Visionary Malcolm can be our Guardiola
UK ATHLETICS chief executive Joanna Coates has defended Christian Malcolm’s lack of experience — and insists the new head coach of the British team can be ‘our Pep Guardiola’.
Malcolm, 41, was a popular yet surprise choice for the position at the top of the Olympic programme after holding off competition from Stephen Maguire, 57, and Peter Eriksson, 67.
Some eyebrows have been raised over the speed of the former sprinter’s elevation, but Malcolm, who starts in December after 18 months as head of performance at Australia Athletics, was seen by Coates as a figure capable of uniting the numerous disenfranchised, fractured elements of the sport in this country.
In citing the examples of Guardiola and Mikel Arteta, whose visions and ideas trumped age when they were given their starts in football management, Coates said: ‘That is exactly what we are looking for. We want someone to fundamentally make the difference in this sport. He is our Pep.
‘This was a tough process that people went through to get this role. I’ve definitely gone for a young, visionary and innovative coach. I know he hasn’t had years of coaching but being a head coach is not about coaching individual athletes.
‘There are lots of people who are great coaches. But this role is so much more than this. And what Christian has that potentially other candidates didn’t have, he might have only had 18 months over in Australia, but in that time he’s managed to pull together the (Australian) states to work together — that’s something we really need to do.
‘He’s had difficult conversations with some coaches who were out of the system and brought them back — exactly what we need, too.
He has re-engaged with disenfranchised athletes — exactly what we need to do. And he has led a team of people very successfully.
‘He was absolutely brilliant through the interview process and he brings a huge amount of credibility to the sport.’
There are questions now over whether Maguire, who is the head of performance at Scottish
Athletics and the UKA sprints and relays chief, will choose to continue in his role at UKA.
While it is known that he was part of the two-round interview process, and was widely seen as favourite for the role, Coates did not confirm his involvement.
Asked if she wanted him to stay, Coates said: ‘I’m not going to talk about anyone else who may or may not have been in the process. That was confidential and no one should know that.
‘If I can talk about Stephen as a coach in the system, he has done an amazing job looking after the relays. We wouldn’t want Stephen to go anywhere.’
The new coaching set-up — Sara Symington was appointed last month as performance director — face a heavy challenge to unite athlete factions whose trust in the centralised UKA system has dwindled in recent years.
While Malcolm’s popularity will help to that end, he has less than a year to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics with a talent pool that fell short of its medal target under the late Neil Black at the worlds in Doha in 2019. It will also be worrying that the two-day British Championships started yesterday in Manchester without the participation of any of the sport’s major names.
Those include Dina Asher-Smith, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Laura Muir, Mo Farah, Jemma Reekie or any of the higher-profile male sprinters.
It was a desperately poor field for the last event of UKA’s £2.5million-a-year broadcast contract with the BBC. Renewal negotiations are ongoing.