Black hits out at spoilt athletes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/4881300.stm
By Saj Chowdhury

Former Olympic medallist Roger Black says some British athletes are failing to produce the performances to match their lucrative funding awards.

He singled out Mark Lewis-Francis, saying he had failed to live up to his early promise in terms of medals.

"To make a living in my day, you had to win big medals. Now you can get a bit of lottery funding and do OK.

“He has the talent and ability, but if Mark was around in my day he would be penniless now,” Black told BBC Sport.

Black spoke out as UK Athletics announced plans to get athletes to sign up to central contracts.

Those tied in to the central contract deal will need to commit to a programme of events, including the domestic AAA trials, championships and British-televised meetings.

Much of the funding for the scheme will come from a £50m six-year sponsorship deal with Norwich Union.

Black, who won gold in the 1991 World Championships, said track and field stars needed to work hard to earn financial support.

“You don’t need the best facilities, the best attention and so on. You should be able to get ready for events wherever you are.”

Lewis-Francis won gold in the 4x100m in the 2004 Olympics, but failed to make the final of the individual 100m at the Commonwealth Games.

Black said many had hoped for much better from the 23-year-old.

“Mark Lewis-Francis was made out to be far better than perhaps he is,” he said.

"The passion is there now, as it was in my day, but I had it much harder.

"I had to re-mortgage my house at one stage. I was injured and up to my eyeballs in debt. That doesn’t happen now.

“I don’t want anyone to go through what I did, but it wakes you up. You have to come back and you have to win.”

Lewis-Francis refused to respond to Black’s comments, according to his agent.

Black believes the central contract scheme for British athletes must be flexible for the sake of the individuals.

“You have to give them the chance to be individual because that’s what makes them champions,” said the 40-year-old Atlanta 1996 400m silver medallist.

“I don’t think we’ll have the scenario, where they will do what they are told.”

Although Black says the system needs to be flexible, he believes athletes should have few gripes with having to comply to it.

“They should be prepared for the events stipulated in the schedule. They know the situation before the start of the season,” he said.

"I think it’s important to compete in major championship-qualification events like the AAAs. Competitions like that really help you ahead of the big championships.

“We won’t get the sponsorship in the future if athletes don’t comply.”

British athletes will be “strictly accountable for their performances” as a result of the new regime.

The additional funding from Norwich Union will also “offer additional performance-related ‘top-up’ packages for leading athletes”.

This contract idea is intersting. Basically it means that UKA are ensuring that the top athletes comete at televised competitions so that Norwich Union’s sponsorship can be assured. This raises the question will athletes be pressured to run even when injury could result?

I like the sound of it…and no i dont think that the athletes will be forced to run if injury is present, i mean the pressure is allways there to compete from one self along with friends and fans so on and so forth…but in the end its up to the coach and the athlete.

In Australia the previous administration tried to contract the national squad along similar lines but I think there was trouble, maybe a misunderstanding or mistrust by some athletes related to their freedom to negotiate their own sponsorship deals.

From what I gather, the federation didn’t want the national sponsorship threatened if any “marquee” name athletes signed up with a rival corporation in the same line of business (as the federation’s sponsor).

Like if the sport was sponsored by a food store chain and then along comes a Jana Pittman or some other “household name” star who does their own deal with a rival food store chain, for example. You could see that such a conflict of interests would damage and thereby financially diminish the value of the federation’s sponsorship deal which would be bad for the great majority of athletes in the sport in that country.

It will be interesting to read the fine print in the British federation’s contract. I’ll bet they have something similar in there. And if they don’t, then they’re foolish. BUt if they do, there will always be a handful of managers/athletes who will resist signing up with their federation.

Thankfully the below got resolved…not that they won any medals :frowning:

Carter, Ulmer in Games sponsorship row

13.01.06

Two of the country’s biggest Commonwealth Games stars, Sarah Ulmer and Hamish Carter, are caught in an advertising wrangle and have yet to sign agreements with the organisers.

Olympic Committee boss Barry Maister has hit out against sponsors planning “ambush” marketing for the athletes.

The stalemate - just nine weeks out from the start of the games - revolves round the right to run personal advertising in conflict with the committee’s sponsors. Games-bound athletes must sign an agreement that prevents their personal sponsors from promoting them for two weeks before, two weeks during and two weeks after the games. Ulmer and Carter have not signed.

The pair’s manager, Roger Mortimer, said his clients’ sponsors had advertisements scheduled to run during the games and cancelling them would be difficult.

"It’s just not going to be possible.

“Hamish and Sarah will be involved in marketing campaigns that have absolutely nothing to do with the Commonwealth Games, that will be running during that period,” Mr Mortimer said.

"They’ve been in place for a long time.

“It’s just making sure there’s no attempt to pass off any association with the Commonwealth Games.”

But Mr Maister said any advertisements could not associate any athlete with a non-games product, and companies would need to find a way around that. “If we don’t protect our sponsors during this small period then we haven’t got a games to deliver. The athletes would have to pay to go to the games,” he said.

“If we have conflicting sponsors that want to go down the ambush line then it’s a bit hard to talk to them. But our contracts are with athletes, not third-party sponsors.”

Mr Maister said athletes needed to be aware of their obligations when they signed on with personal sponsors.

“It’s like the drugs issue - it’s no use blaming someone else,” he said.

“We’re saying here, athletes beware, you’ve got to be responsible for your sponsors.”

For a small period of time every four years, “the NZOC sponsors must prevail”.

Mr Maister said conflict between sponsors arose before every games but it was always resolved through compromise.

But a spokesman for car manufacturer Hyundai said it had every right to continue running advertisements that feature Carter during the games.

Sales and marketing manager Howard Spencer told One News that the NZOC had no right to dictate company advertising.

“They are trying to have some control over a relationship that they have no commercial interest in,” he said.

  • NZPA

I think the main problem is that the british athletes are content to race each other domestically rather than on the circuit. They rarely come up against anybody truly world class (apart from in the crystal palace grand prix) so dont get pushed/pulled to good performances.

Ensuring they run at mainly UK meets will just increase the problem!