Findings reveal system is ‘fertile ground for discrimination’

from that role, even though it was what I wanted to do at the time. It was kind of intimidating and backstabby. I’ve never had it from female coaches, it has always been from older male coaches.”

The Telegraph understands the incident was again reported, but remained unresolved.

Another coach, named Deborah in the report, says she has been on the receiving end of suggestions that she had sexual relationships with her support staff.

She also details one incident where a group of male coaches publicly undermined her by ignoring her presence and bellowing instructions to her elite athlete.

“Men would stand beside me and coach him over me,” she said. “A year ago today, we were at the [name of trials and place], people were calling at my athlete and coaching him, and I was thinking, ‘What is going on?’ I was the only female there. I remember on his last jump, someone said to him, ‘You need to bring it in a bit [name of athlete]’, and I said very loudly, ‘[name of athlete], please take your run-up out a bit’. So he did, jumped it, won the thing. It was unbelievable, people talking over me.”

Many of the 17 female coaches interviewed for the report describe feeling marginalised by a culture of “jobs for the boys”.

UK Athletics figures from July 2020 show 35 per cent of coaches with the lowest three levels of qualification are women, but the number drops to 25 per cent with the top qualification level. While women make up 28 per cent of coaching staff on British teams at international para events and 20 per cent at under-18 and under-20 championships on the Olympic programme over the past decade, there has not been a single female coach at the last 22 senior international events on the Olympic programme.

A number of coaches in the report suggest those figures are indicative of a culture of gender assumptions in British athletics that women are best suited to “nurturing roles” for children and athletes with disabilities. One coach says she was pointed towards younger athletes “because women are good with children”, while another was told “to look after the little ones”.

Prof Leanne Norman, the report’s lead researcher, said: “This crucial research has highlighted the deeply ingrained sexist and elitist culture that lies at the heart of high-performance athletics in the UK.

“The findings reveal the verbal and physical degradation that women coaches have to endure on a frequent basis. The lack of a professionalised, accountable and transparent coaching system is fertile ground for these discriminatory behaviours.”

Coates, who took charge of UK Athletics last March, has promised a “zero-tolerance policy moving forward”. She said: “The statistics show we have a sport filled with excellent, highly successful female coaches. We need to change the environment

in which they operate and improve the experience.

“However, the sexual harassment is definitely aimed at women. And similarly to the recent concerns raised around safeguarding, we should completely and utterly have a zero tolerance for anything like this within our sport.

“But in order to achieve this, we need to create a culture where everybody feels safe to come forward and tell us what is going on. Individuals need to know that once they have come forward they will be listened to and treated fairly and they will be supported through a process which enables us to deal with these people that we do not want in our sport.”