UK Athletics faces probe over ‘affair’

uK SPoRT will contact uK Athletics amid concerns about their handling of an alleged relationship between a teenage British athlete and American coach Rana Reider in 2014.

With further flaws emerging yesterday about the original uK Athletics (uKA) investigation, which was brought to light by Sportsmail on Wednesday, it is understood that the funding body uK Sport will now seek clarity on how the matter was dealt with.

The heat is back on uKA over the alleged affair between Reider, who was 44 when he attended the World Junior Championships in oregon in 2014. The married coach, currently facing an investigation in the uS after complaints of sexual misconduct, is alleged to have had an intimate relationship with a British athlete who was 18 in 2014.

It is claimed he was confronted by a senior member of uKA staff ahead of those World Junior Championships after they were spotted holding hands at a training camp, with romantic relationships between coaches and athletes discouraged under uKA rules in 2014.

In a new development, Sportsmail understands one complainant, the team doctor Leon Creaney, received only a brief response to his letter of concern to the late performance director Neil Black dated July 19, 2014. There was no follow-up discussion on his observations.

Reider, whose lawyer has described complaints against him as ‘unproven’ and ‘unvetted’, left uKA three months after the World Junior championships but continued training lottery-funded British athletes when he worked with the Dutch federation between 2014 and 2018, and then at his current base in Florida.