Confirming plans to centralise resources around a single high performance institute in Loughborough – Black has outlined the shape of the performance team that will lead British athletics coaching ranks through the next Olympic cycle by naming United States coaches Rana Reider and Terrence Mahon and British talents Aston Moore (pictured top, left), Fuzz Ahmed and Steve Fudge.

"Bringing all of our very best staff together into a single centre is absolutely central to the vision for investing National Lottery and UK Sport support in order to maximise British athletics medals in future years, in particular in Rio 2016 and at the World Championships in London in 2017," Black said.

"The coaches appointed are selected for their proven technical ability allied to their ability to work across multiple disciplines with multiple athletes at varying stages of their development.

"Having these coaches alongside our world leading sport science and medical team means every British athlete will have a single venue which they can build their training around and means we will be able to offer tailored support to more athletes, more effectively than before."


Meanwhile, Adam Gemili's coach Michael Afilaka has been dropped by UK Athletics, as the body refocuses following London 2012.

Afilaka, who has helped Gemili become the fastest junior sprinter in the world, applied for the position of sprints coach at the UK Athletics but missed out to Fudge.

The fact Gemili missed this year's Olympic final in the 100 metres - by a mere four hundredths of a second - means Afilaka is also not eligible to be retained by UK Athletics on a consultancy basis.

Announcements are still awaited on the future of Ian Stewart, who has operated as head of the UK Athletics endurance programme, and long distance coaches George Gandy and John Nuttall.

"It is important to stress that we do not expect every athlete to locate full time at the Institute," Black explained.

"Some spend long periods abroad either in warm weather training or at altitude and others have alternative UK bases that offer a better solution than relocation.

"Because of this I am also allocating resources to support coaches and athletes not continue to operate where they are most effective, using the institute periodically where it adds most value to their programmes which are all overseen by myself and the head coaches for the Olympic and Paralympic programmes.

"The variety of ways we can now employ coaches to do what they do best means that we will be in a position to directly support more coach athlete pairs of genuine medal prospects than ever."

Two further forms of support will be offered to coaches of World Class Performance Programme (WCPP) athletes.

Coach based support, where coaches who lead a group of potential world level medallists will be employed full time in that coaching capacity.

And athlete based support, where coaches who work with individual athletes who have world level medal performances or potential will receive financial support to assist with their coaching commitments.

Reider, the 2011 USA Track and Field Coach of the Year, will oversee the sprints, sprint hurdles, horizontal jumps and relays programmes from the institute.


He is coach to Olympic triple jump champion Christian Taylor, world 100m hurdles silver medallist Danielle Carruthers and Britain's long jump world indoor bronze medallist Shara Proctor.

Mahon takes a role as an endurance coach working from the institute and will be senior men's team coach for next month's European Cross Country Championships.

He coaches American 1500m athlete Morgan Uceny, and formerly coached Athens 2004 Olympic marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor.

Moore is coach to former world and European triple jump champion Phillips Idowu, as well as the women's former triple jump world record holder Ashia Hansen.

Moore has previously held the national event coach role for UK Athletics and will be based at the institute as the horizontal jumps coach.


Ahmed is coach to London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist and European champion Robbie Grabarz, and 400m athlete Martyn Rooney, as well as advisor to Britain's Beijing 2008 Olympic silver medallist Germaine Mason, and will run the vertical jumps programme at the Institute.

Fudge will work as performance coach for sprints, having helped to develop sprint talent James Dasaolu, Leon Baptiste and more recently Richard Buck and Chris Clarke.

Fudge has produced a strong developing squad at Loughborough working as an apprentice coach in recent years.

Coaches who will be employed by UK Athletics as part of the "coach based support" programme, as well as those who will work as consultants for UK Athletics in order to focus on the preparations of a specific athlete, will be confirmed in due course.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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