Fool’s Gold
The obsession of politicians and sports councils with gold will prove to be the downfall of British athletics. Ever since government started pouring lottery money into the sport but insisting on it being spent only on top performers, in ways decreed by sports councils, athletics in this country has sharply declined.
And it has been done seemingly without a whimper of protest from an acquiescent UK Athletics whose top management have had a vested interest in keeping the severely flawed system going. They are like the courtiers in Grimm’s fairy tale of the king’s new suit of clothes.
Dave Collins in his presentation on the UKA website says that he doesn’t “cater for the improvement of standards in British athletics.” But he also says: “I direct the programme which enables UK athletes to win medals at World and Olympic level.” It is his (and before him Max Jones’) failure to see that the two are irrevocably linked, that the latter must depend on the former that is accelerating the decline of the sport in Britain.
The father of British coaching, Geoff Dyson recognised this from the very beginning. “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.”
What government and its quango, Sport England, have provided, in financial and logistical terms, is an inverted pyramid that must inevitably collapse.
And we’re all being mesmerised by the medal tables. Although Britain finished tenth in the medal table in Gothenburg we actually finished fourth in the ‘placings’ table that collates the eight finalists, six points behind Spain in third. However before there is dancing in the streets of Solihull it should be noted that the team amassed the lowest points total at a European Championships since 1982.
And midst all the brouhaha about the World Junior Championships we should note that all the medal success came in the sprints and relays. And before we go all wild about Harry (Aikines-Aryeetey) we should also note that no World Junior 100m champion has ever gone on to win an Olympic or World title. Collins is right to comment that in looking for future international medallists performance isn’t everything.
If we study the decade before lottery funding became available with the first decade of its implementation we can see that in the seven Olympic and World championships between 1987 and 1996 we won a total of 49 medals; in the seven between 1997 and 2006 we won 32. Not only that but the spread of events was greater between 1987 and 1996. In the first decade we won medals in around half of the events on the programme, in the second we won medals in around a third.
This trend is reflected in the athletes listed in World Class Podium Programme.
44.2% are sprinters and hurdlers; 21.4% are endurance (making 65.6% of the list runners). Only two throwers make the grade.
In World Class Development 77.0% are runners. This means that of the 134 athletes just 13% are jumpers, 6% are throwers and 4% are multi-eventers.
So as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer so Collins’ pyramid base becomes ever smaller. How can any Performance Director worth his salt be seemingly oblivious to such erosion and not want to do something about it?
Those sporting bureaucracies Sport England and UK Sport, who have also had their own administrative upheavals during UK Athletics’ ten year existence, have colluded and are colluding with UKA to keep this expensive white elephant on the road (because of course it is in all three organisations’ financial interest to do so). If, as has been reported, £25 million of lottery funding has been spent on the world class programmes over the past decade that totals almost £800,000 per medal; or if we’re just talking gold, £3,125,000 each. By no stretch of the imagination could this be construed as value for money. In fact it is a financial scandal of quite astronomical proportions because the effect of all this expenditure has had a negative effect on the rest of the sport.
And it is a succession of chairpersons and chief executives of those two equally expensive quangoes who must bear a considerable amount of responsibility. In not advising government that its lust for gold was inappropriate to the welfare of British athletics (a unique sport thanks to its diversity) and in supporting the latter’s mismanagement in the name of receiving compliancy it has done it a grave disservice.
Farewell from him
In commenting on David Moorcroft’s resignation as Chief Executive UKA’s President, Lynn Davies, is reported to have said: “Dave isn’t responsible for performance. Don’t hold him accountable for our national team at major championships.”
As I recall it both Max Jones reported and now Dave Collins reports to Moorcroft and suggesting that the CEO has no responsibility for their performance is a bit like suggesting that Ken Lay had no responsibility for the downfall of Enron. The remark highlights the refusal of anybody at UKA to be accountable for their actions.
I wish Dave well with a sigh of relief. The facts, as displayed in last week’s and this week’s blog, are that he was taking the sport on an accelerating downward spiral. The list of his organisation’s failures has been too widely catalogued to require repetition here. Perhaps his biggest failure was not to recognise that a majority of his workforce lacked knowledge and experience of athletics and needed guidance. His refusal to tap into the vast experience available to him from within the sport has led to a huge expenditure of energy for little or no success either domestically or internationally. The sport as a whole resented the millions spent on what proved to be ineffective professional administration.
Let us paraphrase (again) Lady Bracknell. “To appoint one inappropriate chief executive,” she might have said, “might be regarded as a misfortune; to appoint four looks like carelessness.” Well a little more than that. The last four appointees have all, in their own way, been a disaster. All charming fellows, all not up to the task. Already speculation is rife about Moorcroft’s successor and doubtless, in this day and age, bookmakers will be taking bets.
But before that hour approaches and to appease the Gods that have led us to this parlous state perhaps a few more sacrifices are still required.
And it has been done seemingly without a whimper of protest from an acquiescent UK Athletics whose top management have had a vested interest in keeping the severely flawed system going. They are like the courtiers in Grimm’s fairy tale of the king’s new suit of clothes.
Dave Collins in his presentation on the UKA website says that he doesn’t “cater for the improvement of standards in British athletics.” But he also says: “I direct the programme which enables UK athletes to win medals at World and Olympic level.” It is his (and before him Max Jones’) failure to see that the two are irrevocably linked, that the latter must depend on the former that is accelerating the decline of the sport in Britain.
The father of British coaching, Geoff Dyson recognised this from the very beginning. “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.”
What government and its quango, Sport England, have provided, in financial and logistical terms, is an inverted pyramid that must inevitably collapse.
And we’re all being mesmerised by the medal tables. Although Britain finished tenth in the medal table in Gothenburg we actually finished fourth in the ‘placings’ table that collates the eight finalists, six points behind Spain in third. However before there is dancing in the streets of Solihull it should be noted that the team amassed the lowest points total at a European Championships since 1982.
And midst all the brouhaha about the World Junior Championships we should note that all the medal success came in the sprints and relays. And before we go all wild about Harry (Aikines-Aryeetey) we should also note that no World Junior 100m champion has ever gone on to win an Olympic or World title. Collins is right to comment that in looking for future international medallists performance isn’t everything.
If we study the decade before lottery funding became available with the first decade of its implementation we can see that in the seven Olympic and World championships between 1987 and 1996 we won a total of 49 medals; in the seven between 1997 and 2006 we won 32. Not only that but the spread of events was greater between 1987 and 1996. In the first decade we won medals in around half of the events on the programme, in the second we won medals in around a third.
This trend is reflected in the athletes listed in World Class Podium Programme.
44.2% are sprinters and hurdlers; 21.4% are endurance (making 65.6% of the list runners). Only two throwers make the grade.
In World Class Development 77.0% are runners. This means that of the 134 athletes just 13% are jumpers, 6% are throwers and 4% are multi-eventers.
So as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer so Collins’ pyramid base becomes ever smaller. How can any Performance Director worth his salt be seemingly oblivious to such erosion and not want to do something about it?
Those sporting bureaucracies Sport England and UK Sport, who have also had their own administrative upheavals during UK Athletics’ ten year existence, have colluded and are colluding with UKA to keep this expensive white elephant on the road (because of course it is in all three organisations’ financial interest to do so). If, as has been reported, £25 million of lottery funding has been spent on the world class programmes over the past decade that totals almost £800,000 per medal; or if we’re just talking gold, £3,125,000 each. By no stretch of the imagination could this be construed as value for money. In fact it is a financial scandal of quite astronomical proportions because the effect of all this expenditure has had a negative effect on the rest of the sport.
And it is a succession of chairpersons and chief executives of those two equally expensive quangoes who must bear a considerable amount of responsibility. In not advising government that its lust for gold was inappropriate to the welfare of British athletics (a unique sport thanks to its diversity) and in supporting the latter’s mismanagement in the name of receiving compliancy it has done it a grave disservice.
Farewell from him
In commenting on David Moorcroft’s resignation as Chief Executive UKA’s President, Lynn Davies, is reported to have said: “Dave isn’t responsible for performance. Don’t hold him accountable for our national team at major championships.”
As I recall it both Max Jones reported and now Dave Collins reports to Moorcroft and suggesting that the CEO has no responsibility for their performance is a bit like suggesting that Ken Lay had no responsibility for the downfall of Enron. The remark highlights the refusal of anybody at UKA to be accountable for their actions.
I wish Dave well with a sigh of relief. The facts, as displayed in last week’s and this week’s blog, are that he was taking the sport on an accelerating downward spiral. The list of his organisation’s failures has been too widely catalogued to require repetition here. Perhaps his biggest failure was not to recognise that a majority of his workforce lacked knowledge and experience of athletics and needed guidance. His refusal to tap into the vast experience available to him from within the sport has led to a huge expenditure of energy for little or no success either domestically or internationally. The sport as a whole resented the millions spent on what proved to be ineffective professional administration.
Let us paraphrase (again) Lady Bracknell. “To appoint one inappropriate chief executive,” she might have said, “might be regarded as a misfortune; to appoint four looks like carelessness.” Well a little more than that. The last four appointees have all, in their own way, been a disaster. All charming fellows, all not up to the task. Already speculation is rife about Moorcroft’s successor and doubtless, in this day and age, bookmakers will be taking bets.
But before that hour approaches and to appease the Gods that have led us to this parlous state perhaps a few more sacrifices are still required.
posted by tonyward at 6:28 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home