MARK Munro, the chief executive of scottishathletics, believes the governing body’s stance on the Callum Hawkins marathon affair will be vindicated if it means that no athlete’s health and safety is compromised in a similar manner, writes Stewart Fisher.
Athletics chiefs joined forces with Commonwealth Games Scotland to ask Gold Coast organising committee GOLDOC for answers on a number of points relating to the Commonwealth Games marathon, which saw the 25-year-old from Elderslie collapse to the concrete, not once but twice, with just over a mile remaining amid soaring mid-day temperatures in Queensland. A response has been received about the affair and Munro hopes the incident will go some way to ensuring there is no repeat of such scenes in future warm-weather endurance races.
“We had a response, obviously we’ve been teaming up with Commonwealth Games Scotland,” said Munro. “I have to say the CGS chief exec Jon Doig and chair Paul Bush have been very helpful and we’ve worked with them and asked a number of questions.
“The report came back over the weekend there so we’re going to absorb what they said. If I’m honest with you it was fairly light touch, they didn’t probably tell us anything else that we didn’t know already and I guess the other challenge we’ve got is that GOLDOC itself will be dissolved as a company in the next little while so I don’t know how far we’ll get.
“But again if it can impact on further championships, whether it’s Commonwealth Games [or not], then that will be good. Again if you look at Doha next year they have already announced that there will be no morning sessions for athletics and the marathon will be at midnight so things like that are positive steps.
“That is putting the athlete back at the heart of things, and again, did GOLDOC put athletes at the heart or was it more about broadcasters?"
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