Hurdler Jackson caught up in race storm

RACIST abuse is ‘rampant’ in British Athletics according to a leading figure in the sport who claims former world champion Colin Jackson was once called a ‘n*****’ by his coach. John Isaacs is the former national sprint coach who developed a number of Britain’s most successful athletes and this week he made an extremely serious allegation on social media. Responding to news of alleged racism at Chelsea FC in the 1990s, Isaacs went on Facebook. He wrote: ‘Just read about the Chelsea footballers who were racially abused. ‘At one of the champs, Colin Jackson came into our room in considerable distress, he was crying, he said his coach called him a n***** and said

if that nappy head black boy ( referring to Jackson’s rival Tony Jarrett), beat him, not to come back.’

Isaacs, who coached former hurdles world medallist Jarrett, edited the post and he added that ‘ many of the athletes who left my group complained of various types of abuse’, referring to two black female sprinters, Jenny Stoute and Stephanie Douglas, in the original post.

Isaacs also said: ‘ This abuse is rampant, we need to stamp it out.’

Isaacs has been unavailable for comment since posting his allegations on Wednesday and Jackson’s agent Jonathan Marks also declined to comment.

He added that Jackson was unavailable.

Jackson worked under a number of different coaches during his stellar athletics career.

For 20 years he was under the guidance of Malcolm Arnold, who says he is not the coach to whom Isaacs is making reference. ‘I would never use a word like that,’ he said.

Indeed it was while working with Arnold that Jackson, who is now 50 and works in broadcasting, broke the world record, won two world titles and took Olympic silver in Seoul in 1988.

Jackson recently revealed that he is gay but he has never spoken about any racist abuse.

UK Athletics are aware of the Isaacs post but have also declined to comment.