14 June 2019 

·         Organisation to conduct wide-ranging review of Performance Strategy

·         Survey open to the sport until 14 July with workshops planned for late summer

·         Aspiration to engage and unite the athletics community behind new post Tokyo strategy

British Athletics has launched a wide-ranging independent review of the Performance Strategy with a view to shaping how the World Class Programme should operate post Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The consultation which opens today (Monday 17 June) starts by inviting the athletics community to engage with an online survey to provide a better understanding of perceptions of the current Olympic and Paralympic World Class Programme (WCP).

It will be overseen by Vikki McPherson, who competed for Great Britain at nine World Championships over road, track and cross country, and has worked in high performance sport for 20 years.

Alongside the Performance Strategy review an independent review of the coaching system at all levels of athletics in the UK is being undertaken.  This will be chaired by Malcolm Brown an experienced coach to numerous athletes at international level over 40 years. Both are hugely knowledgeable in the high performance sport system in the UK in recent years, and will bring this experience to the review process.

Following this initial survey, the results will be shared and explored in a series of workshops which will consider the wider performance pathway across all athletics disciplines including those outside the Olympic or Paralympic track and field programme. Dates for these workshops will be announced later this summer.

British Athletics Performance Director Neil Black said:

“Whilst only a small number of athletes will be members of the WCP at any point in time, it really is essential that the pathways to it and through it should be clear to all aspiring athletes, their coaches and to the stakeholders who support them.

“We’re pleased to be able to offer this opportunity for the sport to have input and we’re keen that as many people involved contribute and engage with the consultation across its varied stages.”

The survey is accessible here, via the British Athletics and UK Athletics website and social media and will be live from today (Monday 17^th June) until Sunday 14^th July.