The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Good Again
The Good - A very impressive display by GB at the World Athletics Championships winning 10 medals including golds from KJT and Josh Kerr. This meant that they equalled their previous best from 1993, comfortably exceeded their target and provides plenty of encouragement for next years Olympics - Team GB Chef De mission, Mark England would have had a good weekend.
The success would have surprised a number of people as preparations were from smooth as UKA were criticised for taking their smallest team for some time and leaving at home some athletes who had achieved the qualifying standards. Whilst the primary motivation for this was almost certainly financial, the setting of higher qualifying thresholds targeting realistic medal standards does raise the quality of the overall team, sets very clear expectations for those athletes selected and creates a highly focussed winning mentality in the camp – and it clearly worked.
There is of course a strong argument for taking a young athlete on an upward trajectory who has achieved the qualification standard and, although having little chance of a podium finish, they will gain valuable Championship experience, important for the future. Equally there is little value in taking an athlete who has plateaued or on a downward curve and barring a freak result won’t medal. These simply take up an unnecessary bed in the hotel and their involvement is basically glorified sports tourism. UKA clearly got the balance right on this occasion.
The bad - England’s preparation for the Rugby World Cup has descended into farce with an abject display in front of a half full Twickenham in their final warm up game before heading to France. As a result, expectations are now extremely low.
However, it is an unexpected consequence of the 2020 team rankings used to determine the pool seedings for the Tournament, that the current top 5 best teams in the competition are in one half of the draw meaning one of France, NZ, Ireland, SA and Scotland won’t reach the knockout stage and 3 won’t get to the semi finals.
This means that that England could beat teams ranked 22, 14, 12 and 10 in Chile, Japan, Samoa and Wales and find themselves in a World Cup Semi Final. Scotland would need to beat one of Ireland or South Africa and France or NZ to achieve the same feat. One slight crumb of comfort is that England were in a pretty sorry state (nowhere near as bad as this) in the run up to the 2007 tournament. They were thumped 36-0 by South Africa in the pool game but circled the wagons, scrambled out of the group and then beat Australia and France to reach the Final.
The Ugly - It is inconceivable to think, amongst the enormous positivity, profile and potential for sport of Women’s Football following the fantastic World Cup that there can be so much carnage for some of the key organisations associated with the game so soon after the end of the competition. It has been interesting to see the usually flawless Nike get things horribly wrong and have to backtrack so comprehensively on not making available a retail replica jersey for the magnificent golden glove winner Mary “F*** Off Earps. It will be equally interesting to see how many of the 125,000 that signed a petition demanding its availability, now go out and buy the shirt!
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Far more ugly however has been the complete meltdown of the Spanish FA after winning the competition. The behaviour of The President, Luis Rubiales, was of course totally unacceptable and resignation should have been a no-brainer. His reluctance to stand down was barely believable but the subsequent support he has received from some of his colleagues and parts of the game has shown that we are still dealing with opinions that belong in the Stone Age and we still have a long way to go across sport to consign these views to history.
Finally back to the good news and great to see that the 2026 World Table Tennis Championships will be held in London in May of that year. Beating a bid from Bangkok, it is the first time that England will host the prestigious event since 1997. This is the moment that the event was awarded and the delight for CEO Adrian Christy and outgoing Chair Sandra Deaton is a great watch
As usual, finishing the piece with a self indulgent music track, we will head back to where we started and GB’s top performance at the World Championships and to celebrate Josh Kerr’s brilliant gold in the 1500m, please enjoy those brilliant crusty old bastions of Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden with their first hit from 1980, Running Free
Strategic Adviser | Investor | Sport & Business
1yThanks for this. It would be interesting for people to reflect on this aspect of embedded thinking in our sport system. “there is little value in taking an athlete who has plateaued or on a downward curve and barring a freak result won’t medal. These simply take up an unnecessary bed in the hotel and their involvement is basically glorified sports tourism. UKA clearly got the balance right on this occasion.”
Founder of award winning consultancy DOCIAsport
1yDisappointed to learn Mark England OBE isn't a heavy metal fan. Credit to World Athletics for 2 simple acts that made a huge difference imo. 1) Not letting medal ceremonies disrupt prime time (but recognising and maintaining them as part of the event). 2) Asking the #athletes to present medals to their #coaches Did I imagine the Spanish won the Women's World Cup? Sadly the sideshow has become the main event and detracted from the excellence of the team on the pitch. "They think it's all over".... I wish it was.
Strategic Leader and Board Member | Transforming Organisations for Sustainable Success | Driving Organisational Health & Performance | Governance Expertise
1y#Scotland
A thoughtful piece and an e3ntertaining read as always Paul. Heayy metal not my go to but ill give it a go I don't believe the reduced Team size was financially driven but at last we are seeing a concerted effort to raise performance standards for the reasons you highlight.