UK Athletics have appointed six national event coaches to work under head coach Charles van Commenee and Kevin Tyler, head of coaching and development.
Michael Khmel and Tony Lester will assume responsibility for men’s and women’s sprints respectively, including the relay programmes.
Steve Rippon will coach the pole vault, Aston Moore will focus on triple jump, Malcolm Arnold the hurdles and John Herbert the long jump.
They join Robert Weir, who is already operating in the area of heavy throws, and Ian Stewart, who has been appointed to oversee endurance events.
Van Commenee said: "These appointments are a major step forward in shaping our ambitions for 2012 and the wider development of the sport.
“The national event coaches will serve a dual purpose; firstly the dedicated coaching of individual athletes heading towards London, and secondly supporting Kevin in enhancing the development of the event and the coaching within it.”
First things first. When coaches are in place, athletes will be produced.
When athletes have been funded independently, they have often used the opportunity to wander off from the circumstances that produced them in pursuit of greener pastures with a history of extremely iffy results .
Funding coaching groups is the only way to ensure results in the long run, especially now that proper indoor facilities are available in Britain.
There was an audio interview recently posted with Khmel on the canadian athletics coaching centre site in which he discusses some of his history and coaching tactics.