Van Commenee convinced class of 2012 will rekindle athletics' pride

Sports writer

Wednesday 1 August 2012

THE head coach of UK Athletics believes that the coming days herald the dawn of a new era for his sport.

Charles van Commenee chats with Scotland's Eilidh Child during the Team GB Track and Field preperation camp in Monte Gordo, Portugal. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images

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Doug Gillon

I hope Charles van Commenee is right. If the sport closest to my heart can't relaunch from the Olympic platform, it may be doomed as the major "minority" sport.

Print media athletics correspondents, reporting solely on the sport, are a terminally endangered species, almost as rare as British Olympic gold-medal winners in London 2012. Dramatic results are needed to revive print media enthusiasm.

For a century, newspapers have been the biggest sponsors of sport in Great Britain, but a major consequence of poor British track and field performance will be shrinking media coverage and declining sponsorship. This does not apply solely to athletics.So when the track and field programme goes to its mark in the Olympic stadium on Friday, we badly need results to make the nation proud. And keep newspaper and UK Sport support on course.Athletics cannot survive on all its yesterdays: the era when Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram shredded world records as routine. Or when the exploits of Yvonne Murray, Liz McColgan, and Tom McKean towed Scottish hacks round Europe: hot, heady nights in packed arenas, and the media fighting for phones to scream down the line on deadline to copy desks before the computer age. Are the media as excited now? Will the British public get these results, those medals?The Dutch elite performance director is bullish. "If you don't get excited at the Olympic Games, with a good number of medals to celebrate, then you have to start thinking about how will you ever get excited," says van Commenee. Sarcastically, he suggested to the rump of the British athletics media that the only option for excitement might be a trip to Robinson's, the night club in Monte Gordo near the pre-Games GB training camp in southern Portugal.Van Commenee is convinced this 2012 team will rekindle athletics' pride: "Yes, I think so. This is an important sport in Britain. We have been off the radar for a long time, and now we're back at a home Games. If these athletes do not make the nation proud, then it doesn't look great for the future."The dawn of a golden era? "I think so. We have a very strong team. Four years ago, we only won four medals, and look at what we have now. We have had a great journey and enough to write about and look forward to. We have some exciting athletes. Four years ago, when I started, if I could position myself here, before the Games, knowing what sort of athletes we have in contention now, I'd have signed up for that straight away."He says it is "a fantastic opportunity" to restore the sport to the status it commanded in the 1970s and '80s. "I really feel privileged to be given the chance to lead that British team into this exciting moment."In his address to the British squad on Sunday, he asked whether success was a journey or a destination, echoing Scottish swim coach Patrick Miley.He says there has been "huge improvement over the last few years in how we run the sport". Every athlete, bar triple jumper Phillips Idowu (and late call-up Freya Murray) was in Portugal "and happy to be here. We've a much better injury rate than ever before. We went from 24% to 12%, basically because we run the sport with more discipline, more professionalism, and better accountability."However, athletics remains a sport in transition. He says older athletes "struggle to buy into it 100%. I'm sure in two to three years we'll run it as smoothly as rowing or cycling."I think we're in a very good position. I always knew we would not have all the medal contenders fit and 100% on the start line; that's statistically impossible. We have about 15 athletes in the medal zone, Phillips is one of them if he's fit. In other words, our success won't be dependant on one athlete."Still, we have a realistic chance to hit the target [eight medals]. The athletes are in very good shape overall, and we've had some excellent performances by athletes who have actually come into the medal zone . . . The numbers grow. I'm sure not all of them will produce, but I'm pleased with that number. I'm also very pleased we have so many athletes coming through who might not medal this time but will not far from now."But these athletes are contractually controlled and constrained from talking to the media, under threat of stern disciplinary measures, including dismissal from the team. Spin is the order of the day. It has discredited politics and made it a laughing stock. Sport may be the next victim.It clearly rankles that van Commenee can't control Idowu, but an ability to manage maverick talents should be part of the performance director's job description. They are often the ones who deliver.

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Van Commenee convinced class of 2012 will rekindle athletics' pride

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