All Britain has to show for six days on the track is one man and his medal
THE sporting residents of the Tower Hotel might have the runs, but it is the folk at the British team base a few streets away feeling distinctly queasy.
What they have is not so much a virus as a lingering headache caused by staring at the same problem for too long. How do you move on? How do you win medals when the bankers are no longer around?
For now, they can hide to an extent, because Sir Mo Farah, the last dead cert in their vest, is still running all- comers into the dirt. But he is now into his final four track races and then he will hit the road, no more reflected glory to be had.
What then? The answers at these Championships have been desperately bleak, with only Farah’s gold on the opening night to show for six nights of athletics. He will most likely add another in the 5,000m final on Saturday, but it is entirely possible that the intervening days will garner nothing. Maybe that will not come to pass, with good opportunities in the 200m, the relays and the talented legs of Laura Muir (below). But it would take an extraordinary, momentumturning surge for them to touch their UK Sport target of six to eight medals. That was the trade they signed up for when they took £27,136,245 for this Olympic cycle. As it stands, with four days to go, they look more likely to flirt with their worst World Championships haul in the era of lottery funding, with the two medals of 2001 being the low water mark. Senior figures around sport have long worried about the reliance on Farah and Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, who accounted for nine of the last 14 world titles won by Brits. If there are obvious winners waiting to come through in their place, they have not yet been unmasked in these Championships.
In Callum Hawkins, they had an impressive marathon runner who finished fourth, the same as Muir in a magnificent 1500m and Kyle Langford, the young chip shop star of the 800m, who promised he would deliver a gold in Tokyo. They all have talent and hype, but so did many of those who failed here.
Sophie Hitchon, Holly Bradshaw, Katarina JohnsonThompson and Andy Pozzi were all identified by team bosses as capable of making the step up to a medal. Feebly, none did.
If the situation does not change quickly, then inevitably it will lead to questions over the futures of Niels de Vos, the UK Athletics chief executive, and Neil Black, his performance director. Both already have their share of detractors, including those questioning whether Black, an excellent physiotherapist, has the coaching expertise needed for the role he was appointed to in 2012.
But quite aside from sporting politics and back-biting, there are broader theories for the dearth of medals and many centre on the coaching situation, ranging from the growing use of foreign coaches to the centralisation of the past 10 years to Loughborough, decommissioning some previously healthy regions.
Take the strong view of Malcolm Arnold, for instance. He retired last year after coaching three Olympic champions and helping athletes, including Colin Jackson, to four world records.
‘Coaching has been neglected,’ Arnold told Sportsmail yesterday. ‘They put on good events in this country but where is the development of athletes? A lot of that comes down to the coaching. The coaching education programme is abysmal. Coaches are not being developed or looked after. How many foreign coaches are there or athletes getting their coaching from abroad?’
The list includes the likes of Farah, Adam Gemili, Greg Rutherford, Hithcon and Lorraine Ugen, the European indoor silver medallist in the long jump.
‘Does that really help the wider development of athletics?’ added Arnold, who believes the problem comes from the top down, arguing that there is not enough top-level coaching expertise from the hierarchy of chairman Ed Warner, De Vos and Black.
‘Which of them has the expertise of knowing the tiny details between first and second?’ Arnold asked. ‘None of them has operated in that space as a coach.’
Indeed, the pressure is currently growing on that hierarchy, though they will say that their eight topeight finishes — a barometer used by UK Sport — is about par for Britain in recent championships.
‘There is no divine right to win a world medal,’ said Toni Minichiello, Ennis-Hill’s lauded coach. ‘In the Olympics they say you need two and a half contenders for every medal, so to get six to eight here, they would need maybe 20 contenders. I could name 14 at a stretch. It is about expectations.’
True. But the expectations for the home nation surely goes beyond one man and his medals. It needs to get better in the next four days.
HIS fans say he is in a league of his own, and yesterday Isaac Makwala proved them right as he qualified for the World Championships 200metres semi-final after running a solo time trial at London Stadium. The Botswanan missed the heats on Monday after being barred for 48 hours because of a norovirus outbreak. He later came second in his semifinal. The ban controversially stopped him running in Tuesday’s 400m final.