It's almost killed blogs which I think is a bit of a shame. I came back from West Highland Way weekend vowing I would blog about it, being such a rollercoaster ride towards it, an exciting build up and indeed an exciting finish. I will endeavor to do so but in meantime, while my head is in right place and I'm inspired to blog, I shall.
Everyone (who knows me, I mean, who else reads this) knows how much I love Ian, how proud I am of him. in everything he does. Sub3 marathon runner, sub 1.18 half, so many others that I wont bore you with, over 100 marathons, blah blah... he's been running a long time. I've still to beat his WHW race time but I am working on it (be prepared Susan & Nick)
There is no doubt I will never beat his shorter races, but I will continue to work on the longer stuff.
So, why would James Stewart and crewing for Hal Keorner not chuck me back into blogoshpire. Well once again because of social media. Everyone knew James ran an amazing race, coached by record holder Paul, who needs no surname.
So, since then. Weekend after *that* race we were down in Birmingham for UK championships and Olympic trails. Big hopes for Scotland to get place for the Olypmics. I wish I could explain to you how emotional feels. especially when the pressure is on!
What a great weekend we had with all 8 Scottish Athletes perfoming when it counts. Its always been Ian's motto and it certainly was that day. Although tbh when i'm standing at start of race sometimes I really just don't want to hear it!
Last night over dinner we chatted about the Olympics and Ian told me the Team was being announced today (Wed 13th) Exciting times! There I was sitting at work trying to catch up on paperwork (how do people do desk jobs) when I get a txt from him saying fifteen Scots in TeamGB
fifteen- that's the most Scottish ever. EVER
I read it was but was busy doing paperwork (yay) so took wee while to congratulate him. He is like a proud person in proud person land. Anyway, now that he is home (via the 2 mile race at the Meadows obviously) And now we're watching golf. Ian loves EVERY sport.
if tiddlywinks was on tv as a sport, hed watch it
Why am I congratulating him though. Well, maybe my friends & family know. Maybe they dont, because he doesn't make any issues of what people say and he has always said " I try to let results speak for themselves"
And he does. And he has.
I have two articles that were written in 2012 and 2014 -by Doug Gillon, who has been Athletics Correspondent of The Herald for mant years, I have had to copy and paste given no links available now. this will make my blog very long I guess but persevere please.
---- this is the article - 2012
IF Frank Dick, Scotland and Great Britain's former national
coach, could not drive through the changes required to revitalise
scottishathletics, it was suggested that perhaps nobody could.
Dick stepped down as chair of the governing body more than
two months ago, because "he could not commit enough time given other
interests" as the body put it this week.
Dick stated that he had spent three to four hours a day,
seven days a week, on the role, yet in an exclusive first interview yesterday,
his successor confirmed: "I won't be spending anything like four hours a
day."
Ian Beattie, a 46-year-old ultra distance runner with 86
marathons on his competitive cv, has a background in banking and the investment
management sector, but is currently chief operating officer of one of
Scotland's most respected legal firms. He stood down after six years on
sportscotland's management board, four as vice chair, to take on a sports post
which it's hard not to perceive a poisoned chalice.
He follows some heavyweight incumbents – Dick, newspaper
chairman Mark Hollinshead (another club standard marathon runner), and former
world champion Liz McColgan.
Beattie's designation, however, has changed from that of his
predecessors. He is non-executive chair. This may not be Mission Impossible,
but is certainly Mission Very Difficult, with no more than four Scots in the
Olympic team, and a squad of modest prospects for the 2014 Commonwealth Games
in Glasgow.
Beattie met this observation with typical management speak:
"It's challenging and exciting – a good opportunity. I'm looking forward
to it."
Dick believed the sport needs sweeping cultural change, but
failed to achieve that, and it's clear that frustration over inability to take
the sport forward was at the root of his departure which coincided with the
announcement of a GB World Indoor Championships team without a single Scot.
"I can't really comment on what Frank did," said
Glasgow University graduate Beattie, "though I see some of the structures
he started putting in place are fine, and look very positive".
Beattie spent yesterday with scottishathletics chief
executive, Nigel Holl, and Stephen Maguire, the new director of coaching, who
will start after the Paralympics.
They visited the new national indoor stadium, then crossed
the road to Celtic Park, meeting all the sport's headquarters team. "After
that, I'm even more enthusiastic about the prospects for athletics," he
said. "It's going to take time to get the structures right, and everything
in place, but there's a very solid base."
He sees his job as very different from Dick's hands-on
style, and said Maguire's role would be very different from that of Steve
Rippon and Laurier Primeau, the last two top coaching incumbents.
"My job, and I am very clear on it, is to make sure
sport stays focused on what it should be doing, and let the team in place
manage that while providing what advice I can. We have a great chance to do
things in Scotland and the new director of coaching, whom I met for the first
time, is really excited by that opportunity."The director of coaching will
be overseeing. He is not going to be coaching individual athletes himself. He
will be working with coaches, helping them develop. That's been clearly spelled
out to him."
There has been friction in the past between athletes'
coaches and the national coach, because some of the former perceived the head
coach as a threat, poaching the best talent.
Beattie said he would model his style on his interim
chairmanship at sportscotland. "I provided support. I caught up with them
once a week, sent emails. I provided guidance, but that was it. And I kept in
touch. What I have made clear is that I will do this job in a non-executive
way. I'll guide the board. I don't have the time to spend four hours a day. I
don't have Frank's coaching background, or anything like that, but I do have
probably more of an ability to chair something, to guide and let the team get
on with it, set the structure."
He will be phoning Dick, "to thank him, and
to pick his brains, but I am keen on look ahead, and get the things in place
that we need to do. It's going to be challenging, going to be exciting---------------------
Hmm
looks like he doesn't have much confidence.
Second article 2014
- makes a bit of a recognition
WHEN Ian Beattie took over from former UK coaching director
Frank Dick as chair of scottishathletics, I suggested it might prove to be a
poisoned chalice.
Less than 27 months out from the Commonwealth Games, the
omens were bleak, with a new director of coaching - the third in under two
years - yet to take up office. Yet the four medals harvested from Glasgow 2014
confirm that club marathon and ultra-runner Beattie has succeeded where others
with a stronger athletics background fell short. A glimmer of hope or false
dawn? Beattie has no doubt it's the former.
Incontrovertible statistics we presented earlier this week
showed a disturbing lack of Scots in the upper echelons of UK rankings. I
suggested four medals should not blind us to concerns about the sport's overall
health. This provoked a flood of data from the governing body, still smarting
from an accusation by Dick that scottishathletics had "insufficient
performance mindset".
Beattie was "discouraged competely" by that.
"There's an absolute drive for perform, and a lack of acceptance we are
going to be mediocre," he countered yesterday.
He professes no more than "satisfaction" at the
Hampden medal haul: "I sat through all the athletics events and could not
relax until Lynsey Sharp got that fourth medal . . . we needed to get
that.Sportscotland are very supportive, and there's a good relationship but
ultimately we don't want to be going in there trying to explain why we have not
delivered on our target."
Funding negotiations and a full review in October could have
meant funding cuts. "Sportscotland expect us to deliver, focused on
medals, performances in finals, and so on."
Much is linked to participation numbers, which are not
necessarily consistent with driving elite performance. Beattie spent six years
on sportscotland's management board, four as vice chair, and insists the quango
is far less driven by that compared to England, where heads have rolled in
governing bodies perceived to have failed.
"I don't think sportscotland have moved as far down the
participation line as England, where it's become the be-all and end-all,"
he adds.
Dick's resignation coincided with the failure of a single
Scot to gain inclusion in Britain's World Indoor Championship team. That tide
has turned. There are seven Scots at the current European Championship in
Zurich, the same as last year's World event and one more than the 2012
Europeans where Lynsey Sharp won gold. "We knew it would be tough for
Glasgow," says Beattie, "so I was very keen not to make excuses.
"We knew Glasgow was coming, and we had to focus on our
target of more than two medals. We had to try to deliver on that. The fact that
we did was satisfying, but we'd like to use that as a launch pad for more.
There are some encouraging signs. There were a lot of younger athletes in that
squad, with 29 of them 23 or less. The big challenge now is to develop them
further. "
Two previous home Games were followed by inferior
performances: 1970 (eight medals) with one in 1974; 1986 (six medals) with five
in 1990. Beattie acknowledges the challenge is now to avert a repetition.
Nothing less than four medals is likely to be acceptable in 2018.
The non-executive chair sings the praises of his full-time
staff. Time was when there was a them-and-us attitude to the governing body.
Demonstrably Club Together, an initiative launched in early 2012 is changing
the face of the sport. Only adopted as yet by a minority of clubs, the effects
are dramatic.
"******* there it is.******
So, make up you're own mind. Ian didn't run those trials, Nigel didn't jump those hurdles and Mark didn't throw the hammer but make no mistake, Scottish Athletics are in avery good place, and that's in part to my husband.
