clearly listening.
- Athletics Weekly’s ‘One Year To Go’ special edition is out now. Visit http://www.athleticsweekly.com/ for more information
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