A £1.4 million cut in funding for UK athletics ahead of London 2012 is no big deal, says Jersey’s athletics development officer Andrew Winnie.
Instead, he says, the sport should concentrate its efforts on maintaining facilities and improving a structure that will retain and enhance the current crop of British athletes.
‘Athletes who are talking London 2012 are basically those who are around today, and 18 and 19-year-old western Europeans do not win gold medals,’ he said. ‘It takes at least ten years to win a gold medal. Rather than focus on the money, we have to work on what we’ve already got.’
Winnie was speaking in response to news that UK Sport has allocated £25.1 million to developing British athletics ahead of the 2012 Olympics – a 5.3 per cent drop from the £26.5 million allocated for the Beijing Games.
• Picture: Jersey’s athletics development officer Andrew Winnie
