UK Athletics performance director Sara Symington denied that Andy Butchart had been punished for his off-track transgressions after he was surprisingly axed from Lottery funding.
The beleaguered governing body unveiled its world-class performance squad on Monday with Olympic medallists Laura Muir and Josh Kerr among ten Scots on a 67-strong list.
Joining them on the top tier of funding are Jemma Reekie, Jake Wightman, and Callum Hawkins while Lynsey Sharp, who recently gave birth to her first child, is also retained.
Butchart was sanctioned in the summertime for what proved to be a claim made in jest that he faked a Covid test result to travel, but rebounded to come eleventh in the Tokyo 2020 5,000 metres final as well as breaking his own Scottish 3,000m record.
But Symington claimed the omission of the two-time Olympian, who turned 30 this week, was nothing personal despite several lower-ranked hopefuls staying put.
She said: “All these decisions were fully based on performance. What happened before the summer is totally irrelevant to these decisions. We have 67 places and it was incredibly competitive.
“It was a nice headache to have. This time round, he just didn't quite fit with where we were. He has been funded for six or seven years, he's an incredibly talented athlete, but when we started looking at the 124 we were considering unfortunately he missed out on this occasion.”
Scottish sprinter Nicole Yeargin joins the relay list for the first time along side Beth Dobbin and Zoey Clark. Dropping off are marathon duo Mo Farah and Steph Twell while sprinter CJ Ujah remains out in the cold while anti-doping authorities complete their investigation into the positive drugs test he produced following GB&NI’s silver medal in the 4x100m relay in Tokyo.
That compounded the sense of disarray in the sport with leading athletes vocal in their discontent at a lack of communication from Symington who confirmed she has still not resolved a contractual dispute with Muir and Reekie’s coach Andy Young.
“That is the next bit of the jigsaw,” Symington admitted. “It's not to take away from an incredible coach. But in terms of what and who and how in the consultancy agreements going forward, that's yet to be determined.”
With new chair Ian Beattie promising a full review when he formally takes the helm later this week, it puts UK Athletics whole management team under the spotlight with relations sinking to a new low when their top performers openly criticised the organisation to World Athletics president Seb Coe during an impromptu meeting at the Diamond League final in Zurich.
But Olympic head coach Christian Malcolm pleaded for more time for a relatively new regime, declaring: "Some of the things were warranted, they are understandable, it's been a challenging year, but some of the other things they didn't really know the answers to. We had good conversations and one of the things is we intend on doing things a lot better.
“I just think we have come in and there have been a lot of moving parts within the organisation and, with anything, nobody really likes change do they? For a lot of athletes it's been a lot of change in the past 18 months and it's been able to adjust to that and understand what the change is.
“Nobody likes negativity but as long as it's constructive criticism you have to be able to take that on board. No-one's perfect but the aim is to get things right. That is what the plan is going forward. "
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