Athletics review of the year.

Byline: By Bob Cypher South Wales Echo 

THIS year has been a time of major changes from the top to bottom in athletics in Wales.

It has also been a year when, through injury or loss of form, Welsh athletes have not performed to their true potential and with the Beijing Olympics coming up, their thoughts and hopes will be on much bigger and better performances in 2008.

Lower down the scale, there have been a number of younger athletes who have shown enormous potential for the future provided they receive the sort of guidance and financial support they need to realise their potential.

But it has also been a time when stalwart officials have decided to hang up their stopwatches and clipboards and the sport faces a challenge to fill the vacancies their retirements present.

At National Governing Body level, Welsh Athletics, partly because it was too much to expect turnover at more than pounds 500,000 per year to be the responsibility of a group of volunteer officers and partly as a result of pressure from its major source of grant aid, the Sports Council for Wales, opted to move from an association to a company limited by guarantee and led by a board of directors.

The initial decision to follow that pathway was taken at an extraordinary general meeting at Elan Valley in March but, although the company began its existence on April 1 it was not until the old association was wound up at its AGM in late October that a full transfer was completed.

After a long and challenging journey, which involved a number of shortlists and interview of potential candidates, the quest for a new Chief Executive was completed in the summer with the appointment of Matt Newman, who has experience in that role as CEO of Welsh Gymnastics.

Earlier in the year, the UK Performance Director, Jeremy Moody, had been the architect of a major change in the coaching structure.

The new scheme has been supported by a number of appointments, both at the centre and based at the National Indoor Centre at Uwic in Cardiff, and out in the regions.

The long anticipated plan to build a replacement stadium for Cardiff City FC finally became a reality this year and that decision has had a major impact on Welsh Athletics, which had moved in 2006 from Celtic Manor, via Newports Spytty Road facility, to premises in Cardiff Athletic Stadium.

The office has found a new temporary home in the Ayland Centre at nearby Fitzalan High School until new office accommodation becomes available at the replacement athletics stadium across Leckwith Road.

The new board of directors, which still includes many of the senior figures from the old association, has given a glimmer of what may be to come with two ventures both linked to the centenary of the staging of the first Welsh track and field championships.

The first, held at the senior championships at Cwmbran in July, was a parade of former champions while the second, a dinner, partly to celebrate that centenary and partly to enhance the sports status with the establishment of a Welsh Athletics Hall of Fame, including the induction of five great Welsh athletes Colin Jackson, John Disley, Dame Tanni Gray-Thompson, Steve Jones and Lynn Davies was an outstanding success with more than 250 people attending the Angel Hotel in Cardiff in November.

Three other changes are worthy of note. The long awaited upgrade to the Welsh Athletics website finally became reality towards the end of the year while, in the endurance area, there was bad news for the Cardiff Cross-Country & Road Group, the driving force behind the annual Cross Challenge in the city centre, with the announcement that UK Athletics was dropping the event from its winter 2007-08 series.

There will also be mixed feelings among road race organisers and regional permit officers at two decisions, one taken at the AGM of Welsh Athletics Ltd, to increase the fee for unattached runners from pounds 1 to pounds 2, in line with the rest of the UK.

The second was made by UK Athletics, following a recommendation by the Road Running Leadership Group, that the existing system based on payment of fees for unattached runners be replaced by a licence fee based on the number of anticipated participants.

The sport in Wales has benefited from two major financial sources in the current financial year, which runs from April 1 to the end of March 2008.

With the move to company status, many of the changes, particularly those involving staffing posts, have been funded by the Sports Council for Wales, while, as part of the Legacy Fund established because the World Athletics Championships were not staged in Britain in 2005, UK Athletics has provided the second element of a three year funding programme valued at pounds 160,000 per year.

Also published during the autumn, but without, as yet, any indication of any action, was the Buckner Report into track & field competition for the under-20 age groups a report which suggested a major change of age groups and a new structure for competition based on levels.

The sport lost two outstanding contributors during the year.

The sudden death of Oswestry-based Doug Morris, a prolific organiser of events in his area, came sufficiently early in the year for a posthumous Meritorious Award to be granted at the October AGM.

The death of Ann Hill, for so many years a coach to some of our best middle distance talent, has come recently and out-of-the blue.

There has also been one notable retirement during the year. Local clubs and organisations and some events further afield like the London Marathon have been able to get their event numbers produced locally at T&J Printers in Pyle for many years.

The J part of the firm Jeff went in a different direction some years ago with the company continued to trade by Terry Notman, the well known and hugely respected volunteer and official, who has served our sport for over 40 years, and who received his Welsh Athletics Award of Honour at one of the indoor fixtures at NIAC earlier in the year.

Now in his sixties, Mr Notman has decided to close the factory and retire from the printing industry. Mr Notman, and his wife Michelle, plan to move to Sussex.