12 May 2014

Leon Baptiste, double gold medallist in the sprints at the 2010 Commonwealth Games (200m and 100m relay), has announced his retirement from athletics.

Baptiste will now turn his attention to a career in coaching. The sprinter has taken up the opportunity to develop his coaching work under his mentor Steve Fudge, British Athletics National Institute Sprints Coach.

The former European junior 100m champion said: “As much as I am sprinting and progressing, my body has never fully recovered from my knee surgery and my coach and I feel that Glasgow Commonwealth Games qualification is a tall order – so the time has come for my focus to move elsewhere.

“The decision for an athlete to retire is never easy, especially with the defence of my titles just around the corner, but in essence the decision has been made for me. It has, however, been made a bit easier as a result of my success over the past two years coaching some young athletes. The result of which has been the opportunity at me to progress this and embark on a career as a sprints coach.”

Steve Fudge added: “Over the last two years Leon has committed himself voluntary to making himself a better coach by shadowing other coaches, researching, attending conferences, being involved in the NCDP and most importantly by learning from his experiences of coaching a group of young sprinters at Loughborough. He is doing everything he possibly can to develop as a coach and I look forward to seeing him to continue to grow and evolve his coaching and hopefully helping British sprinting to continue to grow into a dominant force on the world stage.”