City stadium to house hi-tech athletics centre

BIRMINGHAM’S Alexander Stadium is to be transformed into a world-class athletics haven thanks to a new facility coming in 2023.

The Perry Barr venue will welcome a state-of-the-art centre with high tech facilities for athletes and coaches.

UK Athletics (UKA), which oversees athletics in the UK, has partnered with Birmingham City Council to bring the new centre to the stadium, which was at the heart of this year’s Commonwealth Games.

The project is hoped to stamp the legacy of the Games on the area.

The Alexander Stadium hosted a number of Commonwealth events, including athletics and the opening and closing ceremonies.

Since its £72 million makeover, the venue has downsized for public use, although the opening date is still unknown.

The planned centre, known as a Performance and Innovation Centre, is designed for the main use of UKA World Class Programme athletes and coaches.

The site will feature worldleading equipment to understand track and field performance through enhanced technology and analytics, not currently available to athletes in the UK.

According to backers, athletes can deep-dive into their performances through the new technology.

Councillor Ian Ward, Birmingham City Council leader, said: “This partnership with UKA underlines the Alexander Stadium’s status as the premier athletics facility in the UK. But just as important is the enhanced purpose it brings to our new facilities.

“The Commonwealth Games always needed to be about more than 11 fantastic days of sport. Through partnerships like this and other things we are working on, the stadium will become a focal point for health, wellbeing, education and community activity for everyone, from the people of Perry Barr to elite-level athletes.”

Additional partners who made the project possible include the English Institute of Sport Performance Innovation Team, the UK Sport Elite Training

Centre Strategy and Sport England.

Jack Buckner, UKA CEO, added: “For some time, UKA has aspired to have an environment which adds value to the daily training of our Olympic and Paralympic athletes, where training and performance insight can be taken to the next level and rival international competitors.

“The creation of the Performance and Innovation Centre will help us to achieve this.”