UK Athletics set to shun Birmingham in favour of Manchester for Olympic trials
The British Olympic trials are expected to be staged in Manchester rather than Birmingham this summer, raising further questions about the legacy of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
UK Athletics is expected to confirm its decision by the end of the month, and insiders expect it to choose the 6,500-capacity Manchester Regional Arena next to the Etihad Stadium over the 18,000-seat Alexander Stadium in Birmingham for financial reasons.
Eyebrows will be raised given a £72m renovation was undertaken at the Alexander Stadium only two years ago for the Commonwealth Games and the venue is billed as “the national home of athletics”, yet it has not staged a major track and field event since August 2022.
Holding the British trials in Manchester is understood to be significantly cheaper for the governing body, which lost nearly £800,000 in one day alone when it hosted the 2022 Diamond League event in Birmingham.
Jack Buckner, chief executive at UK Athletics, confirmed that his organisation was in discussions with both Birmingham and Manchester as potential hosts for the Olympic trials, but he said: “There’s no issue over taking time to do this properly.”
However he admitted that he would love the event to return to Birmingham for the first time since 2019, but only if it made financial sense. “Absolutely – if we can make it work, we should make it work,” he said.
“My main job has been to get the organisation solvent and to have a sustainable future for UK Athletics. I’ve made a third of the organisation redundant outside of performance, I’ve cut people’s pension, so in the scale of those sort of decisions, for the organisation to survive, I’m not going to let the organisation go under for a risky decision.
“Our risk profile at the moment for events is very low. That decision around Birmingham or Manchester, I have to make the best financial decision.”
Asked about the lack of events at the Alexander Stadium, Buckner pointed out it would still host the European athletics championships in 2026. “This is no disrespect to Birmingham, but the council went bankrupt and the commissioners only have to deliver statutory services,” he said. “That means every single item of non-statutory expenditure has to go to the commissioners. It’s really tough on them – they are going through a big redundancy.
“Whether we like it or not, the Alexander Stadium is not a statutory service for Birmingham city council.”
Buckner also expressed his disappointment that Denise Lewis had temporarily stepped down as UKA’s president over concerns that it could prove a conflict of interest with her BBC pundit role. “We are having a tough time in Olympic sport, there’s no two ways about it,” Buckner said.
“We need all the friends we can get. When someone like Denise puts her hands up to support us, that’s absolutely brilliant so I’m disappointed. She’s not involved in selection processes, she’s not anywhere near that – she hears the selections at the same time as you do. So I guess I’m disappointed. That’s the bottom line.”